Cavs headed to a big bowl?
Virginia positioned for one of ACC's top four bids
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
November 14, 2007

The best-case bowl scenario is rather obvious: Virginia secures a BCS bid and a berth to play in the Orange Bowl in Miami with back-to-back wins.

A win against Virginia Tech on Nov. 24 and a loss the following Saturday in the ACC title game against Boston College or Clemson, should leave the 16th-ranked Cavaliers (9-2, 6-1 ACC) in a prime position to join the discussions for the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta.

Stumble against the Hokies (8-2, 5-1 ACC), however, and the picture - including back-room negotiations - could get complicated.

After the Orange Bowl and Chick-fil-A Bowl, formerly known as the Peach, the ACC’s next two tie-ins are with the Florida-based Gator and Champs Sports bowls, which are played in Jacksonville and Orlando, respectively.

After those four contests have made their selections, the Music City Bowl (Nashville, Tenn.), Meineke Car Care Bowl (Charlotte, N.C.) and Emerald Bowl (San Franscisco) individually rank their top three choices and submit those to the ACC office.

If the process remains unsettled after the requests, league officials use the payout levels for the contests (Music City, Meineke Car Care and then Emerald) to determine the selections. That certainly is a process that Virginia officials would prefer avoiding altogether.

The Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, also offers the eighth and final invitation to an unselected bowl-eligible team (Maryland, Miami and North Carolina State need one win to become bowl eligible).

While the process is somewhat confusing, a league rule should benefit Virginia in the event of a loss against Virginia Tech.

The Chick-fil-A, Gator and Champs Sports bowls must use the final ACC standings as a guiding policy, ensuring a team cannot be skipped over for a team that trails by two or more games in the win column.

Virginia, even with a final mark of 6-2 in the ACC, would be guaranteed of finishing at least two games ahead of Florida State (3-4 ACC), Georgia Tech (3-4), Maryland (2-4), Miami (2-4) and the loser of Saturday’s game between Wake Forest (4-3) and N.C. State (3-3).

Should Wake Forest win, the Demon Deacons would be eligible to play in the Gator Bowl or Champs Sports Bowl. The same could be said for N.C. State should the Wolfpack win Saturday and again Nov. 24 against Maryland.

Steve Hogan, the executive director of Florida Citrus Sports, said representatives for the Champs Sports Bowl would be at the N.C. State-Wake game, but stressed that his organization has tried to attend almost every league game this season.

Virginia, win or lose against Virginia Tech, would remain very appealing for a top-tier bowl such as the Gator or Champs Sports, Hogan predicted.

“There is a lot that plays into it, but I will just say this: Virginia is a nice team,” Hogan said. “They have earned it on the football field. They have won more exciting games at the end than just about anybody in the country.”

The Cavaliers’ 48-0 victory over Miami, a statement win of sorts, was the program’s first win in Florida and turned heads in the Sunshine State.

“They had a great game last week and it seems like they are jelling and coming together at the right time,” Hogan said. “Sitting there at 9-2 overall right now with one game left … 10-2 would be an unbelievable season for them, obviously they would be in the championship game, but even at 9-3 they are a heckuva attractive team.

“You would have to think of a lot of great reasons why they wouldn’t be your team if somebody is sitting there potentially behind him.”

Champs Sports executives also hope that pairing the fourth- or fifth-best Big Ten school against one of the top four ACC schools would create excitement. The Big Ten possibilities include Illinois, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Purdue, although the Boilermakers played in the Champs Sports Bowl last year.

“Those are all great teams, I would think, for Virginia or anybody else to face from the ACC,” Hogan said.

There is also a financial side of the equation for the Chick-Fil-A, Gator and Champs Sports bowls. Executives at those three contests desire a high level of excitement for the contest inside the stadium and on the airwaves.

“Both us, the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the Gator Bowl are investing heavily in the conference. When you are talking about paying two-plus million dollars per team, those are pretty good-sized bowls for the ACC teams to make it to, so you definitely want a team that’s going to support that concept and come out and make a showing,” Hogan said.

“Hopefully, [the Champs Sports Bowl is] a destination that the players would look at and say ‘We feel rewarded to be in Orlando,’ and, hopefully, the fans would follow.”

BOWL-BOUND VIRGINIA
Orange Bowl, Miami

ACC champ vs. BCS team, Jan. 3

Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Atlanta

ACC runner-up vs. SEC Nos. 3-5, Dec. 31

Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Fla.

ACC No. 3 vs. Big East or Big 12, Jan. 1

Champs Sports Bowl, Orlando, Fla.

