Cavs’ Bennett working to establish AAU contacts
By Staff Reports
Published: May 1, 2009

Reaching out
New men's basketball coach Tony Bennett spent a good part of last month on the road. He's new to this state, too, and Bennett said he wanted to meet some of the key figures in AAU and high school hoops in Virginia.

In Tidewater, Bennett introduced himself to AAU kingpin Boo Williams. In Richmond, Bennett and one of his new assistants, former John Marshall High star Jason Williford, sat down with Tony Squire. For more than two decades, Squire has run an AAU program here.

"I'm going to go with my staff and meet as many coaches in the high school ranks and AAU as we can," Bennett said recently. "I'm a coach's son, and I know how important it is to build those relationships."

Standouts in Squire's program include Mychal Parker, a 6-5 junior at the Miller School near Charlottesville. U.Va. is among the schools pursuing Parker.

Status quo
This is the first year in which Al Groh has had two titles in the U.Va. football program -- head coach and defensive coordinator. Even when he wasn't officially the coordinator, however, Groh oversaw the Cavaliers' defense.

"No difference," defensive end Nate Collins said of the new arrangement. "It's the same for us. He's our head coach. Coach Groh's a hands-on head coach, and he's never going to be the guy just to sit back and let everybody else work around him."

Best of the best
On a night when more than three dozen awards were handed out, three of the most prestigious when to Danny Glading, Mei Christensen and Nikki Krzysik.

Glading, a senior from Bethesda, Md., received the WINA Award as U.Va.'s top male athlete. Christensen, a junior from Reston, and Krzysik, a senior from Clifton, N.J, were co-recipients of the IMP Award, presented annually to Virginia's top female athlete.

Glading is an All-America attackman in men's lacrosse. Christensen is the 2009 ACC women's swimmer of the year, and Krzysik was named ACC defensive player of the year in women's soccer last fall.

Others honored Wednesday at John Paul Jones Arena included Becky Davis, administrative assistant to Craig Littlepage, U.Va.'s athletic director. Davis received the Bus Male Award for her years of service to the athletic department.

Staff addition
As expected, Ronnie Wideman, who worked for Bennett at Washington State, has been named assistant director of basketball operations/video coordinator at U.Va.

A 2006 graduate of WSU, Wideman was a student-manager there before becoming an operations assistant.

"Ronnie was my right-hand man the last three years . . . He has a great rapport with the players and is one of the most organized and detail-oriented people I've been around," Bennett said in a statement.

Practice makes perfect
U.Va. swingman Sylven Landesberg, the ACC's rookie of the year, made 16 of 51 shots from beyond the 3-point arc in 2008-09. He said Tuesday that shooting tips he received from former Cavaliers great Cory Alexander have helped him this spring.

"I feel a huge improvement in my jump shot," Landesberg said. "It feels a lot more comfortable shooting it. My range is improving."

Alexander, now the color analyst for radio broadcasts of Virginia games, said he and Landesberg "basically talked about him being prepared for shots before he catches the ball . . . The most important part of your shot is your footwork, long before you ever let the shot go."

A former NBA point guard, Alexander said he's also worked with U.Va. guards Jeff Jones, Mustapha Farrakhan and Sammy Zeglinski, stressing to them, too, that good footwork is more important to a shooter than textbook form.

"Curtis Staples is the perfect example," Alexander said. "The best pure shooter ever to play at the University of Virginia . . . and with that said, when you look at his shot, it wasn't that he had the best-looking shot."

Rich get richer
The U.Va. men's tennis team, unbeaten and seeded No. 1 in the NCAA tournament, isn't likely to decline any time soon. The three recruits for 2009-10 that the school announced this week form what Virginia coach Brian Boland considers one of his strongest classes.

