The Wildcats run away in second half
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
November 28, 2005

TUCSON, Ariz.
Maybe it was too many bikinis and too many volcanoes that had blinded Arizona's basketball team during its week at the Maui Invitational. It was something; they were 1-2.

And maybe it was just a case of playing too many good opponents that had the ninth-ranked Wildcats still in some sort of haze during the first half of Sunday night's home opener against visiting Virginia.

Whatever it was, when Zona finally woke up from its nap, Virginia paid dearly in an 81-51 setback.

UVa's first-half hushing

For most of the first half, the ACC's predicted last-place team had hushed the sellout crowd at the famed McKale Center. Coach Dave Leitao's Cavaliers, searching for an identity and perhaps a measuring stick of sorts after beating lightweights Liberty and Richmond, maybe even surprised themselves as much as the 14,570 stunned fans.

Deep into the half, UVa was doing a lot of good things. The Cavs had hit 46 percent of their shots, had outrebounded the 'Cats 21-15, including scrapping 17 defensive rebounds off the boards. They had held Arizona to 37 percent shooting (13 of 35) and only a lone 3-pointer out of 13 tries.

All this must have had the Pac-10 hosts wondering just what was going on.

Hey, wasn't this the same bunch of ACC castoffs that stunned Arizona last year in Charlottesville? What's the deal? These guys are supposed to be the worst the ACC has to offer and they're leading 28-22 with only three minutes left in the first half.

Lute's locker room pep talk

"Coach really got on us at halftime," said Wildcats senior forward/center Isaiah Fox. "We seniors talked a lot about last year. As the saying goes: payback is a [expletive]. That's what our focus was."

Whatever Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson, whose court is named in his honor, said to his team, he ought to bottle it. He certainly got their attention.

Maybe it was just a wake-up call. Maybe he challenged their manhood. After all, Arizona hadn't dropped three straight games in 13 years.

Virginia wished Olson had kept the thoughts to himself.

Cats finish strong

The same Arizona team that started the half, didn't finish it. It was like some imposters had taken the court and the real guys, the ones who have been ranked in 304 consecutive Associated Press polls, showed up in time to put things in order. Unfortunately for the now 2-1 Cavaliers, the real guys stuck around for the second half.

Zona kick-started the comeback late in the first half with a 9-0 run, then followed it with a 20-1 run to start the second.

Game, set, match.

Lose focus against a top 10 team and you're dead meat, especially on the road where Virginia's struggles have been well documented in recent years. But everyone has trouble winning in this joint and soon Virginia's weaknesses were as exposed as seniors streaking on The Lawn.

"This Arizona squad is more aggressive and athletic than any Arizona team that I have seen in the past," coach Leitao said. "They may not be as skilled. They are a deep team with good senior leadership and that will take them a long way."

A long way in a short amount of time if you care to use this comeback as an example.

When the Wildcats turned up the heat with defensive pressure, Virginia wilted, then melted into a puddle on the McKale floor. The Cavs finished with

24 turnovers, nine uncharacteristically from sophomore point guard Sean Singletary, who failed to record an assist.

Arizona turned it into a sideshow, converting those turnovers into 32 points.

The Wildcats got aggressive with some strong defense, got into the passing lanes and disrupted Virginia's offensive flow (the Cavs hit only 8 of 28 field-goal tries in the second half and none from beyond the arc).

Everyone from Boston to Miami knows that Virginia's inside game is weak. By now, the game plans have been Xeroxed and passed from one ACC village to the other.

Put pressure on the Cavaliers' backcourt, shut down Singletary and backcourt mate J.R. Reynolds, and you're on your way. Leitao emphasized that his team desperately needs to develop a third scorer for such occasions, and that's probably going to have to be either sophomore Adrian Joseph (5 of 9, 12 points ... only five in the second half), or freshman Mamadi Diane (1 of 7, two points).

Arizona, which carved its niche in college basketball a long time ago as a high-powered, high-scoring team in transition, blew the Cavaliers out of the state in the second half.

"Transition defense is one of many issues," Leitao said. "We didn't box out well. We didn't take care of the basketball. We stopped defending. But most importantly, we stopped attacking when things didn't go our way."

Now, the Cavs travel cross country back to the friendly confines of U-Hall where they host the antithesis of Arizona on Wednesday night. Northwestern's deliberate style comes to Charlottesville.

