Putting together a comeback
By Whitey Reid
Published: July 28, 2008

If there’s one player that the Virginia men’s basketball team could ill afford to be without for the 2008-09 season it would likely be Mamadi Diane.
The 6-foot-5 wing player, who is one of just two returning seniors, is the team’s leading returning scorer and shotblocker.
So when the Daily Progress reported in June that Diane had undergone surgery to his left foot, a collective groan reverberated throughout Wahoo Nation.
However, Diane says his injury is improving every day and he expects to be ready well before the official opening of the season in October.
“Everything’s been real good,” said Diane, who averaged 11.8 points as a junior. “I’ve just been working out and doing what I can.”
That means no running or jumping — just a lot of quality time with Virginia strength and conditioning coach Shaun Brown in the weight room, plus some training on a stationary bike.
After undergoing the surgery, Diane was on crutches for about a month. The former DeMatha Catholic (Md.) standout has been in a walking boot for about two weeks now; he expects to be out of it by mid-August, though he won’t play in the team’s exhibition games in Montreal over Labor Day weekend.
“When I get back, I’ll have more than enough time to really buckle down,” Diane said. “In a way, it kind of forces me to buckle down and go out every day with the thought of really improving because I missed so much time. I know that I’ll really have to kick things up, so in a way it can be good.”
Last season, Diane was demoted to the bench for 11 of the team’s final 12 games. While Diane refused to use the injury as an excuse for his play, the reality is he was likely playing with a broken sesamoid bone in his foot for most of the year.
According to Footphyscians.com, the sesamoid acts as a pulley for tendons and helps the big toe move normally. It also provides leverage when the big toe “pushes off” during running.
“It started in November and just carried on,” Diane said. “It’s not really a big bone or one that causes so much pain that you couldn’t play, but it got to the point after the season where it was time to take care of it.”
Diane, who has always been one of the best — if not the best — conditioned players on the team, believes the injury might actually turn out to be a blessing come January and February.
“I’ll have had all this time off that I’ve never really had,” he said, “so maybe it could be a different feeling — not as tired and worn out as I would be usually.”
The down time this summer has afforded Diane the chance to watch some of his new teammates in action. He says he’s been impressed with what he’s seen in pick-up games out of incoming freshmen Sylven Landesberg, John Brandenburg and Assane Sene.
“They’re all good players,” Diane said. “They all bring something different to the team. It will be interesting to see how things go once we get into practice — who are the hard workers and who really gets after it…but they’ve been coming along real well.”
Diane says it’s hard to believe he’s already going into his senior year with fellow fourth-year Lars Mikalauskas.
“I remember going back to freshman year and us being roommates, and us just talking to each other about how hard it was and how many problems we were having — and now we’re leaders of the team,” Diane said.
“We have to help the younger players through everything we went through and basically lead the team to a winning season. I’m very excited for it.”

 

UVa football players face charges of larceny after club complaint
By Tristan Lejeune
Published: July 28, 2008

Authorities said two University of Virginia football players were arrested during the wee hours Saturday at a downtown Charlottesville nightclub.

Junior offensive lineman Will Barker and redshirt freshman lineman Dave Roberts were picked up at Club 216 on Water Street at 3:45 a.m. Saturday. Both face larceny charges. According to a police report, club security manager Rod Howard saw the two men reach behind the club’s back bar and take two beers each.
Roberts, 19, is additionally being charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol and with using a fake ID.

Barker, 21, is expected to be a starter on the offensive line after being named a second-team freshman all-American by the Sporting News in 2006.

In a statement, UVa head coach Al Groh said, “We do not have a comment other than to say the matter will be handled within the department and the team in accordance with the appropriate policy.”

The incident is the latest in a string of pains for the Cavaliers.

In January, the team announced that four of its players — including two starters — were no longer enrolled at UVa. Sources at the time told The Daily Progress that academic reasons were behind the dismissals. The four were sophomore quarterback Jameel Sewell, junior cornerback Chris Cook, redshirt freshman wide receiver Chris
Dalton and redshirt freshman linebacker Darnell Carter.

The next month, cornerback Mike Brown was arrested and accused of stealing stereo equipment and trying to sell it on eBay. Brown appeared last week in Charlottes-ville General District Court, where he waived his right to a preliminary hearing. The case will be heard by a grand jury in August.

