After dismal season, will Cavs shake up staff?
By Jeff White
Published: March 14, 2009

ATLANTA -- If University of Virginia officials are considering a coaching change in men's basketball, they're not letting on publicly.

"Dave's our coach," Craig Littlepage said simply in an e-mail to the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday, and U.Va.'s athletic director didn't elaborate when asked a second time about Dave Leitao's status for 2009-10.

Littlepage is in town for the ACC tournament at the Georgia Dome, where he watched the Cavaliers' fourth season under Leitao end dismally late Thursday night. In the tournament's first round, No. 11 seed U.Va. looked inept for much of its 76-63 loss to sixth-seeded Boston College and finished with a 10-18 record.

Not since 1969-70, when they went 10-15, have the Wahoos won so few games. Virginia's winning percentage was its worst since the 1966-67 team finished 9-17.

Assuming Leitao returns, his staff is likely to look different in 2009-10. Moreover, it's uncertain if all the players with eligibility remaining will be back next season. Nobody has talked publicly about transferring, but the past two seasons, and Leitao's coaching style, have worn on many players.

After winning a share of the ACC regular-season title and advancing to the NCAA tournament's second round in 2006-07, Virginia dropped to 5-11 in the league and 17-16 overall last season. This season, the Cavaliers went 4-12 in ACC play.

"I'll never forget this feeling," sophomore forward Mike Scott said after the BC game. "It hurts so bad."

Calvin Baker was crying when he left the court Thursday night. The junior guard said he's in no hurry for the pain to subside.

"I want everybody to know how this feeling is so we can practice every day, work out every day and just play every game so we don't have to have this feeling again," Baker said. "This feeling is terrible."

Baker sat out 2006-07 after transferring from William and Mary, but he remembers that season well. Those Cavaliers, led by guards Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, knew "they were gonna win," Baker said. "Even if they got down or they were up, they just played the game. And they played with an air of confidence that no team could shake even if they were at home, on the road, anywhere. I think that's what our team was missing this year. I feel like we were playing not to lose a lot of the times."

Five players who started at least 15 games this season are scheduled to return for Virginia, most notably ACC rookie of the year Sylven Landesberg (16.6 ppg). Leitao signed two recruits in November -- point guard Jontel Evans and small forward Tristan Spurlock -- and may add another newcomer for 2009-10.

"I think we have the pieces, the tools that we need," Landesberg said. "I'm disappointed in how the season went. I think we could have done a lot more. I think that next year we can definitely turn it around."

To rise above the level of ACC afterthought, U.Va. must improve in myriad areas. The Cavaliers rank at or near the bottom of the league in many offensive categories, and their sloppiness with the ball hurt them all season. Against Boston College, Virginia turned the ball over 20 times.

U.Va., which was picked to finish last in the ACC, opened league play with an overtime win at Georgia Tech in December. But the Cavaliers won only once in January (against Brown), after which a 1-15 finish in the ACC appeared possible.

Back-to-back wins over then-No. 12 Clemson and archrival Virginia Tech revived the Wahoos, if only briefly, and they upset Maryland in the regular-season finale. But then came the loss to Boston College, a setback that renewed the debate about Virginia's potential with Leitao in charge.

Landesberg, for one, said he hasn't abandoned his goals.

"I want to help bring this program up," he said. "I want to go to the [NCAA] tournament, the Final Four, the championship game if we can. I want to win the ACC. I just want to be as successful as I can here."

 

Leitao adds little value?
By Jerry Ratcliffe and Whitelaw Reid Daily Progress sports
Published: March 14, 2009