If Zona's pace is greyhound, then Northwestern's is snail.

Lessons were to be learned on this trip westward. Leitao is hoping his team can regroup.

"We were playing a very good team, 2,500 miles away from home and things didn't go our way," Leitao said. "We have to transition ourselves mentally more than anything and correct some things. We have to do some things to try to get better."

 

Virginia stumbles at Zona
Singletary scores 24 in losing effort
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
November 28, 2005

TUCSON, Ariz. - It's never a positive omen when a coach talks about having a "slim margin of error" before his team ever steps foot on the court.
But, with only seven scholarship players available due to injuries, a pair of freshmen in his starting lineup and a road game in one of the more hostile environments in the country, University of Virginia coach Dave Leitao was simply being pragmatic when he talked about playing Arizona - the No. 9 team in the nation, which had won 250 of its last 267 home games at the McKale Center.

Essentially, Leitao knew his inexperienced squad would have to play perfect basketball to earn a victory on Sunday night.

Suffice to say, they did not.

UVa hung tough in the first half - leading by six at one juncture - but Arizona took a 31-28 lead at the half, then went berserk in the first five minutes of the second.

The Wildcats went on a 20-1 run. The Cavs looked dazed. The game was over.

The only suspense left was whether David Bagga - a freshman walk-on for the Cats whose name was being chanted by the crowd for 10 minutes - was going to get into the game (he did, with just more than a minute remaining).

Leitao wasn't pleased with the Cavs' effort to start the second half.

"We got unraveled and didn't play with the same level of passion," Leitao said. "Against a team like Arizona there's no margin for error. Once it started going downhill it just snowballed."

In the first half, the Cavs managed to stay in the game despite committing 14 turnovers. They were able to do so because of their defense. Alternating between man-to-man and zone, the Cavs held the Cats to 37 percent shooting, including 1 of 13 from 3-point range.

Meanwhile, the Cavs were able to shoot 46 percent from the field - a remarkable feat considering the Cavs' frontcourt triumvirate of Tunji Soroye, Laurynas Mikalauskas and Jason Cain took just two shots the entire half.

Cavs guard Sean Singletary kept the Cavs close with 14 first-half points. However, he also committed six of the turnovers. For the game, Singletary was the game's leading scorer with 24 points, but he had nine turnovers and no assists.

"[Our] defense did a good job of creating offense," said Arizona coach Lute Olson. "We forced them to turn over the ball and we did a great job of converting those mistakes into points. Singletary is one of their best players, but tonight he had no assists and a lot of turnovers, so we must have been doing something right."

No Cav big man touched the ball in the paint until eight minutes into the game. When Cain finally received the ball, he traveled.

However, Cain did score four points in the first half, both on put-backs.

The Cavs ambivalence toward looking inside led to just two first half free throws. On one occasion, Soroye flashed wide open underneath the basket, but Singletary missed him.

"Whether you get touches or not, it's productivity," Leitao said. "I'm upset with our interior guys. We didn't get enough offensive put-backs and second chances to give ourselves a chance."

The Wildcats, coming off a 1-2 showing in the Maui Invitational were lethargic - but everything changed in the second half.

The Cats were a completely different team, shooting 66 percent from the field, including 5 of 6 from 3-point range.

The Cavs went ice cold - we're talking serious frostbite - shooting 28 percent. They went over seven minutes until their first basket - an Adrian Joseph jumper. By then, the score was 51-31.

"We got of our rhythm and didn't have the same energy," said guard J.R. Reynolds. "We forgot about playing D, boxing out - everything."

The Cavs' offense - which was already pretty one-dimensional - grew stagnant. Reynolds and Singletary began forcing shots that led to easy transition buckets for the Cats.

The Cats' Mustafa Shakur and Hassan Adams put on an alley-oop instructional video that seemed destined for SportsCenter.

Shakur and Adams each finished with 14 points. The Cats were led by Chris Rodgers' 20 points.

The Cavs Adrian Joseph was the only other player besides Singletary to hit double figures (12).

J.R. Reynolds had an abysmal night. He was 3 of 14 from the field and finished with just seven points. He also had five turnovers.

"We only had four assists today," Leitao said. "We weren't sharing the ball. We were just standing around and watching."

Singletary said the team has a few positives to take away before Wednesday night's game against Northwestern at University Hall.

