5/6/02 - Spilled Milk

By JOHN GALINSKY
Daily Progress staff writer

Having served on the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament selection committee in the past, Virginia coach Dom Starsia knows what criteria are considered in choosing and seeding the 12-team field. So even though his team was ranked No. 5 in the latest USILA poll, he was confident it would receive a top-four seed when the brackets were announced Sunday night
Which is just what happened. The Cavaliers (10-3) were seeded No. 3 and received a first-round bye along with Johns Hopkins, Syracuse and Princeton. They will face either Cornell (9-3) or Stony Brook (10-6) in the quarterfinals at Johns Hopkins on May 19.
“I didn’t think it was difficult” to predict, Starsia said. “In terms of our overall strength of schedule and our quality wins, we were clearly a top-four team.”
Virginia beat Johns Hopkins and Princeton in March, offsetting two late losses against Duke and Penn State.
Cornell, ranked No. 10 but seeded sixth, benefited from a good strength of schedule and a 15-11 upset of Syracuse last month to earn an at-large invitation. There were six automatic qualifiers (from conferences with at least six teams) and six at-large bids.
Since the ACC only has four teams, it did not get an automatic bid. Duke (7-6), the ACC champion, received the final at-large spot in a mild surprise over Hofstra (10-3), which was ranked higher and had clobbered the Blue Devils in a head-to-head meeting.
Like Virginia, Cornell lost two of its final three games after winning eight in a row. The Big Red will be a heavy favorite over Stony Brook, the America East champion. They will play Saturday in Providence, R.I.
“The program, staff and team members are elated with the opportunity for a playoff game,” said Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni. “We weren’t concerned with who we would play or where we were seeded. We are just extremely happy that the committee gave us an opportunity to continue our season.”
Virginia has not played the Big Red since the 1988 NCAA quarterfinals. Cornell won, 17-6, and reached the championship game, which it lost to Syracuse. It has not won an NCAA game since.
“It’s exciting to play someone different,” Starsia said. “In our little world, you end up running into the same teams a lot. I thought there was a chance we would play Duke again. But I think our kids are excited to see someone new.”

NCAA women. The Virginia women’s team, meanwhile, did not get the top-four seed it expected in the NCAA tournament.
The Cavaliers (14-3), despite a No. 4 ranking in the IWLCA poll, were bypassed for the fourth seed by No. 6 Cornell (12-1). Only the top four teams in the 16-team field are seeded, but Virginia essentially was slotted into the sixth position.
UVa will play host to Temple (12-4), the Atlantic 10 champion, in the first round on Thursday. The winner then travels to No. 3 North Carolina for a second-round game Sunday. Virginia had hoped to play at home in the first two rounds.
“We were totally ready to play Temple in the first round, but we weren’t ready for a road game in the second round,” UVa coach Julie Myers said. “But our kids love road trips. It will be a good experience for them and we’ll make the best of it.”
The Cavaliers beat Temple and North Carolina in the regular season.

More than 25 junior football prospects from Virginia and surrounding states will be on hand Sunday at Virginia Tech when recruiting analyst Tom Lemming conducts one of his annual photo shoots.

Although it will be hard to top this year's senior class in Virginia and Lemming already has said the photo will not make the front cover, it appears that many of the state's top juniors will be trekking to Blacksburg.

At least six of the state's top 10 prospects, as rated by The Roanoke Times, are expected to be on hand. They include No. 1 Xavier Adibi, No. 2 Vince Hall, No. 3 Matt Welsh, No. 8 Eddie Pinigis and No. 9 Barry Booker.

All have been discussed recently in Notebook Plus, with the exception of Booker, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound fullback and linebacker from Amherst County. Lemming also has received tentative confirmations from No. 11 Brett Warren and No. 12 Phillip Brown.

Brown, a cornerback from Phoebus High School in Hampton, is likely to climb into the top 10 by the time future lists are compiled. As for Warren, I am told he was incorrectly listed as a tight end, in a recent column. Warren plays linebacker for Centreville High School in Clifton.

Lemming held a photo shoot last year at Virginia, when 12 of the 25 players on his front cover signed with UVa and five with Tech.

GENERALLY RELIABLE SOURCES were reporting Friday that Lafayette High School senior Connor Hughes, the first-team All-Group AA place-kicker, had made an oral commitment to Virginia. The Cavaliers earlier had received a commitment from Marvin Richardson, a 6-4, 210 junior linebacker from East Orange, N.J.