ATLANTA — A day after a disappointing Virginia season concluded with a loss to Boston College in the first round of the ACC Tournament, the Wall Street Journal added insult to injury.
In Friday’s editions, the newspaper ran a story on the college basketball coaches who provide the least value to their universities.
Ranking second-to-last: Virginia coach Dave Leitao.
To be ranked, coaches had to have salaries of at least $1 million and have been at their institutions for a minimum of four years. The study used winning percentage, RPI and salary as the criteria for coming up with an “Elite Value Score.”
Leitao was given a score of 285,714, which was just ahead of Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt (288,888), who was last among the 25 coaches in the study.
Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan (109,589) tied for the best values; Clemson coach Oliver Purnell was third best (97,087).
Leitao has a record of 63-60 in his four years at Virginia. His best season came in 2006-07 when he led the team to a share of the ACC regular-season championship.
Last season, Virginia finished in 10th place in the league.
Leitao’s original contract was for five years at an annual salary of $925,000. Rollover clauses have tacked four years onto the deal, though Virginia would only be responsible for two of those years if Leitao was terminated.
Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage must decide at the end of every season whether he wants to exercise the rollover clause.
According to the Journal’s study, more than 10 percent of the 343 NCAA Division 1 coaches are currently collecting guaranteed annual compensation of more than $1 million.
Woeful Wahoos
Virginia’s ACC Tournament frustration continued with Thursday night’s late game loss to Boston College.
The Cavaliers have now lost 15 of their last 18 ACC Tournament games, including four in a row. The Georgia Dome hasn’t exactly been a great site for the Wahoos, now 0-2 at the venue in ACC play.
Eye on the prize
With top-seeded North Carolina surviving Virginia Tech’s strong upset bid in Friday’s quarterfinals, the Tar Heels are gunning for their third straight ACC Tournament championship.
Such a feat would match the longest run in UNC history. The last two Carolina teams to win the title also entered the tournament as the top seeds. UNC won three consecutive titles in 1967, 1968, and 1969. N.C. State pulled off a similar feat of three in a row from 1954-56 on its homecourt before the league began moving the event to neutral sites.
The record of five in a row is held by Duke from 1999 to 2003.
Odds & ends
Every ACC team that has won a league tournament
title since 1988 made it to this year’s quarterfinals: Maryland (one title), Georgia Tech (2), Wake (2), North Carolina (7), Duke (9). Only three of those teams seeded lower than third managed to win the championship during that stretch: fourth-seeded Carolina in 1989, and two sixth seeds, Georgia Tech in 1993 and Maryland in 2004. ...Longtime Duke play-by-play man Bob Harris will be presented the Marvin “Skeeter” Francis Award at the tournament. Harris has been the “Voice of the Blue Devils” since 1976.

 

Cavs in need of change, but will they deliver?
By Aaron McFarling

ATLANTA -- Virginia's worst men's basketball season in decades ended mercifully and quietly at 11:34 p.m. on Thursday, in front of a few thousand fans at the Georgia Dome.

Entire rows of seats in the lower bowl sat empty in the second half, as the Cavaliers turnover total reached 20. The public address announcer's voice echoed in the cavernous arena when he reported every foul. The thud-thud-thud of ball meeting wood could be heard clearly as Boston College's Tyrese Rice dribbled out the final seconds, with UVa conceding a 76-63 first-round defeat in the ACC tournament.

Sad. That's what this was: Sad. This night. This scene. This whole season.

And the Cavaliers had better improve in a hurry, or next year's atmosphere at sparkling John Paul Jones Arena will look eerily similar. And their coach will be out of a job.

Where's the hope? That's what you have to ask yourself. After UVa completed a 10-18 campaign, compiling its lowest winning percentage since it went 9-17 under coach William J. Gibson in 1966-67, there still wasn't much anticipation for change.

Coach Dave Leitao will be here next year. So will all but two of these same players. What reason is there to believe the scoring will go up, the defense will be better and misery will end?

"I really can't say," junior Calvin Baker said, when asked where UVa fans should look for hope. "It's up for us to give them hope. We have to get back and get into the gym as soon as possible and start building our team identity, and hopefully we can have a better season next year."

The team identity -- at least the one Leitao wants to instill -- is one of defense and rebounding. Toughness. Gritty play.

But for the second straight year, the Cavaliers finished among the ACC's worst in those categories. They ranked last in field-goal percentage defense. They were 10th in rebounding margin. And their offense sputtered outside of freshman sensation Sylven Landesberg, who might have been the only player on the floor Thursday who wasn't ready for it to end.

"Definitely not," an emotional Landesberg said in the locker room. "No matter how bad the season was going, I always thought we could turn it around."

Landesberg is the best argument -- one of the few arguments -- for keeping Leitao for next season. The ACC Freshman of the Year honoree is the coach's top recruit in four years, a passionate, talented player who is likely to improve.

And Landesberg credits Leitao for making him a more complete player, for working with him on his pull-up jumper after ACC teams adjusted to his drives to the hoop.

"He helped me a lot," Landesberg said. "If he tells me something, I'm going to listen."

Leitao was the ACC Coach of the Year in 2007, but how far his team now seems from that one. Those Cavaliers, led by Pete Gillen recruits Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. This bunch isn't eligible for any postseason play, not even the College Basketball Invitational or the new 16-team event, the Collegeinsider.com Postseason Tournament.