ACC No. 4 vs. Big Ten Nos. 4-5, Dec. 28

 

UVa preparing for Howard with an eye on Arizona
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
November 14, 2007

An unfortunate ramification of Gardner-Webb’s shocking win over Kentucky are the canned responses you now hear from players across the country whenever they are asked about playing obvious cupcakes.

Check out these quotes from Virginia captains Sean Singletary and Adrian Joseph.

“People are getting upset every day,” said a straight-faced Singletary, when asked about going up against Howard University, “so we’re not taking anyone lightly.”

“I’m taking [games] one at a time,” Joseph said. “Every one is important.”

Singletary and Joseph certainly have the right attitude, but here is the reality: Tonight, Virginia will be facing a Howard squad that went 9-22 last year and is coming off a 70-point loss - yes, 70 points - to Duquesne in its season opener.

If UVa were to lose to Howard, its seven-point win over the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez last season - one of the darker days in the Dave Leitao era - would suddenly seem magical.

Really, this evening’s matchup is a glorified exhibition game - an opportunity for Virginia to do some fine-tuning before a huge road challenge at No. 19 Arizona on Saturday night.

Virginia (1-0) had plenty of bright spots in its 90-72 season-opening win over Vermont on Sunday.

UVa dominated the glass, outrebounding the Catamounts by 21. Joseph and Calvin Baker complemented Singletary on the perimeter nicely. Ryan Pettinella, Lars Mikalauskas and Jerome Meyinsse picked up the slack for the injured Tunji Soroye down low.

However, the performance wasn’t as consistent as it could have been. Virginia let Vermont hang around a little longer than it should have. The Catamounts, who only trailed, 64-54, with 11:53 remaining, shot 41.5 percent from the field. Last year, in ACC play, Virginia’s opponents shot 40.8 percent.

“We’ve got to continue to grow,” said UVa coach Dave Leitao. “I can nitpick enough, particularly in the second half about our lapses, physically and mentally. [It] gives us a lot to continue to work on and improve.”

Against Vermont, Virginia fans didn’t get to see very much of freshmen Sam Zeglinski, Mustapha Farrakhan and Mike Scott. All three should see more playing time this evening in a game that will likely feature - as Marv Albert would say - “extensive garbage time.”

“We want to make statements against teams that don’t have the same talent level as us, and show that we have a lot of guts and a lot of heart to close out games,” Singletary said. “People tend to play down to their competition and we won’t want to do that. We just have to keep ourselves on a pedestal and play with a swagger every night.”

Now that’s more like it. Certainly better than that “one game at a time” stuff.

Dunks

The Cavaliers have won the two previous meetings against Howard. They won, 100-64, in 1993, and 115-66 in 2002. ... Singletary has scored in double figures in 23 straight games, the longest current mark in the ACC. … Due to an off-season reconfiguration, the seating capacity at John Paul Jones Arena is now 14,593. Virginia, which averaged 13,521 last year, drew 11,893 against Vermont.

 

Hoops parity stirs concern for Cavaliers
Leitao cautions U.Va. players not to disregard Howard
Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007 - 12:06 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- With 1:25 to play Monday night, a men's basketball team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference led a perennial ACC power by one point.

Rest assured, University of Virginia coach Dave Leitao will make sure his players know that.

The ACC team in question -- Maryland -- rallied to beat MEAC member Hampton 70-64 in College Park, but the close finish was yet another example of the changing state of college basketball.

"I've had a lot of conversations over the last couple of days with people, talking about that word that'll keep coming up all year long: parity," Leitao said Sunday.

Notable upsets already this month include UNC Greensboro over Georgia Tech, Gardner-Webb over Kentucky and Mercer over Southern California.

"It's going to continue to happen," Leitao said.

The Cavaliers' immediate challenge is to make sure it doesn't happen to them tonight. Another MEAC team, Howard (0-1), is in town to face U.Va. (1-0) at John Paul Jones Arena.

The Bison, however, don't appear nearly as formidable as Hampton. Howard, which went 9-22 in 2006-07, opened Friday with a 129-59 loss at Duquesne.

Virginia's opener went considerably better. Against a tough Vermont team, U.Va. pulled away for a 90-72 win. The Cavaliers shot 54.7 from the floor, held the Catamounts to 41.5-percent accuracy and outrebounded them 46-25. But they also allowed Marqus Blakely, a 6-5 post player, to total 24 points, 10 rebounds, four steals, three assists and two blocked shots.

"We've got to continue to grow," Leitao said. "I can nitpick enough, particularly in the second half, about our lapses, physically and mentally. That gives us a lot to continue to work on as a group."

