OK, just for the record, and to get it out of the way, I don't yet buy into the rumors floating around TheSabre that Al Groh has been or will be bought out. I still think he's on his "on notice" year. Keep in mind: I am a loudmouth with access to a computer, just like 99.9% of the rest of the Internet population, and know shit for a fact. But I just don't get the impression yet that Littlepage would change his mind from what he said a couple weeks ago.
So, last night was the first chance I had to get a firsthand look at the basketball team....at least, as firsthand as a TV screen can be. I saw pretty much what you'd expect to see out of a team whose go-to guy is a freshman and who started two others besides. Let's forget about the final score for a second though, because we're going to have no shortage of those this year, and check out the positives. I saw plenty.
- The team played good defense for the most part. Minnesota got at least the winning margin's worth of points on fast breaks off of turnovers. Halfcourt defense was actually quite good.
- Three-point shooting, from those who are actually supposed to be taking them, was also good. Tucker and Sammy shot well. Baker doesn't have the range and probably shouldn't bother unless he's got plenty of time.
- Zero turnovers for Sylven Landesberg. OK, he had a bad shooting night. Shit happens. This is the guy who's going to have the ball in his hands more than just about anyone. It's a good sign that on a night when the rest of the team greased their hands, SL didn't get that memo and protected the rock.
Unfortunately, we just didn't have an answer for that big galoot Iverson, and Blake Hoffarber made some tough shots. He does that. Moral victories are for crappy teams, but we're kind of a crappy team, and I'll be happy to take solace in the fact that we just went on the road, twice, and played competitive games. We have a break for finals, then three extremely winnable home games before Christmas and the start of the ACC schedule in Atlanta. I'm encouraged by what I saw, and I think we'll see plenty of improvement between now and the end of the year.
OK, the recruiting board, since the Thanksgiving schedule kind of killed the usual weekend review. Now that football season is over, I don't really know whether I'll still be doing that, since I might just stop ignoring weekend news with no football or NASCAR or any of that jazz to watch. Chances are that's pretty much just gonna be a football season feature. But we'll see. Still a newish blog.
- Added QB Tajh Boyd. Boyd didn't decommit, Tennessee dropped him. So now he's out looking again and lists four favorites. Even though we're one of four, I'm keeping him in the red. What with rumors of possible academic struggles and us being directly on the bottom of the list, I don't really like our chances.
- Dropped OT Oday Aboushi and DE DeAntre Rhodes: BC and VT commits respectively.
- Bumped WR Terdema Ussery from blue to red after his last interview mentioned us never. ($) None of his five planned officials were to Charlottesville, and the kid's from Texas so it's not like he can just take a weekend jaunt up here any time he likes.
- Updated DE Will Hill's finalists - we're one of four and the announcement is supposed to be Friday, but I don't really dig our chances much. Just a hunch. So he's still in the yellow.
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