Cavaliers will keep playing
Sunday, Mar 16, 2008 - 12:07 AM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- For U.Va., the season is not over.

The Cavaliers (15-15) have accepted an invitation to play in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational if, as expected, they're not selected for the NIT. They would host a first-round CBI game Tuesday, probably at 7 p.m., at John Paul Jones Arena.

The 32-team NIT field will be announced tonight after the NCAA tournament pairings are revealed. The 16-team CBI's pairings also will be announced tonight.

Virginia lost to Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament's first round Thursday night. After receiving assurances from third-year coach Dave Leitao that the CBI interested him, U.Va. decided "to pursue options that would allow our student-athletes the opportunity to keep playing," Jon Oliver, the school's executive associate athletic director, said in a release last night.

"Our efforts the last two days were focused on understanding the logistics of the new tournament and keeping all of our options open."

If Virginia lands in the CBI, tickets for Tuesday's game will cost $10, and U.Va. students can get in for $5. Parking will cost $5. -- Jeff White

 

Cavs to play in postseason
Virginia will play in the NIT, if invited, or CBI.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

Virginia men's basketball fans might have one more chance to serenade Sean Singletary.

Singletary, hailed last Sunday on the occasion of his final regular-season home game, could be back in action at John Paul Jones Arena on Tuesday night.

UVa announced Saturday night that it has accepted an invitation to the College Basketball Invitational, a new 16-team event, provided it does not receive a bid to the National Invitation Tournament.

The NIT has reduced its field from 48 to 32 since the Cavaliers received a bid with a 15-14 record in 2006, and a 15-15 mark probably won't be as welcome this time around.

The Gazelle Group, which sponsors the CBI, gave Virginia until Friday to guarantee its participation if asked. The Cavaliers let that deadline lapse but were able to keep talks active.

"It was determined our approach would be to pursue options that would allow our student-athletes the opportunity to keep playing," said executive associate athletic director Jon Oliver of discussions that also included athletic director Craig Littlepage and coach Dave Leitao.

"Our efforts the last two days were focused on understanding the logistics of the new tournament and keeping all of our options open.".

Virginia would accept an NIT road game at the expense of a CBI home game, Oliver confirmed.

A prospective UVa opponent for the CBI will be announced Sunday night. Tickets go on sale Monday at a cost of $10 for adults and $5 for students. Parking will be $5. A 7 p.m. tipoff is anticipated.

The Cavaliers (15-15) were a preseason pick for fifth in the ACC after going 21-11 in 2006-07, but they spent most of the season in the conference basement before winning four of six games to end the regular season.

That momentum didn't carry over to the ACC Tournament, where the Cavaliers were first-round losers to Georgia Tech, 94-76.

It was the 10th time in the last 13 years that Virginia has lost in the first round.

Leitao attributes many of Virginia's losses to poor defensive execution, but there was no debating the defensive letdown this time. In the 10 ACC Tournament games played over the past three days, Virginia was the only team to score as many as 75 points and lose.

J.R. Reynolds and Jason Cain, the two seniors on Virginia's 2006-07 team, might have been the Cavaliers two best defensive players. Virginia held opponents last season to 40.8 percent field-goal percentage, which ranked second in the ACC and 40th in Division I in that category.

Opponents this year have shot 44.7 percent from the field, which ranked 11th in the ACC and 230th in Division I prior to the ACC Tournament.

At least one reason for that was the absence of a shot-blocker. In 2006-07, Tunji Soroye led the Cavaliers with 26 blocks, followed by Cain with 25. This year, Soroye had a preseason knee injury and later a balky back that limited him to two games.

Mamadi Diane, a 6-foot-5 perimeter player, had a team-high 18 blocks this year and the Cavaliers had 66 as a team, down from 103.

Soroye has expressed interest in a hardship appeal that will enable to return in 2008-09, although the Cavaliers already meet the 13-scholarship limit.