Most of the opening-day accolades went to senior forward Adrian Joseph, who had 19 points and six rebounds, and sophomore guard Calvin Baker, who, in his U.Va. debut, came off the bench to contribute 11 points and excellent defense. Leitao also liked what he saw from 6-8 junior Laurynas Mikalauskas, who struggled last season.

Mikalauskas, in 19 minutes off the bench, had eight points and four rebounds against Vermont. The Lithuanian suffered a high-ankle sprain on the eve of the 2006-07 season, and then "after that it was one thing after another that kind of got in his way," Leitao said.

"He never caught the rhythm that he ended his first year with. I think he's freer mentally, and he and I are communicating a whole lot better. I think that comes with age as well. I think if we can keep him healthy that he'll continue to progress very positively."

 

Virginia DB speaking softly with big picks
Freshman Ras-I Dowling prefers snagging interceptions over trash-talking.
BY MELINDA WALDROP | 247-4634
6:23 PM EST, November 13, 2007
 

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Cornerbacks tend to be cut from a certain mold -- confident bordering on arrogant, rarely at a loss for words during trash-talking or interviews, loudly convinced they have the skills to play one of the most scrutinized positions in football.

Ras-I Dowling is none of the above. But that's the only indication the kid may be new at this college game.

Dowling, a true freshman who played a year at Hargrave Military Academy out of Deep Creek High School in Chesapeake, has been called upon early and often in his first season at Virginia as injuries have thinned the Cavaliers' cornerback corps. He's responded with two interceptions, seven broken up passes and a forced fumble, and he also has been a big impact player on special teams.

Getting Dowling to talk about himself isn't easy, but others aren't as reticent.

"We saw him in (preseason) camp, and right away you could see that he was one of those young players that the time was right for him," Cavaliers coach Al Groh said. "He fit right in, and (the game) wasn't too big for him right from the outset."

Dowling's talent even turned heads that aren't normally focused on the defensive backfield.

"I don't know anything about coverage, so I just see what goes on," U.Va. senior defensive end Chris Long said. "What anybody can see, even the coverage-illiterate, is he's picking balls off in practice every day. He's around the ball, he's making plays on the ball. That's something you don't have to be an expert to tell he's doing better than most people. He's definitely ahead of the curve. He's a playmaker."

That comes as no surprise to Robert Prunty, Dowling's coach at Hargrave. Watching Dowling play, Prunty thought: "Special. He had it written all over him."

Dowling's size -- 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds -- and the athleticism that allowed him to also excel at basketball and track in high school have no doubt made the college game easier to grasp. Still, not every true freshman can handle taking on a team's best receiver.

That's what Dowling did in Virginia's 29-24 loss at N.C. State on Oct. 27. Dowling had an interception and broke up five passes, but Donald Bowens burned the Virginia secondary for 202 yards, including the winning 30-yard touchdown reception. With Virginia corners Chris Cook (knee) and Mike Parker (ankle) nursing injuries, Bowens and Dowling often dueled one-on-one. Dowling never was beaten outright, but Bowens consistently outleaped him to make acrobatic catches.

Dowling's clipped responses -- "He's a good player" and "I made a lot of bad plays out there" -- after the game reflected his disappointment. But the next week against Wake Forest, he came up with another interception in Virginia's 17-16 win.

"Ras-I makes plays, and he's mentally tough, too," said Prunty, who gives Dowling's parents, who he said attended all of Dowling's games, much of the credit for the player's even-keel demeanor. "... He's not one of those guys that's all about mouth. He's gonna let his play speak for him."

Dowling's 37 tackles, at corner and on kick coverage, are saying plenty to his teammates.

"I played special teams for a whole year and thought I had a pretty good year," junior linebacker Jon Copper said. "I might have had six tackles, and he did that, I think, in the first game he was in on special teams. Every role he's been given this year, he has stepped up and really made a lot of plays that a lot of guys in the past haven't made."

All while keeping his mouth shut.

"(He's) pretty quiet," Groh said. "For a rookie player, that's the way you should be. You learn a lot more by watching and listening than by talking."
 

Losing J.R. , keeping Sean
Since losing J.R. Reynolds to graduation last year, the Cavaliers will have to learn how to fill the gaps and help out returning senior Sean Singletary
Paul Montana, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

In the 2006-07 season, J.R. Reynolds and Sean Singletary accounted for 37.4 of Virginia's 77.0 points per game. As Cavalier fans anticipate the start of this season both with apprehension caused by the loss of Reynolds and excitement at the return of Singletary, here is how the loss of one superstar and the return of another will affect Singletary, Virginia coach Dave Leitao and the rest of the Cavs.

Losing J.R.

Virginia relied on its backcourt duo of Singletary and Reynolds more than any other team in the ACC; even Leitao admitted that Singletary and Reynolds represented all of Virginia's creativity last season.

