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Cavalier lacrosse teams to play at home
By John Galinsky  / Daily Progress staff writer
May 4, 2003
 

Getting to the Final Four is never easy, but both Virginia lacrosse teams earned relatively smooth paths to the national semifinals thanks to strong regular seasons.
As expected, the Cavalier men received the second seed and the UVa women were named the third seed when the 16-team brackets for their respective NCAA tournaments were announced Sunday night.
The Virginia men (11-2) will play at home against Metro Atlantic champion Mt. St. Mary’s on Saturday in the first round, while the Cavalier women (14-4) will face Patriot League champion American at Klockner Stadium on Thursday. Game times will be announced today.
Should they win, the UVa women also will get a second home game in the quarterfinals Sunday against the winner of Georgetown and James Madison. That means they won’t have to leave Charlottesville until the Final Four is held May 16-18 in Syracuse, N.Y.
“To know you’re going to be able to play the first two games at home is a huge advantage,” said Virginia coach Julie Myers, whose team has not reached the Final Four since finishing as national runner-up in 1999. “I think everyone is really excited about the opportunity.”
If the Cavalier men prevail in the first round, they will go to Towson, Md., for a quarterfinal matchup against either seventh-seeded Rutgers or Georgetown on Sunday, May 18.
The other predetermined site for the quarterfinals was Syracuse, a long trip that UVa coach Dom Starsia had hoped to avoid.
“People had talked about the possibility of going to Syracuse to play Syracuse. If that was what we were facing, I’d say that’s the way it goes,” Starsia said. “Just going to Syracuse would have been a complicated trip. If we are fortunate enough to get through the first game, I’d say going to Towson is a positive thing for us.”
Johns Hopkins, which defeated UVa by an 8-7 score on March 22, is the top seed in the men’s bracket, followed by Virginia, Maryland, Princeton, Syracuse, UMass, Rutgers and Towson. The top eight seeds will host first-round games.
Loyola was seeded first in the women’s tourney, followed by Maryland, Virginia, Duke, Princeton, Georgetown, Dartmouth and Yale. The Final Four is scheduled for May 24-26 at Ravens Stadium in Baltimore.
In both brackets, Virginia could face Maryland in the national semifinals. The UVa men lost to Maryland 8-7 on March 29, while the Cavalier women lost both of their games to the Terrapins.

 

 

Weaver wants Tech on line if ACC calls
Jim Weaver says he wants the Big East to stay together, but if it doesn't, he wants Tech in the ACC.
By MARK BERMAN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver has been busy reaching out and touching folks in the ACC.
The ACC and Miami are doing some pondering - the ACC about whether to expand from nine teams to 12, and Miami about whether it should leave the Big East for the ACC. If Miami defects, two other Big East schools presumably would be asked to make the move as well.

"We have been doing everything we possibly can to position Virginia Tech for inclusion in the expansion if it occurs," Weaver said. "It would appear that it [ACC expansion] has the potential to be on more of a fast track than it ever has."

Tech's fear is that the ACC could add Miami, Syracuse and Boston College, leaving the Hokies behind. Weaver has been calling people in the ACC to remind them of Tech's football success and geographic proximity.

"You talk to different people. You talk to your colleagues in the ACC, and your presidents do what they need to do," Weaver said. "This can't be kicked around in the paper.

"We're getting e-mails from our fans, who are very concerned and rightfully so. But this is something that just can't be kicked around. You do everything you possibly can, and I'm not going to get into how you do it because you compromise the other people if you do."

Expanding to 12 teams would enable the ACC to hold a lucrative football title game. It also would put the ACC in a better bargaining position with ABC and ESPN because the ACC's football TV contract with the tandem expires in 2005.

The Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press reported in Sunday's edition that at a booster club meeting Saturday, Miami athletic director Paul Dee talked about the major markets the ACC would gain if BC and Syracuse joined Miami in the switch. Miami and Boston are major TV markets and although Syracuse is in central New York, it does have a following in the New York City market.

Dee said in the News-Press that he has spoken with ACC commissioner John Swofford and ACC athletic directors.