Soroye was one of three scholarship players who were not available for the final game. Sophomore forward Will Harris (back) and freshman guard Sam Zeglinski (ankle) were also in street clothes.

Zeglinski is a hardship candidate, but Harris played two games after the season's midpoint, which is the threshold for asking for another year.

Virginia also would like to find a grant for Calvin Baker, a transfer from William and Mary who played more than 25 minutes per game and averaged 9.1 points.

Diane, who scored a career-high 11.7 points per game, is the only double-figure scorer among the projected 2008-2009 returnees. Diane also hit a team-high 56 3-point field goals and shot 42.7 percent from behind the arc.
 

For Stith, There's No Place Like Home
Ex-Cavaliers Star Returns to Coach His High School to AA State Final Once More
By Matthew Stanmyre
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, March 15, 2008; E06

RICHMOND, March 14 -- Five years ago, Bryant Stith thought he was through with basketball.

In college he had become the all-time leading scorer at the University of Virginia, and he had enjoyed 10 largely productive seasons in the NBA. Basketball had put millions of dollars in his bank account, and made him an icon in his home state of Virginia.

But Stith thought his professional career ended prematurely when two franchises discarded him in favor of younger players. When he retired in 2003, he retreated with his family to his home town of Lawrenceville, a place with one stoplight in south-central Virginia, about 20 miles from the North Carolina border.

For almost 18 months, he could not watch basketball on television or read about it in the newspaper.

"It was a very painful time," Stith said. "I had kind of lost that passion for the game. Basketball had taken so much out of me that I didn't know if I wanted to be around it any longer."

Stith's love for the game was soon rekindled by a group of teenagers. Despite having no coaching experience at any level, Stith was asked in 2006 to become the boys' basketball coach at Brunswick High, the Lawrenceville school he led to Virginia AA championships in 1987 and 1988.

Last season, in his first as head coach, Stith guided the Bulldogs to the AA title game, where they lost to William Fleming of Roanoke. Saturday at 9, Brunswick will play its second AA title game in Stith's brief tenure when it faces No. 6 Millbrook at Siegel Center.

"Brunswick's not that big, so to have an NBA player, it's just like having a big role model," Brunswick senior forward Antonio Epps said. "He's just like a big role model to all the little kids."

Coaching, Stith says, has renewed his love for basketball and helped him discover that teaching the game to young people, while nurturing them through their teenage years, was a hidden passion. "These kids have helped me just as much as I've helped them," Stith said.

After an NBA career that included stops in Denver, Boston, Cleveland and with the Los Angeles Clippers, Stith returned to Lawrenceville and its slower pace of life. He fished in the same lakes where he dropped lines nearly 15 years earlier, and he took his four children to the same two-screen movie theaters that he and his wife, Barbara, went to when they began dating as eighth-graders.

"I think I was just burned out at the time," Stith said. "I was trying to get my life together so that I could enjoy life after basketball."

Lawrenceville bubbled with excitement upon the return of its favorite son. The valedictorian of his high school class, Stith had gone on to a sparkling career at U-Va., where he led the Cavaliers to three NCAA tournament appearances and was a three-time all-Atlantic Coast Conference selection. He scored a school-record 2,516 points and finished second on U-Va.'s all-time list with 859 rebounds before Denver picked him with the 13th selection in the 1992 NBA draft.

Once returning home in retirement, he built recreation centers and athletic fields, established a car detailing business and started a non-profit organization focused on children in southern Virginia.

Today, when Stith is spotted around Lawrenceville, "It's almost like [seeing] the pope walking down the street," Brunswick Athletic Director Mike Barmoy said. "Everyone wants to get a glimpse."

Everyone also seems to want to play basketball. Lawrenceville does not have any bowling alleys, skating rinks or public swimming pools, but down nearly every street there are basketball hoops. Most young people growing up in Brunswick County dream of playing for the Bulldogs, who have won three state titles and been to the championship game seven times. Stith's two teams have been loaded with talented players.