In April, redshirt freshman J’Courtney Rydell Williams was arrested on a credit card theft charge. He pleaded guilty in May, receiving a sentence of four days in jail. Groh removed him from the team shortly after his arrest.

UVa quarterback Peter Todd Lalich, 20, was charged July 13 with underage possession of alcohol. Lalich’s case was continued until July 21, 2009, after appearing in
Charlottesville General District Court last week. If he stays out of trouble, the charges will be dropped at that point.
Ashley Crockett, a health educator for the Center of Alcohol and Substance Education and co-advisor of UVa’s Student Athlete Mentor program, said current topics are discussed to an extent during the group’s meetings. The program recruits at least two athletes from each team to educate their peers on alcohol and substance abuse prevention.

“Their primary role is to provide that peer-to-peer support,” said Crockett, referring to the program’s mentors.
Crockett said the mentors hold presentations for their respective teams on alcohol education. All athletes are educated on university and state policies regarding alcohol consumption.

“If students are going to partake in certain activities, we want them to have information so that they make healthy choices,” she said.


 

U.Va. gets Norfolk recruit
LaRoy Reynolds has played linebacker, safety, wide receiver
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 - 12:07 AM Updated: 01:18 AM

CHARLOTTESVILLE - He once dreamed of wearing maroon and orange, but the newest member of the University of Virginia football team's 2009 recruiting class is eager to don a blue-and-orange uniform.

"My whole life I've been kind of a [Virginia] Tech fan, but now that's changed," said LaRoy Reynolds, a 6-1, 208-pound rising senior at Maury High in Norfolk.

Reynolds, who also had scholarship offers from Connecticut, Syracuse and N.C. State, visited U.Va. with his parents and a cousin Saturday. Before leaving, he became the 19th player to commit to the Cavaliers for 2009 - and the 11th from this state. He's the third from the Tidewater area, the recruiting territory for Bob Pruett, U.Va.'s new defensive coordinator.

At Maury, Reynolds has played wide receiver, safety and linebacker, and it's not clear where he'll line up at U.Va. He made the all-Eastern District first team on offense and the second team as a utility player. Reynolds caught 18 passes for 527 yards and four touchdowns. On defense, he made 73 tackles and intercepted a pass.

Reynolds, who also plays basketball for Maury, said he has a 3.5 grade-point average and totaled 1,620 on the three parts of the SAT. - Jeff White

 

2 on U.Va. football team arrested
Barker and Roberts charged in beer theft from cooler at club
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 - 12:07 AM Updated: 01:15 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE - The list of University of Virginia football players whose names have appeared in police blotters this year grew over the weekend.

Offensive linemen Will Barker and Dave Roberts were arrested at a nightclub in downtown Charlottesville around 3:45 a.m. Saturday. Both reportedly admitted to police that they stole beer from a cooler at Club 216, and each was charged with petit larceny, a misdemeanor.

Barker, a redshirt junior from the Philadelphia area, has started 25 consecutive games at right tackle for U.Va. He turned 21 early this month.

Roberts, a freshman from Sarasota, Fla., joined the team as a walk-on last year. He also was charged with underage possession of alcohol and use of a fake ID.

Coach Al Groh, through a U.Va. spokesman, declined comment yesterday. Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said: "We do not have a comment other than to say the matter will be handled within the department and the team in accordance with the appropriate policy."

Other current and former Cavaliers who have made headlines in 2008 for run-ins with police include quarterback Peter Lalich, cornerback Mike Brown and linebacker J'Courtney Williams. Brown hasn't taken part in team activities since before spring practice. Williams left the team in the spring and has transferred to Hampton University.

Barker and Roberts could end up before U.Va.'s student-run honor committee. If that happens, the players could face expulsion from the university. At U.Va., an honor offense is defined as "an intentional act of lying, cheating or stealing which warrants permanent dismissal from the university," according to the honor committee's Web site.

Jessica Huang, the committee chairwoman, isn't allowed to discuss specific cases. But she said yesterday that a potential honor violation can be reported by anyone in the Charlottesville community.

"It does not have to be brought to us by a student," Huang said.

Also, she said, "just because it's not an academic case doesn't mean it's treated differently. . . . I can tell you that it's not uncommon that we have cases brought to us that involve non-academic [instances of lying and stealing]."