After reading on the Internet that Richardson played at Bishop Harris High School and spending several hours trying to locate a school that did not exist, I determined that Richardson played for Bishop Francis Essex Catholic High School. He was in the crowd at UVa's spring game and is considered a "sleeper."

Hughes considered Tech, where he would have played soccer as a freshman, before deciding to concentrate on football for UVa. Like Tom Hagan, the All-Group AAA punter who signed with UVa in February, Hughes played quarterback in high school and led his team to a state championship. He had 13 field goals as a senior (Hagan finished his career at wide receiver).

Hughes will give UVa a stable of promising kickers, including Hagan and redshirt freshman Kurt Smith, who showed considerable leg in the Cavaliers' spring game despite battling a 103-degree fever, according to his father. Bill Moore Smith, Kurt's father, is team physician for the University of Chattanooga.

Tech had an interest in Hughes for football, but already had committed itself to first-team All-Group AAA place-kicker Brandon Pace from Kellam High School in Virginia Beach. Pace's best opportunity may be at punter because the Hokies signed second-team All-Group AA place-kicker Nic Schmitt from Salem.

GALAX HIGH SCHOOL coach Jim Gillespie says Virginia is the in-state school that has shown the most interest in Brandon Brown, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound junior who rushed for a Timesland-record 2,253 yards and 33 touchdowns this past season.

Gillespie said that Brown, rated the No. 6 junior in the state by The Roanoke Times, has expressed interest in attending camp at Virginia and Virginia Tech. East Carolina requested film on him this week and West Virginia has been in touch.

College coaches have been allowed in state high schools for the past week, so, the fact that no recruiter has paid an in-person visit to Galax would suggest that Brown probably is overrated at No. 6. There might be some questions about the Group A competition he has faced.

Also, coaches might want a better gauge of Brown's speed. Although he finished fourth in Group A last year in the 200 meters and has told Gillespie he runs a 4.59 40, Brown was clocked at 4.8 at the recent Nike camp in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Brown is a good student, according to Gillespie, but the NCAA also requires a "core curriculum" of college-preparatory classes. Gillespie could not say where Brown stands in that regard. Brown will take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) today.

AN OFFSEASON development that somehow escaped my attention was a changing of the guard at Hargrave Military Academy, where Lonnie Messick resigned after four seasons as head coach and joined the staff at Kent State.

Messick, who will coach outside linebackers for the Golden Flashes, has been replaced by Robert Prunty, who has done wonders at Gretna, which won its first 11 games this year. Only five years earlier, in Prunty's first season, the Hawks had set a school record with their 44th consecutive loss.

As Prunty completes his obligations at Gretna, defensive coordinator Jason Lee has been running the Hargrave football office. Lee, who has been at Hargrave for five years, also serves as assistant admissions director while working toward a Master's degree at Averett.

Lee said earlier this week that Hargrave is recruiting C.J. Bannister, a running back from William Fleming in Roanoke who last week won the 100-, 200- and 400-meter races last week at the Cosmopolitan Track Meet.

Bannister twice was timed in 4.4 seconds for 40 yards at a recent "combine" at Hargrave and has attracted the attention of Marshall assistant coach and recruiter Bill Wilt. Lee said Wilt told him that the Thundering Herd will recruit Bannister if he goes to Hargrave.

ONE-TIME JAMES MADISON assistant Jimmy Prince, the head coach at Ocean Lakes in Virginia Beach, says a growing number of schools are inquiring about Nick Oakley, a 6-3, 235-pound linebacker who ran a 4.69 40 at the Nike camp.

Oakley weighed 215 as a junior, when he played center on offense and the interior line on defense. Oakley subsequently gained 20 pounds and, much to his coach's wonder, actually became faster. Oakley, a 375-pound bench-presser, is a 3.0 student who has scored 1,000 on the SAT.

Prince has two other Division I prospects in quarterback Craig Dean and offensive lineman Tim Joyner (6-4, 260). Dean, rated among the top 25 juniors in Virginia by The Roanoke Times, passed for 1,350 yards as a junior and has thrown for more than 2,000 yards and 29 touchdowns in his career.

Although he scored 1,080 on the Scholastic Assessment Test, Dean is a 2.0 student, which might raise a red flag with some college admissions officials. At one point, he weighed 236 pounds -- a little heavy when spread over a 6-foot-2 1/2 frame -- but is now closer to 220.

