From Old Virginia

tempo-free lacrosse

2012-02-02T16:28:00.000-05:00

If you're a lacrosse fan, or a math fan, or a lacrosse fan who likes math, then here is your post. This is my attempt at mathifying the game. Inspired by Ken Pomeroy's well-known basketball ratings, and a similar tempo-free approach to the game of lacrosse espoused by Great Lax State (a blog about lacrosse in the great state of Michigan), I decided to make an attempt at breaking down college lacrosse in a Pomeroyesque fashion. Let me give you the numbers first so you know what we're building to; the explanation follows. These are from last season.

Lacrosse, like basketball, is at its heart a game of possessions and how well you make use of them. For our purposes here, there is one major difference: in basketball, possessions alternate without exceptions. For every possession by the good guys, there is always a corresponding possession for the bad guys, excepting that you win the opening tip and then have the ball at the end. But it's still a 1-for-1 deal.

In lacrosse, it's 1-for-1 except that scoring and game periods result in a faceoff, not an automatic trade of possession. In basketball, you can count possessions with stats from the boxscore; in lacrosse, I believe we can do the same. A team can begin a possession one of three ways:

- Win a faceoff.
- Gain the ball on the defensive end.
- Gain the ball on the offensive end.

The boxscore gives us faceoff numbers, of course. How do you gain the ball in your offensive end? A successful ride - that is, a failed clear by the opponent. Also in the boxscore. How do you gain the ball in your defensive end? Any number of ways, but they are counted in the boxscore as either clears or failed clears. Thus we have three ways to mark a lacrosse possession, all of which are in a standard boxscore:

- A faceoff win.
- A clearing attempt.
- A failed clear by the opponent.

So a team's total possessions in a game can be determined by adding faceoff wins, clearing attempts, and failed clears by the opponent. Note that we leave ground balls out of it, because ground balls tell us nothing about who lost it in the first place, or where. If you win a ground ball in your defensive end and successfully clear it, that'll show up in the boxscore. If you win a ground ball in your offensive end, but you lost the ball to begin with, then we don't count that as a change of possession. Possession is lost only when the other team clears (or fails to, but they had the ball and the chance to) or at the next faceoff, whether that faceoff was the result of a goal or a new quarter.

Another important difference between lacrosse and basketball is that here, we're marking the beginning of a possession. The way KenPom does it in basketball is to mark the end. For lacrosse, this is a more accurate way to do it.

In totaling up last year's stats, it turns out that almost exactly one-third of possessions start on a faceoff. Tangent: this is why I will, from here on out, bang the drum that faceoff percentage is overrated. A typical game is about 70 possessions. (Let's say 69 for divisibility purposes.) This game would have 23 faceoffs. If you win 56% - an excellent number - that's 13 of 23, and since all other possessions are one-for-one by definition (that is, after a faceoff, teams will trade clears until someone scores or the period ends) you get half of the remaining 46 and 13 of the faceoff 23, for 36. The other team gets 33. Your prowess at the faceoff X gave you just 52% of the possessions. While that can swing the tide in a close game, it's not the end-all, be-all that it's often portrayed as. People freak out about losing too many faceoffs, and it seems logical to do so, but much more important is your clearing game, offense, defense, etc. Does it matter? Absolutely it matters. But only when faceoff percentage gets really large - over 60% or so - does it start to have a major, freakoutable impact.

OK, anyway. Faceoffs are one-third of possessions, and the rest are one-for-one. This is where that difference from basketball comes to get us, because we can't split the possessions evenly; we have to weight them. The final numbers above show how many goals a team would score and give up in a 100-possession game; how do we get there from here? If Team A is expected to score 16 goals in a 100-possession game, where do I get that number?

-- First, we determine how many of those 100 possessions belong to Team A. That's easy. 33 possessions are allocated to faceoffs and 67 are split evenly between Team A and their opponent, Team B. Team A gets 33.5 possessions plus their faceoff percentage times 33. The equation:

33.5 + (FO% * 33)

-- Next, we need to know how many of those possessions made it to the offensive side of the field. You can't score if you don't get into the box. (OK, you can, but we're ignoring acts of God here.) Faceoff wins are assumed to always make it to the offensive side, because the boxscores don't differentiate.

Last season's data shows that of the 67 non-faceoff possessions, 57 start on the defensive end and 10 are the result of a ride. Therefore we give Team A five offensive zone possessions and add them to the possessions given them by faceoffs. Then we look at their clearing percentage. Multiply their clearing percentage by 28.5 (half of 57) and add the result to the above. The resulting equation is:

(FO% * 33) + (CL% * 28.5) + 5

Now in our fictitious 100-possession game, we know how many times Team A had the ball in the offensive zone. In real life, we know how many goals Team A scored (obviously) and we also know how many actual offensive possessions they had, because we can add up their clears, rides, and faceoff wins. Simply dividing goals by offensive possessions gives you a percentage, which, multiplied by the offensive possessions per 100 we just came up with, gives you the team's final O-rating.