"Coach and the team, we're not into moral victories," Singletary said, "but we did some good things in the first half in terms of our execution and defense."
 

Virginia may be bowling for Emerald or Music City
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
November 28, 2005

After winning six games and losing five others, Virginia's football team now gets to play a new kind of game - the waiting game.
After a 25-17 loss to Miami in the Orange Bowl on Saturday, UVa finished the regular season 6-5 overall and 3-5 in league play and like seven other Atlantic Coast Conference teams, they now await a destination for a bowl game.

While the city and state remains a mystery, playing in a fourth straight bowl game under coach Al Groh became a certainty on Sunday when the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco agreed to host an ACC team, giving the league eight bowl tie-ins for eight eligible teams.

The Emerald Bowl, like the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., had the need to look to the ACC after the Pac-10 and SEC failed to qualify enough teams, respectively, to fulfill previous allotments. Both bowl games are getting an early start with the conference, having already agreed to four-year deals to take ACC teams starting next season.

"We feel very fortunate to begin our relationship with the ACC one year early," said Gary Cavalli, the executive director of the Emerald Bowl, in a released statement. "With eight bowl-eligible teams, the ACC is one of the premier conferences in college football. San Francisco will be a great destination for ACC fans to visit this bowl season and in future years."

The agreement ended countless hours of recruiting done by ACC Commissioner John Swofford and his staff.

"We are pleased to be sending an ACC team to the Emerald Bowl this year," Swofford said in a released statement. "We are excited to showcase an ACC team in San Francisco and we look forward to continuing our relationship with the Emerald Bowl for the next four years."

Virginia could find out if it is playing at San Francisco's SBC Park on Dec. 29th (4:30 p.m.) or in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30th as early as today or as late as next weekend after Florida State plays Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship game.

The bowl lineup for the ACC: Bowl Championship Series (FSU-Virginia Tech winner), Toyota Gator, Chick-fil-A Peach, Champs Sports, Meineke Car Care, MPC Computers and the two at-large bowl that have agreed to host ACC schools, Gaylord Hotels Music City and Emerald.

The higher tiered bowls with ACC tie-ins that must release Virginia are essentially controlling the process from the Cavaliers' perspective.

Officials from the MPC Computers Bowl in Boise, Idaho, the contest that UVa played in last year against Fresno State, have already said that they will release the Cavaliers.

Virginia's fate appears to be controlled by three teams directly - Clemson (7-4), Georgia Tech (7-4) and N.C. State (6-5). If Clemson falls to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, the Wolfpack would likely be headed to Boise. The MPC Computers Bowl would prefer a team that has not previously played there - Clemson, Georgia Tech and UVa have been to the blue turf field in recent years.

If Clemson is selected by the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, N.C. State, who became bowl eligible with a win over Maryland on Saturday, could wind up in Charlotte, perhaps dropping Georgia Tech to Nashville's Music City Bowl and Virginia to San Francisco.

"The Music City Bowl is very interested in us," Tech Athletics Director Dave Braine told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "My gut feeling all along has been the Charlotte bowl wants a North Carolina team."

The MPC Computers Bowl might also consider Florida State or Boston College if either team is available.

Virginia would play Utah if they end up in San Francisco, and a Big Ten opponent (likely Northwestern) if they are the ACC's representatives to the Music City Bowl.

Following the loss to Miami, Virginia's players remained upbeat about having the chance to finish with at least seven wins for the 16th time in the last 18 years.

"I would love to strap it up with these guys one more time [and] play for my coaches," quarterback Marques Hagans said. "I came in with all of these coaches and next spring will be the first time I won't be coming back and it will be sad.

"I think it's special that I get to play with these guys one more time and practice with them one more time."

Another senior, D'Brickashaw Ferguson agreed.

"We are a fighting team," Ferguson said. "Whenever we have an opportunity to play a game, we are going to give it our all. That is an opportunity where we can win another game and we are going to take advantage of it."


News & Notes. Sources told The Daily Progress Sunday night that Miami would likely soon be invited to play in the Gator Bowl on January 2. If that happens, the Hurricanes would play Louisville (8-2) of the Big East. Interestingly enough, Miami plays at Louisville next September. ... Boise State is expected to agree today to play in the MPC Computers Bowl in its hometown of Boise. ... Virginia will enter the postseason riding a two-game losing streak for the first time since 1993 when the program closed out the regular season with back-to-back losses to Clemson and Virginia Tech.