The best senior on the 2001 Ocean Lakes team was Shawn Lauzon, a 6-5 wide receiver who is most likely to enroll at Virginia Tech as a walk-on. However, Lauzon is an academic qualifier who may go to Fork Union for a year in hopes of improving his scholarship prospects.

IN BASKETBALL RECRUITING, Virginia Tech's efforts to recruit 6-9 Shawn Malloy from Raeford, N.C., proved to be in vain when Malloy signed a letter-of-intent with the University of New Orleans.

Malloy made an oral commitment to the Hokies on his visit to Blacksburg in early March; however, the Hokies signed six players during the fall and knew it would be highly unlikely that they could bring Malloy to campus in the fall.

According to NCAA rules, Division I men's programs may enroll no more than five scholarship players in one year. It was Tech's hope that Malloy would begin his Tech career in 2003-2004 after a year at Fork Union Military Academy.

Malloy has not met NCAA guidelines for freshman eligibility and New Orleans was willing to take him as a partial qualifier, meaning he will have to sit out the 2002-2003 season if he does not qualify.

The two Tech signees who have not qualified, North Carolinians Phillip McCandies and Fabian Davis, will take the SAT today. With an 810, McCandies needs to improve his best score in either the math or verbal portion of the test to meet the NCAA minimum.

The University of Virginia men's lacrosse team is one victory from the final four in the NCAA tournament. The 12-team field was announced last night, and U.Va., the No. 3 seed, claimed one of four first-round byes.

Virginia (10-3) will meet the Cornell-Stony Brook winner in the NCAA quarterfinals May 19 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The Cavaliers' regular season ended April 30, which means they'll have nearly three weeks between games.

"I'm not sure a bye is always the best thing for us," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said last night, "but it reflects the fact that we had a good regular season and puts us in a solid position."

Cornell and Stony Brook will meet Saturday at Providence, R.I. Cornell (10-3), an at-large team from the Ivy League, is the tourney's No. 6 seed. Stony Brook (10-6) earned the America East Conference's automatic bid.

Should U.Va. advance to the semifinals, its probable opponent May 25 at Rutgers would be No. 2 seed Syracuse. The Orangemen edged the Cavaliers 15-13 in Charlottesville on March 2.

In addition to Virginia and Syracuse, top-seeded Johns Hopkins and fourth-seeded Princeton, the defending NCAA champion, received first-round byes. Hopkins' lone loss was to U.Va.

Georgetown and Virginia made the 12-team NCAA men's Division I lacrosse tournament field last night, but Maryland was not among the teams considered for the final at-large berths.

The Georgetown women received the top seed in the 16-team tournament field, and Maryland and Virginia also received invitations.

Seven-time defending champion Maryland (10-9) will play at Loyola of Maryland (15-3) in a first-round game partly because the NCAA wanted to cut down on the amount of travel teams did in early rounds. Maryland is ranked No. 7 and Loyola is No. 5 in the most recent IWLCA poll. The Greyhounds defeated Maryland, 7-4, on April 27.

"I think this is because of the NCAA directive for teams to stay regionally and they made sure no one had to fly anywhere during the first round," Maryland women's coach Cindy Timchal said. "When the committee looks more regionally, you're going to have matchups that would be quarterfinals or final four, and now you're playing in the first round."

The No. 5 seed Georgetown men (11-2) will play unseeded Manhattan (11-5) in a first-round game Sunday at noon at the University of Delaware. Third-seeded Virginia (10-3) will play the winner of No. 6 Cornell (10-3) and America East champion Stony Brook (10-6) on May 19 at Johns Hopkins at 3 p.m.

Ninth-ranked Maryland (9-4) missed the men's tournament for the first time since 1999. The Terrapins were not among the four teams competing for the last two at-large bids, said NCAA men's lacrosse committee chair Phil Buttafuoco.

"Maryland and North Carolina were 1-4 [against teams ranked in the top 10 ratings percentage index] and all the other teams under review had more than one win against" the top 10, Buttafuoco said. "The committee knocked out Maryland and North Carolina at that point."

Said Maryland Coach Dave Cottle: "We're disappointed. But there have been some coaches who weren't realistic with their team on their chances. We were up front with the players and told them there's a better chance not to be in than to be in."

Georgetown is not expected to have much trouble with Manhattan, which qualified after it won the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament. Manhattan began lacrosse in 1997 and its coach, Tim McIntee, also is the school's athletic equipment manager.

"I know where [the school] is, but not much else," Georgetown Coach Dave Urick said.