"There are discussions and we're exploring possibilities, but there has been no real invitation or acceptance either way," Dee said in the News-Press.

Dee didn't rule out a decision in the next few months but discounted speculation in some newspapers that an announcement will be made in conjunction with the ACC's 50th anniversary celebration Thursday.

"There is nothing we have to react to or anything by next Thursday," Dee said in the News-Press. "One of the things they were trying to do is that this is their 50th anniversary coming up and they were hoping."

The timetable "depends on how serious we get about wanting to be a member and how serious they want to be about wanting to expand," Dee said in the News-Press. "It would be hard for us to leave. It's harder for us to break away than it is for us to create. In 1990 we joined the Big East and built a franchise. But we feel good about the prospects. I think any decision is the right decision."

At a Miami Board of Trustees meeting two weeks ago, Dee made a presentation about the pros and cons of leaving for the ACC. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dee told the board Syracuse and BC would be the other two making the switch.

Syracuse won the NCAA men's basketball tournament this year and usually does well in football, so one might think the ACC would ask Syracuse to switch with Miami then decide between BC and Tech for the final opening. Weaver isn't sure if it will come down to Boston vs. Blacksburg, though.

"I don't even know that that's the right mix," Weaver said. "I don't honestly know. It could be, 'Blacksburg or Syracuse?'"

Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel has said the Big East would lose its automatic Bowl Championship Series if Miami leaves. Weaver hopes Miami decides to stay put.

"I'd like to see the ACC stay at nine and us go to nine," Weaver said. "We have two conferences here that have automatic berths to the BCS and to me ... two opportunities are better than one.

"My hope is that it'll stay like it is because we have two viable conferences. When you look at it, five of the last eight participants in the last four national championship football games, three of them have come from the Big East and two of them have come from the ACC. Five out of eight is pretty good."

Weaver refused to elaborate on the possibility of the Big East adding a ninth football member.

 

 

 

Miami Explores Moving to ACC

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP)--Miami is exploring the possibility of moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference, athletic director Paul Dee confirmed.

Dee told The News-Press of Fort Myers he has spoken with ACC commissioner John Swofford as well as athletic directors in the league.

``The status is there are discussions and we're exploring possibilities, but there has been no real invitation or acceptance either way,'' Dee told the newspaper for Sunday's edition, his first public comments on the issue.

Dee said several school officials would give their opinion on staying or leaving the Big East, but the decision mainly would be made by himself and school president Donna Shalala.

If the ACC lured Miami, the conference likely would expand from nine to 12 schools and host a conference football championship, much like the Big 12 and the Southeastern conferences.

Boston College and Syracuse are reportedly the leading candidates to join Miami since those schools would bring large television markets to a conference that currently only has one major media market in Washington, D.C. Seven of nine ACC schools must approve expansion. Several newspapers have reported that Swofford is one vote shy of gaining approval. Duke and North Carolina are against expansion.

Dee said it's unlikely Miami will join the conference next week, which has been reported.

Dee didn't rule out a decision happening in the next couple of months, but not Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the ACC.

``Absolutely untrue,'' Dee said. ``Could something fall out of the sky between now and then? Maybe, but I doubt it. There is nothing we have to react to or anything by next Thursday.''

Dee said there was no specific timetable.

``It depends on how serious we get about wanting to be a member and how serious they want to be about wanting to expand,'' he said. ``We're just exploring and taking a very hard look at the Big East to see if there's not something we can do there. But by and large, we're just exploring things right now.''

Dee made a presentation to the school's board of trustees April 25, discussing the pros and cons of leaving the Big East to join the ACC. Other comments were made by football coach Larry Coker and women's volleyball coach Nicole Lantagne Welsh.

``I'd like to play schools in the ACC, but we don't need to get in a conference to do that,'' Coker said Friday night. ``I don't think being in the ACC is a big advantage to us. Then there would be the issue of Florida State. When we would play them, would we be in the same division, would we knock each other from the BCS?''

Miami's discussions with the ACC have created unrest among some Big East officials and led to an angry outburst by Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. In his only public comments on the matter, Tranghese criticized the ACC.