 

Arizona topples UVa in 2nd half
The ninth-ranked Wildcats take control of the Cavaliers with the help of a 29-1 run.
The Roanoke Times

TUCSON, Ariz. -- It took Arizona nearly a half to adjust to Virginia's zone. With the ninth-ranked Wildcats' talent, that left plenty of time for a runaway.

Chris Rodgers matched his season high with 20 points, scoring 15 in the second half of Arizona's 81-51 victory Sunday night.

Hassan Adams and Mustafa Shakur scored 14 each. Adams, who also had nine rebounds, had 12 points during a 29-1 run that began late in the first half and blew open a tight game.

"It was all about our intensity level," Rodgers said. "We tend to come out sluggish in games. I wanted to set the tone and get the crowd into it. We definitely are a second-half team. We have to learn to become a first- and second-half team."

The Wildcats went into their home opener in a two-game skid and were intent on avenging a 78-60 loss at Virginia last season.

Sean Singletary had a season-high 24 points and Adrian Joseph had 12, but it wasn't enough to help the Cavaliers (2-1) win their first three for a sixth consecutive year.

J.R. Reynolds, Virginia's top scorer, went 3-for-14 and missed one of two free throws -- part of the reason Arizona reversed the outcome on the Cavaliers, who hadn't allowed more than 44 points in a game coming in.

"We've got to put a lot on those two guys, and we just can't afford to have either one of them have a bad game," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "J.R. had a bad night, and we've got to get him back and refocused."

Reynolds, guarded by Rodgers, had five turnovers and Singletary committed nine on Shakur's watch, totaling more than half of the Cavaliers' 24 giveaways.

Adams made his first five field-goal attempts in the second half. The last one opened a 49-29 lead with 14:20 left.

Rodgers capped the run -- which included a 20-1 start to the second half -- with a 15-foot jumper 1:05 later. Joseph broke an 0-for-10 spell by the Cavaliers to start the half with a basket with 12:28 left in the game, and Singletary added a jumper and two free throws to get Virginia within 51-35 with 11:11 left.

But Shakur had nine points in a 5:25 span, opening a 71-41 lead with a 3-pointer with 4:17 left, and both coaches sent in the reserves.

In the first half, the Cavaliers had a 15-2 run capped by 10 straight points by Singletary, who made a jumper in the lane to tie it at 20 with 5:32 to go and followed with a driving layup and two 3-pointers. The second sent Virginia to a 28-22 lead with 3:10 remaining.

But the Cavs had two turnovers in the next 56 seconds, and Arizona went on a 9-0 run to take a 31-28 halftime lead.

"A young team, being on the road against a tough team with a tough crowd, it's a learning experience," said Singletary, an All-Atlantic Coast Conference freshman team selection last season. "We want to just take it in stride, just fix things in practice and try to get better."

 

UVa shows fight in its loss to 'Canes
Still, the Cavaliers fall short of expectations and aspirations.
By Darryl Slater
Knight Ridder-Tribune
The Roanoke Times

MIAMI -- This did not feel like 6-5. No, this felt all too cheery for that.

Even in a dusty corner of the run-down Orange Bowl, Virginia's players had a vibe you wouldn't expect from a group that will soon pack its bags, again, for a ho-hum bowl game.

That's because UVa's 6-5 final record was almost 7-4 on Saturday, when the Cavaliers stuck with 10th-ranked Miami, charting their demise in a 25-17 loss partly because of special-teams shortcomings.

UVa coach Al Groh talked afterward about pride and effort but stopped short of those two dreaded words: moral victory. Really, the Cavs' made obvious strides toward a win. Their 407 total yards and 296 passing yards were the most this season against Miami, which boasts the nation's best defense.

Gaudy as those numbers are, it was the hidden yardage as coaches often coin special-teams losses and gains that will probably secure Virginia's place in another backwater bowl. The Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., and the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco, which confirmed on Sunday that it will invite an ACC member, seem the likeliest destinations.

Virginia led 10-3 with 13:26 left in the second quarter when Kurt Smith innocently boomed a kickoff for a touchback. But UVa was called for a 5-yard offside penalty on the kickoff. The Cavs kicked again. Miami's Darnell Jenkins fielded the ball at Hurricanes' 6-yard line and returned it to the Miami 38.