"I really believe this is the best time he's had in his life -- NBA, college and all," Barbara Stith said. "Just being able to coach those kids and teach them something that they will never get anywhere else."

 

Towson misses chance at upset
Bad bounces, 5-0 Virginia run prevent Tigers from knocking off undefeated Cavaliers
By Edward Lee | Sun reporter
March 16, 2008
 

In a game of inches, the Towson men's lacrosse team got off on the wrong foot.

With the score tied against No. 2 Virginia at halftime yesterday, the Tigers missed two opportunities to take their first lead of the game.

Junior faceoff specialist Mitchell Rosensweig's bouncer just seconds into the third quarter caromed off the right post. On the same possession, freshman attackman Tim Stratton's shot from 8 yards out clanged off the crossbar.

Instead, it was the Cavaliers who scored the first five goals of the third quarter and eventually warded off the No. 15 Tigers' upset bid in an 18-13 victory before an announced 1,851 at Johnny Unitas Stadium.

"We could've had a goal, and that could've changed the whole game," said sophomore midfielder Eric Boyle, who led the Tigers (1-3) with five points on two goals and three assists.

That Towson, which has dropped the past eight meetings with Virginia (8-0), kept pace with a Cavaliers team that entered the game with the No. 2 scoring offense in the country was of little consolation. The Tigers' output was a season high, but that elicited only a wry smile from coach Tony Seaman.

"That's kind of the story of our season so far," he said. "A lot of good breaks, but we just can't get it rolling when we really need it. ... And they stuck them. They stuck them all afternoon. That was the difference."

The difference was the beginning of the third quarter. After Rosensweig's and Stratton's missed chances, Virginia broke the tie on a goal from junior attackman Gavin Gill (St. Paul's) with 13:26 left in the period.

Four minutes, 14 seconds later, Gill found senior attackman Ben Rubeor (Loyola) alone in front to cap a 5-0 run to give the Cavaliers a 12-7 advantage.

Rubeor said Virginia's offense solved Towson senior goalkeeper Billy Sadtler, who stopped nine shots in the first half but was replaced by senior Matt Antol after the fourth goal of the Cavaliers' five-goal flurry.

"There are ways to shoot - you can dip your front shoulder, for example - to make the goalie think that you're going down, and I think those goalies were anticipating a little bit that we were going to shoot low," said Rubeor, who finished with a hat trick and two assists. "We hit a few shots high, which really helped us."

Towson refused to give in, however, scoring six of the next nine goals to trim the deficit to two on Boyle's second goal with 7:41 left in the fourth quarter.

On the Tigers' next possession, senior midfielder Adam Hagelin fired a shot that hit the left post and went to a Virginia defender. Seconds later, freshman midfielder Shamel Bratton scored, essentially putting the game out of reach.

"When we got it to 15-11, we could've packed it up and gone home, but we came back to 15-13," Seaman said. "We just never could get a stop on our defensive end of the field when it was shot."

 

McAnaney shuts down Devils as Cavs even series
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
March 16, 2008

DURHAM, N.C. - Brian O’Connor had no issues with the mild case of amnesia that his baseball program developed overnight.

After watching his ace pitcher get blasted Friday in a emotionally draining one-run loss at Duke, Virginia’s baseball coach elected to employ the exact same batting lineup in back-to-back games for the first time all season.

It paid huge dividends - the Cavaliers slapped out 16 hits and pitcher Pat McAnaney hurled a complete game in a 10-1 rout over Duke at Jack Coombs Field.

With the victory, No. 16 Virginia (14-3, 2-3 ACC) evened the series with the Blue Devils (15-3, 2-3) and snapped a three-game losing streak in league. The teams finish the series today at 1 p.m.