The three are Jarmere Jenkins (College Park, Ga.), Dino Dell'Orto (Hong Kong) and Julen Uriguen (San Antonio, Texas and Guatemala City, Guatemala). Jenkins will be the top-ranked U.S. junior player to enter college in the fall, U.Va. said, and Uriguen is one of the world's top juniors. Dell'Orto is the top-ranked junior in Hong Kong. -- Jeff White

 

UVa Insider, The Column/Doug Doughty
Of Sylven and Spudnuts:

Twice in the past month, I’ve heard from different Division I head coaches about a rumor that star Virginia basketball player Sylven Landesberg is -- or was -- thinking about transferring.

I immediately dismissed the rumor because, if Landesberg views himself as a future NBA player, why would he be contemplating a move that would extend his college career?

That was the catch, according to the coaches. The NCAA has gotten more lenient in granting appeals and there was a case involving Virginia last summer in which Will Harris was given immediate eligibility after transferring to Albany.

Harris’ appeal was based on a need to be closer to his mother in New York, but the key issue in his appeal was the support of then-Virginia coach Dave Leitao. If the Cavaliers had challenged Harris’ appeal, he almost certainly would have been required to sit out the 2008-2009 season.

Virginia and new coach Tony Bennett might take a different tack with another player, not that it matters. Every inquiry I’ve made would suggest that Landesberg has no interest in leaving Charlottesville.

Clearly, there were people who were willing to plant the seed.

“The minute that Dave left, we had a million calls from other schools, even from schools that hadn’t been involved the first time around,” Landesberg’s father, Steve, said this week.

“We’ve said right from the beginning that we loved that school and nothing that happened with the coaches was going to change that. ‘Nuff said.

“Plus, academically, it’s second only to Cal-Berkeley among public institutions. My son loves it to death.”

Nonetheless, Sylven did experience some mixed feelings in the aftermath of Leitao’s dismissal.

“He did think about going elsewhere,” Landesberg’s dad said. “I told him, ‘You’ve got to give it some time.’ “

Steve Landesberg has met Bennett and describes him as “a terrific guy, [but] I still don’t know much about his coaching.”

The senior Landesberg prefers an up-tempo style and says that he loves first-year New York Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, one of basketball's foremost run-and-gun advocates.

The Washington State team coached by Bennett this past season scored 59.2 points per game, ranking 314th out of 330 teams in Division I.

I hadn’t checked this stat previously, but in 2007-2008, the second of the Cougars’ consecutive 26-win seasons, they averaged 66.4 points. In 2006-2007, the averaged 66.9.

“I don’t really care how he runs his offense,” Steve Landesberg said. “But, I think it’s very important how Sylven does, not for Sylven’s sake, but for the way it appears on the outside.

“Dave Leitao was really well-connected in New York from his Connecticut days. I didn’t realize how strong [the connection] was at first, but I think a lot of people were watching to see how Sylven did down there.”

A 10-18 season cost Leitao his chance at returning for a fifth year, but Landesberg had a terrific season. He scored 16.6 points per game on a team that had only one other double-figure scorer, Mike Scott at 10.3. At 6 foot 6, Landesberg was second on the team in rebounding (6.0 per game) and tied for second in assists (78).

“He loves it down there,” Steve Landesberg reiterated. “Sometimes, when I go down there, it almost brings a tear to my eyes. Once when I was down there, we went to the wings place [Buffalo Wild Wings]. Sylven is friends with the owner. A man was there with his grandson and brought him over to meet Sylven. It was a very moving thing to me.”

It’s well-known that Steve Landesberg immediately felt an attraction to Charlottesville, especially its eateries. Bodo’s Bagels are a favorite of the locals but Landesberg said he can’t give Bodo’s the nod over the bagel establishments in New York.

His favorite haunt is a doughnut shop behind the downtown mall. He couldn’t furnish a name, but a google search would indicate that he was talking about Spudnuts, rated No. 3 out of 228 Charlottesville restaurants according to one survey.

“It’s the oldest continuous doughnut chain on the East Coast," Steve said. "I saw a show on it once. I always make it a point to go there.”

IF YOU’RE WONDERING if other schools were allowed to contact the Landesbergs following Leitao’s dismissal, my preliminary impression is no.