"They played with an air of confidence that no team could shake," Baker said of the 2006-07 squad. "At home. On the road. Anywhere. And I think that's what our team was missing this year. We were playing not to lose a lot of times. That team was playing to win.

"We didn't know what to expect [this year]. We didn't know our rotations, we didn't know who was going to be playing, anything like that. It was just a different feel. That team really knew who they were. They knew who the core guys were. Everybody knew their role and everything."

The Cavs will have a better idea of that heading into next year, with only two recruits entering the fold. Maybe freshman post player Assane Sene will add polish. Maybe sophomore Mike Scott will unlock more of his potential. Maybe Baker will become the kind of senior mentor every team needs.

Facilitating those improvements is Leitao's biggest challenge -- and his final chance.
 

Virginia stays unbeaten
By Jay Jenkins
Published: March 14, 2009

Florida State coach Mike Martin, a legendary figure in college baseball circles, could only shake his head in disbelief.
Had the skipper known about Virginia pitcher Danny Hultzen, he joked, he would have been in on the youngster’s recruiting.
The rookie showed why Friday night.
With his biggest win to date, Hultzen lifted No. 18 Virginia past Florida State 15-2 with 13 strikeouts over seven full innings.
“Hultzen was gorgeous,” Martin said. “I had heard about him and I was very interested to see him. Hultzen was just gorgeous.”
With the stellar performance, one that included seven straight strikeouts during a period that stretched into the third inning, Hultzen improved to 4-0 on the mound. The left-handed pitcher allowed just one earned run, four hits and a pair of walks.
“I think Danny Hultzen has some really special stuff, not only his fastball but his off-speed pitches,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “What separates him from other 18-year-old pitchers is that he has incredible poise. He is just a tiger out there on the mound.
“It was a fantastic pitching performance against a really good opponent.”
Virginia (15-0, 4-0 ACC) provided Hultzen with ample scoring in the second inning and never looked back.
The biggest hit in the frame came in odd fashion. With runners at second and third and Florida State’s infield playing in, Jared King lifted a routine fly ball that landed safely in center field to open the game’s scoring.
“That was a gamble early,” said Martin after dropping to 9-6 overall and 1-3 in the ACC. “I felt like it was going to be one of those close ballgames and [King] hit it where we weren’t.”
Virginia broke the game open in the middle innings, scoring two in the fourth, three in the fifth and five more in the sixth as it chased Florida State starter Sean Gilmartin (3-1) from the contest.
UVa center fielder Jarrett Parker drove in a pair with a two-run single in the fourth and right fielder Dan Grovatt connected on his third homer of the season in the fifth.
John Hicks, Virginia’s designated hitter, added a two-run homer in the sixth inning. It was the third of the season for the rookie.
In all, Virginia had 14 hits, including three extra-base hits.
“They just did a good job of putting pressure on us tonight,” Martin said. “You have really got to credit UVa.”
Hultzen’s 13 strikeouts were the most by a Cavalier since 2006 when Sean Doolittle fanned 13 against Maryland.
“That is hard to do against anybody, let alone against Florida State,” O’Connor said. “He is not perfect but he has been close to perfect this year up until this point.”
Virginia and Florida State are scheduled to play today at 1 p.m.

 

No. 18 Virginia Ups Streak to 15 with 15-2 Win over No. 14 FSU
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 03/13/2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 18 Virginia baseball team recorded its school-record 15th-consecutive win and remained undefeated with a 15-2 victory over No. 14 Florida State Friday night at Davenport Field. Freshman Danny Hultzen (Bethesda, Md.) stole the show with a career-high 13 strikeouts in seven innings as he improved to 4-0 this year.

Virginia (15-0, 4-0 ACC) continued its best start in school history while posting its largest margin of victory ever over Florida State. The previous high was 11 in 1996 and 2004. The Cavaliers now have scored 62 runs in their four ACC contests.

UVa’s 15-game winning streak is the longest active streak in the nation. Virginia and Georgia are the lone remaining undefeated teams this year in Division I.

Hultzen’s 13 strikeouts were the most for a Virginia pitcher since Sean Doolittle fanned 13 on April 28, 2006, at Maryland. He allowed just an earned run, four hits and two walks. He retired the first eight batters of the game, with the final seven of those coming via strikeouts. He did not allow a runner past first base until giving up a solo home run to Stuart Tapley in the seventh inning.

FSU starter Sean Gilmartin (3-1) allowed seven runs (four earned), six hits and three walks in four innings to take the loss. The Seminoles’ defense committed five errors, leading to seven unearned runs.