After the 18-yard swing, the Hurricanes drove down the field and scored a touchdown on Charlie Jones' 4-yard run, cutting the score, after a missed extra point, to 10-9.

"Big play," Groh said of the kickoff offside. "Not a little thing."

Then with 1:52 left in the quarter, Chris Gould punted from the UVa 30. His punt sailed just 30 yards, and Devin Hester returned it 23 yards, to the UVa 37. Working on a short field, Miami needed just four plays and 62 seconds to score a touchdown on quarterback Kyle Wright's 17-yard pass to wide receiver Sinorice Moss.

After another botched extra point, the Hurricanes led 15-10 and never trailed again.

Groh warned the Cavaliers about getting hurt in special teams. It still did that.

"To a degree, that did that," Groh said. "We made a few errors that, against a team like this, made the playing well not quite good enough. And that was one of them."

But even when the Cavs went down 18-10 as the third quarter ended, they didn't roll over, an about-face from asecond-half sloth in a 52-14 home loss to Virginia Tech.

The Cavs started a drive at their own 17 with 9:12 left in the game. They drove to the Miami 26 and faced fourth-and-6. Groh considered kicking a field goal but elected to go for a first down instead. Yet quarterback Marques Hagans rushed his pass and threw it behind Williams and incomplete.

And that's how UVa's regular season would end, incompletely, well short of expectations and aspirations.

So six wins three of them over doormats Duke, Syracuse and Temple and a 3-5 ACC record will land Virginia in its fourth consecutive second-tier bowl. The Continental Tire Bowl after the 2002 and '03 seasons. The MPC Computers Bowl last year.

Momentum can blossom from performances like Saturday's. And maybe that hint of 11th-hour optimism is the vibe the Cavs took as they finished their regular season by shuffling out the Orange Bowl's dreary concrete hallways.

 

Sports Focus: U.Va. Football
Awaiting a bowl berth Cavaliers appear likely to fill San Francisco or Nashville game slots
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Nov 28, 2005

San Francisco or Nashville? Virginia's football team almost certainly is headed to one of those cities next month, and an announcement could come as early as today.

"It's up to the conference administrators and the bowl administrators to kind of go through the process of who goes where," Cavaliers coach Al Groh said last night.

San Francisco is home to the Emerald Bowl, which will match Utah against an ACC team Dec. 29 at SBC Park. The next day in Nashville, Tenn., an ACC team will meet a Big Ten representative in the Music City Bowl.

U.Va. (6-5) closed the regular season Saturday with a 25-17 loss to No. 10 Miami at the Orange Bowl. A week earlier, Virginia Tech had hammered the Cavaliers 52-14 at Scott Stadium.

"I think the guys fought really hard this week," Virginia defensive end Chris Long said Saturday night. "It was a week that would make or break our team."

The Hurricanes, who whipped Virginia Tech, are probably "as good a team as you'll see, and obviously we played them close," Long said. "But we didn't want to come here and play close. We wanted to win, so we're disappointed."

The Music City and the Emerald weren't scheduled to join the ACC's bowl lineup until 2006, but neither one could fill both of its slots this season. The ACC needed homes for two of its eight bowl-eligible teams, so the timetable was moved up one year.

Gary Cavalli, executive director of the Emerald, said last night that his bowl would like to choose its ACC team as soon as possible. "We've been talking with the conference office about hopefully being able to do something" today or tomorrow, he said.

The Emerald is likely to end with up with U.Va, Georgia Tech (7-5) or N.C. State (6-5), Cavalli said. The Times-Dispatch's attempts to reach Scott Ramsey, the Music City's executive director, were unsuccessful yesterday.

Outside the visitors' locker room Saturday night at the Orange Bowl, Groh and his players spoke of their desire to extend their season.

"Wherever we play, we don't care where, we just want to play one more football game," Long said. "We want to put together an even better performance. [The Miami game] just gives us some promise, and we hope to fulfill that promise."

Senior defensive end Brennan Schmidt said: "A lot of guys got character on this team. Week to week, there's been ups and downs for us, but we've got some young guys at some positions, and guys are learning how this game goes and how we need to play each week. . . . For me, it's just one last shot at college football, so I'm excited."

Last season was the Cavaliers' fourth under Groh. For the first time during his tenure, U.Va. failed to win its final game. Virginia finished 8-4 after losing in overtime to Fresno State in the MPC Computers Bowl at Boise, Idaho.