 

Doolittle Gets Aggressive For A’s
Posted Jul. 28, 2008 3:22 pm by Ben Badler
Filed under: Daily Dish

When two-way players convert to either pitching or hitting full-time, the growth in their skills sometimes accelerates beyond the normal speed of other prospects’ development.

Sean Doolittle, a lefthanded pitcher and first baseman while in at Virginia, ranked 91st on Baseball America’s Top 200 prospects heading into the 2007 draft. The Athletics, however, believed in Doolittle’s potential to provide enough production as a first baseman or a corner outfielder that they drafted him in the supplemental first round with the 41st overall pick.

Doolittle added strength to his frame in the offseason, had an impressive instructional league and is beginning to show flashes of why the A’s spent their second pick in the draft on him. Through 86 games with Stockton in the high Class A California League, Doolittle hit .305/.385/.560 with 18 home runs, 25 doubles and three triples.

Doolittle hasn’t torn it up with Double-A Midland at quite the same pace. He is hitting just .230/.278/.365 in 74 at-bats, but at 21 he’s still one of the Texas League’s youngest players.

"I think my learning curve offensively has really taken off because I can get all my reps as a hitter now and not have to split my practice time between pitching and hitting I think has really helped me out," Doolittle said. "Don’t get me wrong, I loved pitching at school, but it got crazy sometimes having to come from class to practice, I’d have to come early so I could get all my pitching stuff done and then almost go through another practice again as a hitter. So it got crazy some times, but I’m really enjoying just being able to focus on hitting."

Some scouts questioned Doolittle’s power potential coming out of college, but his patient approach and strike-zone discipline drew praise. Since turning pro, Doolittle has taken a more aggressive approach, which might explain some of his extra power as well as his 99 strikeouts in 377 plate appearances with Stockton, a strikeout in 26 percent of his trips to the plate. But the A’s feel confident that Doolittle will regress to the more disciplined approach he showed in college, while remaining the aggressiveness within the strike zone that he has shown as a pro.

"When I was in instructs, we were really focusing on incorporating my lower body into my swing, and I think that’s where some of this power has come from a little bit," Doolittle said. "The hips, getting my back leg towards my front leg, getting my lower half through the zone, that’s helped me stay through the ball and create a little bit more backspin so I get a little bit more carry."

Despite his early success, Doolittle has enough self-awareness to recognize what he needs to do to make himself a better player.

"I’ve got to stop striking out I guess," Doolittle said with a laugh. "I guess that’s one thing, but I think that’s coming. It’s a little bit of a byproduct of the more aggressive approach I’ve been taking. I feel like when I was in school I was a little bit more selective of everything. Now I’m really going up there trying to drive the ball and do some damage. Maybe I’m fouling off a pitch here and there early in the count and I’m falling behind and stuff. It’s not something that I’m really worried about, but right now if I had to say there’s an adjustment offensively, that would be probably the biggest thing."

 

McMullen given another chance
David Elfin and Corey Masisak THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Saturday, July 26, 2008
 
Coach Jim Zorn said Billy McMullen is one player who could benefit from rookie receiver Devin Thomas' two-week absence with a pulled hamstring. McMullen has yet to fulfill the potential in the NFL that he showed while becoming the first player to lead Virginia in catches four years running and as Philadelphia's third-round pick in the 2003 draft.

McMullen caught 22 passes in 29 games for the Eagles from 2003 to 2005 before following former Philadelphia offensive coordinator Brad Childress to Minnesota in 2006. The 28-year-old caught 23 passes for the Vikings but failed to make the team again last summer and was out of football in 2007.

The Richmond native signed with the Redskins in January because they were close to home and they only had starting receivers Santana Moss and Antwaan Randle El, former regular James Thrash and inexperienced reserve Anthony Mix under contract. However, the selections of Thomas and fellow receiver Malcolm Kelly in the second round meant that barring a major injury, there wasn't a job to be won if Washington kept five receivers.

"Billy's got good size, he can run and he's got the wingspan to make catches up here," Redskins wide receivers coach Stan Hixon said. "I tell all these guys just keep making plays and even if there's not a job here, 31 other teams are watching."

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound McMullen knows the odds are against him, but the religious studies graduate hasn't lost faith in himself.

"I knew that the Redskins would probably draft a big receiver, but even after they drafted two, I didn't lose confidence," McMullen said. "I've got a big body. I'm pretty quick for my size and I run good routes. All I can do is keep making plays."