At the plate, Dan Grovatt (So., Tabernacle, N.J.) led the a 14-hit Cavalier attack with a 2-for-5 night while scoring three times and driving in three. He hit a two-run homer as part of his big night. Steven Proscia (Fr., Suffern, N.Y.) had three singles and scored three times, while John Hicks (Fr., Sandy Hook, Va.) hit a two-run blast in a 2-for-3 night. He also scored three times and drove in two.

The Cavaliers scored three times in the second inning, taking full advantage of a leadoff error by second baseman Tommy Oravetz. A wild pitch moved Grovatt to second and one out later, Hicks walked. Grovatt and Hicks combined for a double steal, and Grovatt scored on a bloop single by Jared King (Fr., Radford, Va.). Franco Valdes (Jr., Miami, Fla.) followed with an RBI groundout to score Hicks, and John Barr (So., Ivyland, Pa.) came up with a two-out single to right-center to plate King and give UVa a 3-0 lead.

In the fourth inning, Parker hit a two-out single up the middle to score two runs and give the Cavaliers a 5-0 advantage.

Virginia padded its lead with three in the fifth inning. Phil Gosselin (So., West Chester, Pa.) led off with a walk and scored when Grovatt launched a two-run home run to right field. It was his third home run this year and it spelled the end of the night for Gilmartin. Proscia then greeted reliever Hunter Scantling with a single and later scored on a King fielder’s choice.

UVa added a five-spot in the sixth inning, benefiting from three FSU errors while batting around. Barr reached on an error to lead off and moved to third on a Parker double. Tyler Cannon (Jr., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) then was hit by a pitch, and Gosselin followed with a sacrifice fly. Grovatt then hit an RBI single which knocked Scantling from the game. Reliever Ben Francis had no more luck, allowing a sacrifice fly to Proscia before Hicks ripped a two-run homer to left field, giving the Wahoos a 13-0 lead.

FSU (9-6, 1-3) scored its lone run in the seventh inning on a Stuart Tapley solo home run. Virginia added its final two runs in the eighth inning on a two-run single by Valdes.

The teams play game two of the series at 1 p.m. Saturday. Parking will be available in the University Hall lots.

 

Cavaliers Clash with Towson Saturday at Klöckner Stadium
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 03/13/2009

Even though Dom Starsia’s Cavaliers enter their second week atop the polls, the Cavalier head coach knows there is still room for improvement as the team readies itself for Saturday afternoon’s clash with Towson. Faceoff is set for 1 pm. A live webcast featuring the UVa radio broadcast crew of John Freeman and Doug Tarring is available at ACCSelect.com.

“There are areas where we’re going to need to get better,” he said, “including getting more consistent scoring from the midfield and hitting some shots.”

The midfield has started to pick up the scoring in the last several games. Junior Brian Carroll has tallied five goals in the last two contests, while senior Steve Giannone and sophomore Shamel Bratton have both score four in that span. Against Cornell last Sunday this trio accounted for eight of the Cavaliers’ 14 goals. In addition, second unit players George Huguely and John Haldy have each scored in the last two games.

Towson head coach Tony Seaman is undoubtedly looking for much of the same thing. His squad comes into the game with a 1-3 record and a two-game losing streak.

Seaman’s team’s offensive groups are in a little bit of transition with two new starters on attack and two more in the midfield. Still, among the top-six offensive players six are seniors.

“This is an experienced team that’s been around the block a few times,” said Starsia. “They have a couple of slick attackmen with the ability to score a lot of goals.”

Senior Bill McCutcheon is the offensive leader during the early part of the season. He has notched eight goals and assisted on seven others; no other player has more than for goals or four assists.

He is joined by freshmen Matt Lamon and Sean Maguire, neither of which has scored more than two goals.

Goals have been hard to come by demonstrated by the Tigers’ average of 7.5 goals per game, a little more than half Virginia’s average.

One new starter who has made a near immediate impact is junior goalie Rob Wheeler. He has recorded an impressive .564 save percentage and proven to be stingy when it comes to giving up goals as his 9.03 goals allowed average attests.

A veteran with 27 seasons of head coaching experience, Starsia knows the value of staying sharp throughout the season.

“We don’t want to take anything for granted and let the quality of our play slip,” he said. “I think we’ll be ready to play. We have to bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm. The team has done a good job of preparing itself; we haven’t always been sharp but the effort has always been there.

“This is a team that’s going to come in and try to get a big one. It’s going to require our best effort and that’s what we’ve come to expect from ourselves.”