``I have no use for the ACC right now,'' Tranghese told the New York Daily News. ``They're a bunch of hypocrites. They operate in the dark.''

Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel said Miami's decision would greatly affect any moves by other Big East schools.

``That's an understatement,'' he said. ``They do control the future of the Big East in football. That's why the ACC is looking at them. If Miami leaves, it causes seven other schools to re-examine what they do. It's very significant.

``If you're taking the lead dog out of the football mix, it has a significant impact on the conference. It's a concern to everybody. Could we have a football conference? Yes. Would it be viable? No.''

 

 

Coaches' lesson: Eyes are everywhere
Cameras, informants, assistants, anonymous faxes have felled coaches
GREGG DOYEL
Raleigh Bureau
 

Iowa State's Larry Eustachy and Alabama's Mike Price learned this week what other disgraced coaches could have told them: Behaving badly is easy, but getting away with it? Not easy. These days, informants are everywhere.

Eustachy, 47, sabotaged his future as the Cyclones' basketball coach by partying with -- and kissing -- Missouri coeds in January at an apartment party in Columbia, Mo. After his exploits went public, he announced he was seeking help for alcoholism.

Another partygoer, Sean Devereaux, a Missouri student with a camera, mailed negatives to the Des Moines (Iowa) Register, which published several pictures this week.

"You're a public figure, with a wife and kids ... you're supposed to represent your school in a certain way," Devereaux told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "You shouldn't go around doing that."

Iowa State athletics director Bruce Van De Velde agreed, recommending Wednesday that Eustachy be fired, though the fifth-year coach has until Monday to appeal.

Price, 57, will get no appeal. Three weeks after a night of debauchery he was fired Saturday without having coached one football game for the Crimson Tide. His transgression: spending hundreds of dollars at a topless bar, then returning to his hotel, where a young woman reportedly charged more than $1,000 in room service to his bill.

News of Price's behavior was broken last week on an Internet message board, apparently by someone who worked at Pensacola's Crown Plaza Ground Royal Hotel -- or knows someone who does. As the story spread from the Internet to talk radio, Alabama athletics director Mal Moore met with Price to investigate, beginning the publicly painful dance that reached a crescendo Saturday.

Tic Price is not related to Mike Price, but the former Memphis basketball coach can relate. Tic Price resigned in 1999 after having a yearlong affair with a 23-year-old student. Two anonymous faxes to the university revealed the affair.

"I will not go into the sordid details of this relationship," Price said at the news conference announcing his resignation, "but I admit I had an affair."

Sometimes the coach doesn't have to admit a thing -- video tells the story. Indiana's Bobby Knight lost his vice-like grip on that job not by choking guard Neil Reed, but by getting caught three years later. Knight denied Reed's allegations in 2000 until grainy film of the 1997 incident found its way to CNN/SI. It was Indiana's practice film, but the sender has never been identified.

The busting of Dan Issel wasn't so mysterious. Issel quit as Denver Nuggets coach two weeks after KUSA-TV in Denver filmed him yelling an ethnic slur at a heckling fan in December 2001.

A bank transaction did Delray Brooks in. Brooks, Texas-Pan American coach in 1999, was fired after depositing a $25,000 check from a road game into his personal account; he pleaded no contest in July 2000 and was sentenced to five years deferred probation.

Nolan Richardson III was busted by an assistant on his staff at Tennessee State. That assistant, Christopher Graves, said Richardson brought a handgun into the gym to settle a December 2002 argument with another assistant, Hosea Lewis. Richardson, who told police the gun wasn't loaded, resigned; Lewis replaced him.

"What (Richardson) did was beyond belief," Tennessee State president James A. Hefner told reporters in December. "It's abominable. It doesn't make sense."

A 50-year-old tutor brought down Minnesota basketball coach Clem Haskins. Jan Gangelhoff's 1999 revelation that Haskins paid her to write papers for players also toppled his athletics director and a university vice president.