“The guys were really locked in and determined to come back after a tough loss on Friday,” O’Connor said. “That was great to see and we now have a chance to win a series on the road and go back home at 3-3 in the league with six road games under our belt.”

Few expected the series to unfold as it has.

On Friday, Virginia’s All-American pitcher Jacob Thompson recorded the second-shortest start of his career, being pulled after facing just two Duke batters in the fourth inning. The Cavaliers rallied offensively - taking Thompson off the hook for the loss - but lost after reliever Jake Rule squandered a two-run lead in the eighth.

The relief work given by sophomore southpaw Neal Davis between the rough outings from Thompson and Rule might have helped the Cavaliers salvage Saturday’s game and potentially the series.

“I was really interested to see how Duke’s approach would change when Neal came in,” McAnaney admitted. “Neal showed his change-up, and once a change-up is in a hitter’s head, it can kind of keep them off balance. He pitched a great four innings, so I tried to pattern myself after the way he did and fortunately it worked out, guys made some plays and we got a much needed win.”

Before McAnaney (2-1) took the mound, his teammates spotted him a 1-0 lead after Jeremy Farrell plated Tyler Cannon with a two-out double.

The Cavaliers relied on their two-out attack again in the second, scoring three more as Cannon, David Adams and Dan Grovatt hit back-to-back-to-back singles.

“You could just see the confidence growing in everyone,” McAnaney said. “I think everyone knew that we needed to come out and play well and get a solid win.”

Duke, which also upended No. 3 North Carolina once in a three-game set last weekend, appeared to have McAnaney on the ropes in the bottom of the second.

The Blue Devils loaded the bases with two hits and an infield error and scored its lone run, which was unearned, after McAnaney hit second baseman Dennis O’Grady with a one-out pitch.

McAnaney limited the damage, escaping the frame by inducing a liner to shortstop Greg Miclat and a hard-hit grounder back to the mound.

The lefty blocked the inning out of his mind and did not allow another Blue Devil hit until the ninth and retired 14 batters in a row during a stretch that extended into the seventh inning.

“That’s what good leaders and seniors that have been in a lot of situations do,” O’Connor said. “Pat’s done the job a lot for us and he didn’t let anything faze him today. He was on. He had his good change-up working, his good breaking ball and command of his fastball.

“It starts on the mound and I don’t care what anybody says. That starter on the mound sets the tone for the day, and Pat did a good job with that today.”

UVa padded its lead in the fourth as second baseman David Adams hit a sac fly and catcher Franco Valdes ripped a two-run double into left-center field.

Valdes - who entered the series hitting .231 - also added a solo homer in the seventh.

“The count was 3-2 and I was just trying to get the ball in play but home runs come,” said Valdes, who has five hits in the series to raise his average 83 points. “When you feel good, you feel good. At first this season, I wasn’t feeling too hot, but now I am feeling a little better.”

Virginia added two runs in the eighth, the first of which came on a solo homer by Grovatt, leaving the pro-Virginia crowd to debate only how long O’Connor would leave McAnaney in the contest.

McAnaney was wondering the same thing.

“Every time I saw coach O’Connor or [pitching] coach [Karl Kuhn] walk down towards me in the dugout, I was hoping they would do a U-turn,” McAnaney chuckled.

O’Connor left the veteran in, and despite allowing a pair of hits, McAnaney bettered what had been his longest start - an eight-inning performance against Longwood in 2005.

“It has been a long time and I was actually thinking about that,” McAnaney said. “It was a great day to pitch … it was nice and warm, but it wasn’t too hot out there.

“Duke is an aggressive team and they didn’t take too many pitches in the zone. They were putting it in play and when a team does that, if you can mix and match a little bit, you’ll get some ground ball outs and some fly outs.”

Virginia junior RHP Andrew Carraway (2-1, 1.59 ERA) is scheduled to start today. Duke will counter with RHP Grant Monroe (2-1, 3.86 ERA) as it looks for its first series win over the Cavaliers since 1998.