The main surprise in the men's tournament is that Hofstra (10-3) is not in the tournament and Duke (7-6) is, even though Hofstra defeated Duke, 14-6, on April 26. Blue Devils Coach Mike Pressler and Hofstra Athletic Director Harry Royle are on the selection committee.

"I am surprised" about Hofstra not making the tournament, Urick said. "I would think when you beat a team head-to-head that soundly late in the season, I thought that would mean they were in. I thought going into the tournament the best team was Hofstra."

Maryland's women likely were similarly surprised with their draw. Timchal had worried about a possible first-round matchup with Loyola after the NCAA announced it was seeding the top four teams and determining the other matchups based partly on geography.

Georgetown's women will host Patriot League champion Lafayette (13-6) in a first-round game on Thursday. The winner will play the winner of Duke (9-7) against Vanderbilt (10-5) on Sunday.

Virginia (14-3) will host Temple (14-4) in a first-round game. The winner will play the winner of No. 3 North Carolina (15-2) and Maryland-Baltimore County (12-4).

COMMITMENT: Virginia's football team yesterday received its first commitment for 2003. It came from Marvin Richardson, a 6-4, 210-pound linebacker at Bishop Francis Essex Catholic High in East Orange, N.J.

"He went down on his own to see [U.Va.'s recent] spring game, and that was it," Bishop Francis coach Tom Cocuzza said last night.

Richardson, a junior, is a "solid B, B-plus student" and an exceptional all-around athlete, Cocuzza said. He's a basketball standout and runs on the school's 4x100 relay team. He's also a high hurdler.

Al Golden, the Cavaliers' defensive coordinator, recruited Richardson. U.Va. was the first school to offer Richardson a scholarship, Cocuzza said.

RISING STARS: Many of the nation's top high school basketball players, including 6-3 guard J.R. Reynolds from Roanoke, will be on the University of Virginia campus next weekend for the Southern Invitational, an event that has grown dramatically since its inception in 2000.

Forty-eight teams competed in three divisions last spring. Ninety-six have entered the third Southern Invitational, which will be held May 10-12 at University Hall, U.Va. recreation centers and Albemarle High School.

Recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons and the Hoop Group run the tournament, which will have 48 teams in a 17-under division, 24 in a 16-under group and 24 in a 15-under class.

Reynolds, who committed to U.Va. in December, plays for Boo Williams' 17-under team, which also features 6-9 Darian Townes, an 11th-grader from Northern Virginia who's bound for Georgetown, and point guard Marquie Cooke, an electrifying sophomore from Nansemond River High.

U.Va. recruiting targets scheduled to play include 6-9 Will Sheridan from Delaware and 6-11 Darryl Watkins from Paterson Catholic High in New Jersey. Both juniors play for the Tim Thomas Playaz.

On the Potomac Valley Blue Devils, for which Roger Mason Jr. played before matriculating at U.Va., are at least two sophomores in whom Virginia is interested: 6-11 Roy Hibbert and 6-4 Marcus Ginyard. Baltimore Select's stars include Will Bowers, a 6-10 junior.

The Southern Invitational is not open to college coaches, but prospects may meet with Virginia's Pete Gillen and his assistants and tour the school after they're through playing.

CHANGE OF SCENERY: Reynolds, a junior, will spend his senior year at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson. Reynolds has been at Roanoke Catholic since he was a sixth-grader and played four varsity seasons there. The Celtics have won three straight Virginia Independent Schools, Division II state titles and consecutive State Catholic championships.

Reynolds, who averaged 23.2 points in 2001-02, is rated among the top 35 prospects in the nation's Class of 2003. He was interested in transferring to Oak Hill after his sophomore year, but its program was loaded with senior guards in 2001-02, and "I didn't think the timing was great," Warriors coach Steve Smith said.

Oak Hill finished 32-1, with a No. 3 national ranking, in 2001-02. The Grayson County boarding school has sent several players to U.Va., most notably Cory Alexander, Junior Burrough, Curtis Staples and Travis Watson, the ACC's leading rebounder as a junior in 2001-02.

ON THE MEND: Gillen said last week that he hoped point guard Majestic Mapp would be cleared to take part in individual workouts before the end of exams next week. Mapp, a junior academically, is recovering from reconstructive surgery on his right knee. He hasn't played for the Cavaliers since first hurting his knee in August 2000.

A former McDonald's All-American, Mapp "feels good about" his rehabilitation, Gillen said. "There's no pain, and he's doing more and more. We're hoping he can contribute next year. To what degree is just speculation right now."