The feds got to Iowa State basketball assistant Randy Brown. Investigators say Brown, a member of Eustachy's staff since 1999, used the Iowa State computer network to download child pornography. He resigned March 3 and was indicted March 11.

Anonymously shot photos produced what a long-running feud with the NCAA could not -- UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian's resignation. The photos featured three UNLV players from the 1990 NCAA title team in a hot tub with Richie "The Fixer" Perry, a key figure in the 1984 point-shaving scandal at Boston College. After the photos ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it was Tarkanian in hot water. Within days he agreed to resign after the 1991-92 season.

Then there's John Croce. The younger brother of the Philadelphia 76ers' owner, Croce was fired as conditioning coach after being taped stealing money from Allen Iverson's pants, busted by a surveillance camera in the locker room.

John Croce discovered in April 2001 what Eustachy and Mike Price learned this week: Be good -- big brother's watching.

 

 

Syracuse-Princeton quarter is flipped in lacrosse draw
Men's final won't be repeat; wrong bracket is released
By Paul McMullen
Sun Staff
Originally published May 5, 2003

There will not be a fourth straight Princeton-Syracuse title game.

Penn State and Hofstra are in.

Cornell, North Carolina and UMBC are out.

Nearly everyone was confused.

The NCAA staged an extremely bizarre Selection Sunday in men's lacrosse last night. An hour before the 16-team field was supposed to be announced, an incorrect bracket was posted on the NCAA's Web site. An hour after the mistake was brought to the attention of an NCAA official, the Web site had two links showing different versions of the draw.

A few minutes before 10 p.m., the coach of the top seed looked for confirmation that he had the right information about a tournament that will conclude Memorial Day at Ravens Stadium.

"Unbelievable," said Dave Pietramala of Johns Hopkins. "We got the wrong information on TV [ESPNEWS] and the wrong information on the Web site."

John Williams, a director of championships for the NCAA, said "someone put it up on the Web site prematurely, and put up the wrong sheet."

The shame of the fiasco is that the committee headed up by Mount St. Mary's athletic director Chappy Menninger put together what appears to be a fair, balanced draw. Georgetown coach Dave Urick has a gripe about the straw he drew, but there was none of the howling that occurred last year, when Hofstra was kept out in favor of a Duke team that it had just handled.

Pietramala thought his top-ranked Blue Jays were going to face Mount St. Mary's in the first round - they'll instead get Army, while the Mount will go to Virginia - but he figured he would have to play Towson or Penn State in the second round. If form holds, Maryland will have to play its quarterfinal at the Carrier Dome, but at least the Terps won't have to face Syracuse once they get there.

"We scrimmaged up there [at Syracuse] in February in case this happened," said Maryland coach Dave Cottle.

The erroneous version of the bracket that was circulated had Maryland meeting the Orangemen in the quarterfinals. The actual draw is set up to have Princeton meet Syracuse in that round. They have played in the past three championship games, but only one is going to get to Ravens Stadium. Both coaches, Bill Tierney of Princeton and John Desko of Syracuse, were on the five-man committee that built the bracket.

"I wish it was the other way," Tierney said of the erroneous bracket, which had Princeton and Syracuse in opposite halves of the draw. "Should we be fortunate to get there [the Carrier Dome], it will be the eighth time we've played in four seasons. It's nicer to play them in the national championship than in the quarterfinals. The Dome is more daunting than a neutral field, but it would be interesting to wear white there."

Hopkins, Virginia, Maryland and Princeton were made the four seeds, in that order. Syracuse is the de facto fifth seed, and Rutgers, Massachusetts and Towson also get to play at home in the first round, as Tigers coach Tony Seaman could get his wish, another shot at Hopkins, in the quarterfinals at Towson Stadium no less.

Syracuse and Rutgers moved up the ladder on Saturday, and Georgetown moved down, as the Hoyas open at Rutgers, a team they beat, 8-4, on April 26. That pairing defies one of the committee's principles, as it wanted to avoid conference rematches. Georgetown, the Eastern College Athletic Conference co-champion and its automatic qualifier, actually fared worse in the process than Penn State, the fourth ECAC team to make the field.