When I tried to pose the matter of tampering to senior associate athletic director Jon Oliver, I went through the recommended channels and made an interview request to sports information director Rich Murray.

Murray told me in a return message that Oliver was out of town but had indicated he would not discuss the subject with me.

As I wrote back to Murray, I can’t remember a time in more than 30 years of covering UVa athletics when the athletic department has been more uncooperative or difficult.

You’d have thought that I was asking if UVa had committed a violation involving another school, not the other way around.

 

Spring football: a final look
Jeff White
May 01, 2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE – Before spring football totally fades from memory, let me move from my notebook to this blog a few items that might interest U.Va. fans.

Among the players I spoke to after last month’s spring game at Scott Stadium was Nate Collins. The only true freshman to play for the Wahoos in 2006, Collins has been at nose tackle for most of his college career. But the emergence of rising sophomore Nick Jenkins at that spot, coupled with the loss of Alex Field, has resulted in Collins’ move to defensive end.

Had Virginia had more options at nose tackle in 2006, Virginia coach Al Groh has said, the 6-2, 280-pound Collins might have been at end all along. The rising senior is expected to start on the front line of U.Va.’s 3-4 defense, along with Jenkins and rising sophomore Matt Conrath. Field and Conrath were the first-team ends in 2008.

“I love it right now,” Collins said of his new position. “I feel like I’m playing well. There’s always room for improvement, just with footwork and hand speed and things of that sort, but I think that I’m getting the [hang] of it and I’m being able to not so much worry in my head before the play about what I’m doing. I can just see things and know what type of block I’m about to get. That’s just helping me with play with a lot more confidence, and that’s a great thing for my game.”

Collins started five games at nose tackle last season. In all, he’s played in more than 35 games at that position, and that experience doesn’t hurt him at end.

“At the same time, it’s all the same footwork for the three D-linemen,” Collins said. “We’re all doing the same thing. Whether people notice or not, in the 3-4, there’s no difference from left end, nose tackle or right end. Right now, just for me, it’s not the close-up contact that it was at nose tackle. You have a little more space out there, but other than that, it’s the same fundamentals you have to work on. And during spring ball, the D-line as a whole, I think we took a step forward in doing that.”

Groh, in his postgame press conference, touched on a wide range of topics. A few highlights:

*On the importance in new offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon’s spread attack of the running ability of quarterbacks Vic Hall and Jameel Sewell:

“That’s an integral part of the scheme. It’s not essential to it. There are teams that do very well with this system of offense without the quarterback being a primary runner. It’s as if the offense has 12 players out there when a quarterback can run. And the defense can never multiply. The defense has always got 11. But when you have multiple players on the offense who can do other things – runners who can catch, catchers who can run, quarterbacks who can run – then it just keeps adding up, and the offense has more than 11 weapons on the field. So when the quarterback can do that, it clearly adds another dimension to it.”

*On running the option when Hall or Sewell is in the game:

“I think it’s certainly something that both of them will be able to do. The upside of that is, when a quarterback has that as part of his skill set, then certainly you want to take advantage of that. But that puts them in harm’s way a lot … So to have two players who have those diverse skills on the same team gives a little more comfort level to let either one of them loose, knowing that a similar player is right behind them. It might cause you to put the reins on the position a little bit if he was the only one who could do it.”

*On rising senior Darren Childs and redshirt freshman-to-be Steve Greer, who are projected to replace the departed Jon Coppper and Antonio Appleby as the starters at inside linebacker:

“It’s been a positive spring for Darren Childs and for Steven in particular. We all remember Darren was a nice story out there for all of us when, never having played in a game, he stepped in and was productive against North Carolina [last year]. He made a lot of tackles but quite frankly didn’t play very well. On some of them the runners ran into him; some of them it looked like ‘kill the man with the ball,’ and he happened to end up where the ball was. But ever since the first day of spring practice, he’s been on key with his game, with his reads, with where he fits on the plays. Some of the plays he made in those games, he didn’t fit on the play very precisely. He’s fitting on the plays well, as is Steven.”