HELP ON THE WAY: ACC opponents shot 48 percent from the floor in 2001-02 against Virginia, whose defense became embarrassingly porous late in the season. The Cavaliers' final seven foes each made at least half of their field-goal-attempts.

U.Va.'s defense has to be better next season, right?

"It will be," Gillen said emphatically. "Nick Vander Laan will make us better on defense. We'll be better just because of him."

Vander Laan, a 6-10, 250-pound center, sat out last season after transferring from California. If not a great leaper - he blocked 11 shots in his two seasons at Cal - he's a ferocious competitor who runs well and plays with palpable intensity.

- Jeff White

The first response to the inclusion of Duke in the NCAA lacrosse tournament is to howl that coach Mike Pressler's presence on the men's lacrosse committee was the decisive factor in the Blue Devils' controversial selection.

That knee-jerk reaction doesn't hold up, however, because the group that selected the six at-large teams and seeded the field also included Harry Royle. He's the athletic director at Hofstra, the Long Island, N.Y., school that most bracket predictions had penned into the field, but which instead missed out on an at-large berth, along with Loyola and Maryland, when the Division I bids were announced yesterday.

No. 1 Johns Hopkins was awarded the top seed for the first time since 1995. The Blue Jays have to win one game at Homewood Field, on May 19 (noon), against eighth-seeded Massachusetts or Great Western champion Fairfield, to advance to the final four at Rutgers over Memorial Day weekend. If form holds, Hopkins' foe in the NCAA semifinals May 25 would be defending champion Princeton, the fourth seed.

For the first time since 1985, when the field was limited to eight, the state of Maryland will have just one team in the Division I tournament. The NCAA forced men's lacrosse to award automatic berths to qualified conferences, which trimmed at-large spots to six. Hopkins, Syracuse, Virginia and Georgetown were selected as expected, but sixth-seeded Cornell and seventh-seeded Duke, the last team chosen, got in over Hofstra (11-3).

"Hofstra deserved to make the tournament," Maryland coach Dave Cottle said. "How can they not? It's ridiculous. It's a team that played well at the end of the season, and it beat two ACC schools in a row. It's a shame Hofstra didn't get in."

Hofstra is ranked above Duke in both the coaches and media polls. In the NCAA's ratings percentage index, the Flying Dutchmen were No. 7 and Duke No. 9. On April 26, Hofstra beat the Blue Devils, 14-6, then beat North Carolina to finish the season with a nine-game winning streak.

"We're surprised," Hofstra coach John Danowski said. "I don't know what to say. Somebody's going to lose out every year. Last year, it was Massachusetts. This year, it's us. Our kids did the best they could do. They haven't lost since March 16, but I told them when we practiced Friday that there was no guarantee.

"With this whole 'big win' factor, when the ACC gets another shot at each other, they've got a good thing going. To me, the message is to start playing home and home with the top four teams. It makes sense just to schedule the top four, five guys, and play them twice."

Duke's 7-6 record came against one of the top schedules in the nation. In effect, the Blue Devils played their way into the NCAAs when they used the home-field advantage to win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, where they beat Maryland in overtime for a second time and avenged a five-goal loss to Virginia with a 14-13 win.

Critics outside the ACC contend the four-team tournament is a no-lose proposition, as it beefs up everyone's strength of schedule.

"We evaluated four teams for the final two spots," said Phil Buttafuoco, the chairman of the men's lacrosse committee. "Hofstra had what was the worst strength of schedule of the four. It also did not have a win against a top-five team in the country. When you evaluate Hofstra against Cornell, Duke and Yale, all three of those have wins against a top-five team. Hofstra did not."

Buttafuoco said Loyola (9-4) had the worst strength of schedule among the teams that were considered for the final at-large berths.

"We had ample opportunity," Greyhound coach Bill Dirrigl said. "I'm disappointed that we don't have a chance to play for the national championship. We have to work hard to make sure we have a chance next year."

The Terps' Cottle, who did not complain about his own team (9-4) being excluded, contended that the RPI - which gave Hobart the nod over Army and Bucknell in the Patriot League - and the selection process are flawed.

"Big wins are a factor, but it doesn't seem like losses matter," he said. "In the NFL, if you beat the Super Bowl champion but go 1-5 in your division, you're not going to make the playoffs. The significant win thing has gotten us all in at one time, and gotten us all out."

Lemming photo shoot attracts talented group