And you can repeat the whole process for defense as well. Essentially the D-rating is each team's opponents' O-rating, as if the combined opponents' stats were for one team.

There's your explanation. Let me now try and pre-emptively fend off a few questions:

Why does it say "raw" O-rating (and D-rating) on the header?

Because I don't have a good way of adjusting for strength of schedule. Yet. I do have one way, but it's crude and not fit for public consumption and not even useful til at least three-quarters of the season is over - although it does at least do a better job of putting the best teams at the top.

Why not simply rank the teams by goal percentage and goals-allowed percentage, instead of all that rigamarole about possessions?

That does have its appeal. But it doesn't tell the whole story. By rolling up faceoff percentage and clearing percentage into the statistic, you get a better sense of how dangerous a team really is. Take Yale, a team that was very close to making the tournament last year. They had a very pedestrian, middle-of-the-road goal percentage - 28th. Their phenomenal faceoff percentage makes them much more dangerous than the Marists of the world, though, and they are 13th in this O-rating calculation. Likewise, a very good defensive goals percentage plus that faceoff prowess makes them tough to score on.

What if a team is credited with a clear directly after winning a faceoff? That would skew their possession numbers.

Smarter lax fans than I will have to speak up and say how often that happens, if at all. I don't know. If it doesn't, great; if it does, oh well, the boxscore doesn't make a distinction, and so I have to work with what I got. I thought about that early on but realized, either way, I can't do anything about it. So I stopped giving it any thought.

But if a team's riding ability is really good, shouldn't that give them an offensive advantage, and vice versa if it's poor? Instead of just handing out the same number to everyone to "account" for the ride?

Kind of. I would indeed like to refine this thing a little more to include that. For the sake of accuracy and accountability and waterproofing the formula and all that. But as a rough go, it's pretty close; successful rides aren't all that common to mess with the numbers too much. And the truth is that unless a team really presses (which rarely happens outside of endgame situations when a team is trying to come back) whether or not the ball is cleared has a lot more to do with the clearing team.

Are you going to update this during the season?

No. If you haven't noticed, I'm a damn superstar at promising I will continuously update something and then not doing it. I will do it on my own during the season, use the numbers in previews and analysis and such, and share them at the end of the year, and upon request.

Can't you make this damn thing sortable?

No. I just write. I took one programming class in college and it was the biggest mistake I ever made in those four years. Someone wanna help me out in that department, be my guest.

I have more questions!

Then ask them. Nothing like a little scrutiny to help make these things better.

signstravaganza 2012

2012-02-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

Normally I like to wait til late in the evening for the annual Signstravaganza post, but hell with it; this year's class is drama-free and we're not waiting for anything. (The Stefon Diggs ship has sailed, so don't even get your heart rate up.)

UVA has received 26 letters of intent. OK, 25; being already enrolled, Greyson Lambert doesn't have to sign one. For those who keep track of scholarships, that gives us 88 total committed scholarships for next fall, three over the limit of 85. Take away one because Connor McCartin is going medical next year due to concussions, so, 87. One of the worst-kept secrets in history is that Tyrell Chavis is probably going to have to prep, so make it 86. In other words, normal attrition will get us below the 85 number without much trouble. You probably weren't worried about oversigning anyway, but there you go.

This class had been ranked in every service's top 25, but that was bound to take a hit since we'd wrapped it up and not everyone else had. We were always going to get leapfrogged. Still, even with the NLOID signings going on, UVA doesn't drop far - in most cases, just outside top 25s. 26th to Rivals, 27th to Scout. And still 20th to 24/7. It doesn't have the star power or Signing Day glitz of last year (when we added Darius Jennings and Dominique Terrell on the big day) - and star-wise it falls short of VT's - but it's a solid continuation of last year's efforts.

Time for the positional rundown on this year's class:

QUARTERBACK

In a year in which I wouldn't have been surprised if we didn't take any quarterbacks, we took two. It looks like we're logjamming the position and that taking both Johns and Lambert puts a 2013 quarterback in real jeopardy. Which would be too bad because the instate crop, after being completely barren this year, is huge for the 2013 class. Huge.

But, it's less crammed up than you might think. Mike Rocco is the starter and, barring something unforeseen and highly unfortunate, will be for the next two years. