Nichols hoop standout Regan verbally commits to Virginia
By Jay Skurski
NEWS SPORTS REPORTER

Timing was everything for Will Regan and the University of Virginia.

Regan, the reigning Buffalo News Player of the Year in boys basketball, has verbally committed to the Cavaliers, ending speculation about where the Nichols standout would continue his career.

He reached his decision after attending the National Basketball Players Association Top 100 camp — an invite-only gathering of the nation's best high school players — on UVA's Charlottesville campus last weekend.

"Everything clicked when I was there," he said.

Regan had narrowed his list of potential schools down to five — Arizona State, Stanford, Maryland, Virginia and Providence. After Nichols' season ended in early March, the Cavaliers didn't appear to be the front-runners, but a coaching change reignited Regan's interest in a school he had originally visited in 2007.

Tony Bennett took over the Cavaliers program after leaving Washington State in late March. Regan became his first verbal commitment.

"The coaching staff made the basketball side a good fit beyond being in the ACC," Regan said. "I was basing my decision first on academics and they have a really good business school, so that's a huge attraction to me."

The 6-foot-9 Regan averaged 23.9 points per game on 60.5 percent shooting during his junior season as the Vikings made their third straight Manhattan Cup championship game. Those numbers helped him become one of Western New York's most sought-after Division I recruits in the past decade — a position that began to get old for Regan.

"It got harder and harder," he said of the recruiting process. "You build a relationship with each coach, and in the end nobody is going to be totally happy with the decision. I have to say no to four other coaches."

With a decision made, Regan said he can focus all his attention on improving his game. He spoke Saturday from a team camp Nichols is attending in Ann Arbor, Mich., part of a whirlwind of camps and tournaments he'll attend this summer.

"The process isn't over," Regan said. "I'm still working out really hard. I think if I keep improving, I'll be able to see some playing time as a freshman."

Two seasons ago, Regan became the first sophomore to be named to the All-Western New York first team in 14 years. He then became the seventh player to win the Player of the Year award as a junior, following Jonny Flynn, Paul Harris, Maceo Wofford, Jason Rowe, Tim Winn and Christian Laettner.

Regan has 1,401 points for his career after a season in which he scored 646. He potentially could join another exclusive club next year: Only 12 players are in Western New York's 2,000-point club.
 

Regan Commits
By Jeff White
Published: June 28, 2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE – Will Regan recently spent about five days at the University of Virginia, where he took part in the NBA Players Association’s Top 100 basketball camp for high school standouts.

Regan plans to spend his college years at U.Va., too.

A 6-8, 220-pound rising senior at Nichols School in Buffalo, N.Y., Regan is the first player to commit to the Cavaliers since Tony Bennett took over as their coach in late March. Among the many schools that offered Regan scholarships were Maryland, Arizona State, Providence and Stanford, his other finalists.

“Will is one of those kids who maxes out his efforts and ability each time on the floor,” said Dave Telep, lead recruiting analyst for Scout.com. “He’s a high-motor guy who outworks opponents, is dedicated on the glass and can be a legit face-up guy to mid-range in the ACC.”

When Regan was a 10th-grader, he took an unofficial visit to U.Va., whose coach then was Dave Leitao. After Bennett replaced Leitao this spring, the Cavaliers’ new coaching staff began recruiting Regan.

“They got my attention,” Regan said yesterday from a camp in Ann Arbor, Mich., “and then I was able to look at [U.Va.] and realize that it’s got everything for me.”

Jason Williford was the lead assistant in the Wahoos’ recruitment of Regan, who in 2008-09 became only the seventh junior to be named player of the year in western New York. Others who have been so honored include Jonny Flynn (Syracuse) and Christian Laettner, a Nichols graduate who was an All-American at Duke.

“He’s a super kid,” Nichols coach Greg Plumb said yesterday of Regan, who hopes to major in business at U.Va.. “Works very hard no matter what we’re doing. Very coachable. You don’t have to ask him to do anything more than once. Great in the classroom.”

Regan averaged 23.9 points, 13.8 rebounds and 3.7 blocked shots last season. He shot 60.5 percent from the floor and 80 percent from the line.

“When he does touch it, he’s very efficient,” Plumb said. “There’s very little wasted movement, and if he gets a shot, he’s going to take it, and it’s usually on the mark. And if he doesn’t, he’s not going to force anything.”

Contact Jeff White at (804) 649-6838 or jwhite@timesdispatch.com.
 

Regan verbally commits to Cavs
By Whitey Reid
Published: June 28, 2009

Tony Bennett has often been described by peers in the college basketball world as a “system-based coach.Essentially, that means that Bennett’s squads have tended to be successful not because of a busload of McDonald’s All-Americans, but because of the sum of the parts that he has assembled.
To that end, the new Virginia coach has added what sounds like a pretty good part.
On Saturday, sources confirmed to The Daily Progress that high school power forward Will Regan has verbally committed to the program.
Regan, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound big man who projects as a power forward in college, is the first player to commit in the Bennett era.
The rising senior from Buffalo, N.Y. — named the Buffalo News Player of the Year last season — was also being courted by Arizona State, Maryland, Providence and Stanford.
Rated as a 3-out-of-5 star recruit by Rivals.com, Regan — whose lead recruiter was Virginia assistant Jason Williford — was on hand at the recent NBA Top 100 Camp in Charlottesville.
His perimeter touch is likely one of the things that attracted UVa. Bennett’s offensive schemes are known for their use of the “pick and pop” and Regan could be perfect for them.
“He’s a very skilled big guy,” said recruiting guru Bob Gibbons of All Star Sports. “I think he’ll be a very good fit for coach Bennett’s style of play. I think that’s a good first recruit for the Cavaliers under this new regime.
“I think it’s a good start. He should be an immediate impact player for them.”
 

PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Game-raising Regan a major player
Nichols standout big man is seventh junior to take top honor
Keith McShea
NEWS SPORTS REPORTER

Last year, Will Regan of Nichols became the first sophomore to be named to the All-Western New York first team in 14 years.

This season, he got even better.

How much better?

On Friday afternoon, Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins, the former Duke star, watched Regan work out in Nichols' gym. So did Providence assistant Rodell Davis. In Buffalo today will be Maryland assistant Rob Eshan and Vanderbilt assistant King Rice, the former Binghamton High and North Carolina standout. Michigan has been recruiting Regan since last summer. Villanova and Virginia are as well.

The elite all-around game that has attracted major colleges to Regan nudged him to the front of one of the most competitive Player of the Year races ever, one in which every other first-teamer could make a compelling case for the award.

The 6-foot-9 junior was already a proven superior post presence in the high school game, which is why he earned first-team honors last year. This season he added an arsenal of midrange jumpers and floaters and handled the ball more. He even pulled up to shoot � and nail � three-pointers when the opportunity was there.

Regan is the seventh player to win the Player of the Year award as a junior, following Jonny Flynn, Paul Harris, Maceo Wofford, Jason Rowe, Tim Winn and a certain other forward from Nichols: Christian Laettner.

Regan averaged 23.9 points per game on an eye-popping 60.5 percent, a figure that is all the more impressive considering he extended his range this season. He sank 176 of 220 free throws for 80 percent. He grabbed 13.8 rebounds and blocked 3.7 shots per game while he averaged 2.2 assists and 1.6 steals.

Regan has 1,401 points for his career after a season in which he scored 646. He potentially could join another exclusive club next year: only 12 players are in Western New York's 2,000- point club.

He has also been one of 85 juniors (and 15 sophomores) invited to the NBA's high school summer camp held this June in Charlottesville, Va.

Along with the above programs, coach Greg Plumb's mailbox has been filled up with letters regarding Regan from Duke, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, California, Arizona and Penn State. Regan's MVP performance at the Primetime Shootout in Trenton, N.J., was so impressive that, according to Plumb, the Auburn coach offered him a scholarship on the spot.

"All [of his on-court accomplishments are] pretty special, but what separates Will from everybody else is that he never takes a minute off no matter what happens around him," said Plumb. "I would be surprised if any one player in the area had the amount of attention he got every game. He was constantly double- and triple-teamed and had everything done to him defensively that could be done.

"Yet he demonstrated an uncommon attitude and demeanor through it all never complaining and always giving 100 percent. He was our leader both on and off the court. His teammates follow his lead and are better because of him."
 

Ex-Cavs AD Copeland earns Hall of Fame induction
Jim Copeland's time at UVa was sometimes arduous, but he has the respect of his peers in college athletics.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

In a seven-year tenure that turned turbulent at times, former Virginia athletic director Jim Copeland was never appreciated as much by his constituents as he was by his peers.

Copeland has no shortage of admirers in the athletic-administration industry, though he's not exactly sure who nominated him for the National Association of College Directors of Athletics' hall of fame.

"I have no idea," said Copeland, inducted at NACDA's annual convention earlier this month. "It was probably all of my friends in the media."

The media took some shots at Copeland during his UVa days, but there was no questioning his accessibility or his honesty.

"There's a pugnacious side to me that probably comes from playing football," Copeland said, "but I think I was always straight with people. It's a lot safer that way."

Copeland, who turned 64 in March, grew up in Charlottesville and moved back to his hometown after his retirement as AD at Southern Methodist University in 2006. It hardly seemed possible that he had been gone for more than 11 years, and that he had served longer at SMU than at any of his other stops.

Copeland also was the athletic director at William and Mary (1981-85) and at Utah (1985-87).

He previously had spent eight seasons in the National Football League as a Cleveland Browns offensive guard, twice playing in NFL championship games.

Upon his retirement, Copeland was hired by then-UVa athletic director Gene Corrigan as a fundraiser.

"I told him I was going to do the job for a year or a year and a half as a fundraiser," Copeland said. "I knew I'd meet people and probably would have an opportunity to get out of athletics."

It turns out, he liked it. He spent four years with the Virginia Student Aid Foundation before taking a job at Missouri as an assistant AD in 1979. Eight years later, he was named to succeed Dick Schultz as Virginia's AD.

Corrigan and Schultz preceded Copeland as NACDA inductees, Schultz while he was NCAA executive director and Corrigan while he was commissioner of the ACC.

It was never Copeland's intention to leave Virginia, but there were times when the job was unpleasant and people were nasty. The transition between former men's basketball coach Terry Holland and his eventual successor, 29-year-old assistant Jeff Jones, was one particularly polarizing issue.

"I'll never get credit for it," Copeland said, "but, J.J. was a hell of a coach."

Jones eventually flamed out, but the Cavaliers were 105-57 in his first five seasons, including an NIT championship and a spot in the regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.

True to his fundraising roots, Copeland looks back fondly on the construction of Klockner Stadium, home to the UVa soccer and lacrosse teams; the McCue Center, a football support facility, and a natatorium for the UVa men's and women's swimming powers.

Then, at a basketball game in December 1994, word leaked out that Copeland would be resigning to take a job at SMU.

Former ACC colleague Dave Braine, now retired in Blacksburg, said it was always his impression that Copeland got the shaft at Virginia. That was the public perception.

"I can't say there weren't people who thought it would be better if I left," Copeland said, "but to say I was forced out and made to leave the position would be incorrect.

"The way the move to SMU worked was, I was contacted by headhunters, not about myself but about other people. That went on for a couple of weeks or maybe a month; then, somebody told them I might be interested in the job.

"They came back to me and said, 'Everybody thinks you're perfect for the job.' I said, 'You're crazy. I've got a great job, I'm in my hometown and why would I move?' But, they convinced me to speak to the people at SMU."

SMU was not long removed from a series of recruiting violations that caused the led to the NCAA giving the Mustangs the "Death Penalty," leaving SMU without football from 1986-88. Copeland warmed to the challenge of remaking SMU's image and thought Dallas was a place where he could finish his career.

"He did a lot of great things at SMU," said Radford athletic director Robert Lineburg, an assistant basketball coach at SMU during the Copeland regime. "He played a big part in changing the culture there and did as good a job as could have been done in getting that program on solid ground."

As he neared the end of his SMU tenure, Copeland began to experience health problems that would have sent anybody into retirement.

He underwent surgery to remove a cancerous kidney and began to experience heart problems that led to a bypass operation when he returned to Charlottesville. He currently suffers from lymphedema, a condition that leads to fluid buildup in his knees.

The cancer is in remission, however, and Copeland says he is able to lead a fairly normal life.

During his Dallas days, Copeland crossed paths with University of Texas basketball coach Rick Barnes, a man he had once courted for the Virginia job. Cavalier fans will always wonder how UVa men's basketball fortunes would have changed if Barnes had come to UVa from Providence in 1990.

"He accepted the job from me in Providence," Copeland said. "Then, he flew back to Charlottesville and met with president [John] Casteen and accepted the job again. I don't know how much more certain you could be."

When Copeland bumped into Barnes on a trip to look at Texas' basketball facilities, Barnes made a point of saying that he had not taken the Virginia job, "so however certain I thought I was, I wasn't certain enough," Copeland said.

In retirement, Copeland does a lot of reading, serves on the Virginia High School League board and is active in his church. He attends several UVa football games each year. After Lineburg was hired as Radford's athletic director, he persuaded Copeland to pay a two-day visit and give his impression of the Highlanders' operation.

"He's been a great mentor for me," Lineburg said. "I still talk to him probably once a month. I can't think of a more valuable resource."
 

Croatan's Stull hopes for another trip to Omaha
Rick Scoppe
June 15, 2009 - 10:41PM

NEWPORT - As he sat on the porch of his home a short distance from the ocean and between Morehead City and Croatan High School, Aaron Stull knew exactly where he'd like to be a year from now. In Omaha at the College World Series.

That's where his teammates-to-be - the Virginia Cavaliers - are for the first time.

"I can't wait to go," said Stull, a standout senior left-hander for Croatan this past season who has signed to play for the Cavaliers. "I know we will because it's such a young team, and they have got so good potential to do it."

And while Stull shows something of his naiveté about how tough it is to get to Omaha, all indications are the coach Brian O'Connor has built a program to be reckoned with after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament as a No. 6 seed and then victories - on the road, no less - in the NCAA regionals and super regionals.

For all that, O'Connor, whose starting lineup has no seniors and only two juniors, was named the coach of the year by the National College Baseball Writers Association.

"It's just perfect," Stull said of his timing in joining Virginia's program. "It's awesome."

Stull has watched the Cavaliers as often as he can during the postseason. He caught the last part of Virginia's 9-6 loss to LSU in the Cavaliers' CWS opener Saturday. He missed most of the game because his American Legion team was in a tournament in South Carolina.

"We just got back to the hotel," Stull said. "It was 6-5. It was the bottom of the eighth and LSU hit a three-run home run and that kind of deflated them. But they always fight hard. They're always scrapping. They'll come back. That's what I like about them."

Stull had a game in Wallace on Monday so he missed Virginia's 7-5 win over Cal State Fullerton in an elimination game, but he taped it so he could watch it when he got home.

Stull said it was "weird" watching the Cavaliers knowing he'll be joining them in a few months.

"That's totally crazy," he said.

The 6-foot-6, 185-pound Stull will likely never forget his first call from Virginia that indicated the Cavaliers were actually interested in him.

"It was just kind of surreal that a Division I college would come talk to you like out of nowhere," Stull said. "At first I thought it was just to be nice because someone told them about me. So they just wanted to talk to me and see how I was.

"I didn't think they were actually going to be interested. And once they were, it was kind of crazy to believe they actually were."

Why wouldn't they be? Stull was a three-sport athlete at Croatan, which included playing quarterback for the football team and being one of a trio of star starters for the Cougar baseball team this past season.

The lanky left-hander was 8-1 with a 1.75 earned run average. He struck out a team-high 108 while walking 28 and allowing 22 hits in 55 innings. He also played first base and hit .384 with a team-best 10 doubles to go with five home runs.

These days he's playing Legion ball, splitting his time between pitcher, first base and right field, although for the moment Virginia has given him no indication he'll be anything but a pitcher for the Atlantic Coast Conference school.

"They haven't seen me play any other position," he said. "So I'm pretty much going there as a pitcher."

But even now as he watches the Cavaliers - his Cavaliers - in Omaha he admitted he couldn't help but dream about the possibility that a year from now it could be him on the mound on television in college baseball's biggest stage.

"That would be exactly what I want," he said. "I know it's going to be really hard to beat those kids out, but even if I didn't play, I'd love to be there just because I'd be rooting them on. And if I was able to play, I definitely try to contribute as much as I could."