"Having lost 50 percent of that, the challenge is who is going to step up," Leitao said.

The 18.4 points per game that Reynolds provided is a daunting statistic for Virginia to replace; the big question for Leitao is who other than Singletary can create his own shot. While senior Adrian Joseph and junior Mamadi Diane provided some support last season, scoring a combined 16.8 points per game, most of this production came from open jump shots off penetration from the explosive backcourt. If Singletary remains the only threat to worry about off the dribble this season, defenses will have an easier time rotating to open shooters and will force players like Diane and Joseph to put the ball on the floor. This will be particularly true late in games, when teams will surely adopt a make-somebody-other-than-Singletary-beat-us strategy.

"I think that's the interesting part of the early start of our season will be who will step up into different types of roles in late-game situations," Leitao said. "[Diane and Joseph] come to mind more than the other guys, but I'll give them an opportunity, too."

While many fans think of Reynolds' contribution last season mainly in terms of scoring, Reynolds was also one of the Cavaliers' biggest assets on the defensive end. According to Singletary, Reynolds was Virginia's "best on-the-ball defender," and at 6-foot-2 and 188 pounds, Reynolds was indeed an imposing presence to opposing guards.

"The 18 points-plus per game is enough of a challenge unto itself," Leitao said. "Trying to replace a guy like J.R., who was a trusted defender, who helped other guys out there who weren't defending as well ... quite honestly, I'm not exactly sure that I have that answer yet as to how we're going to replace it."

Another area where Reynolds will be missed is ball-handling. Singletary and Reynolds were by all accounts the primary ball-handlers last season; only rarely, usually in the late stages of games with a lopsided score, were both players sitting on the bench simultaneously. Even with just one of them taking a rest, Virginia struggled at times against pressure, as the defense would force the ball out of Singletary's or Reynolds' hands. With Singletary as the only seasoned ball-handler, Virginia must turn to guards with no game experience in sophomore transfer Calvin Baker and freshmen Jeff Jones, Sammy Zeglinski and Mustapha Farrakhan to share the ball-handling load.

Can Virginia replace the numerous contributions that Reynolds provided? Singletary thinks so.

"J.R. is a big loss," Singletary said. "But I feel as though [with] the young guys we have coming in and the guys we have returning, we have enough firepower to make up for it."

Keeping Sean

"When you have Sean back, especially as a point guard, you always are going to feel comfortable with the ball in his hands at any point," Leitao said.

Leitao's words may as well have come out of the collective mouths of all Virginia hoops fans. Singletary's decision to put his future NBA career on hold for another year brought with it the hope that Virginia can have a repeat of last year's success.

Any casual Virginia fan knows how important Singletary was to the team's rise to the top of the ACC last year; Singletary led the Cavaliers in points per game (19.0), assists per game (4.7) and steals per game (1.19). At 6-foot-9, he even led all returning players on the team in rebounds per game (4.6) -- only 2007 graduate Jason Cain outdid Singletary, with 6.3. He led the team both in the locker room and by example on the court and gained national prominence for his late-game heroics that led to Virginia's come-from-behind victory against Duke.

But what else does Singletary do for Virginia? Leitao made an intriguing comparison.

"I tease him, and tell him that he's more like a free safety then he is a point guard, because those guys like to hit, and they're really aggressive and they just come after you," Leitao said. "That's how I see him other then what we see on the court, as a guy that will go to any length to get the job done."

With Reynolds gone, this mindset will be even more valuable to Virginia this season, as even more pressure rests on Singletary's shoulders to carry the Cavaliers back to the NCAA Tournament. Singletary, however, said he's used to the pressure.

"I don't feel any extra weight, because I played the same role last year," Singletary said. "It's nothing different."

What will be different for Singletary, however, is the added attention from opposing defenses. With no Cavaliers averaging in double figures in points aside from Singletary and Reynolds last year, the defensive strategy against Virginia is clear: Double Singletary early and often, and force the role players to beat you.

Leitao admitted that, even in a close game late in the fourth quarter, Singletary may not be the best option.

Singletary has "got to have the wherewithal, especially when we need a basket, to say, 'You know what, I might not be the best option right now for our team because there's so much attention being paid to me,'" Leitao said. "That adjustment is both physical and mental, and I'm sure he'll do well at it because he's such a good team guy, and he wants to win so much that he's willing to do anything to help the team win."

Regardless of how Singletary's role changes, these words from the mouth of P.A. announcer Ken White at the start of the season were music to the ears of Cavalier fans.

"SEEEEEEEEAN SIIIINGLETAARY!"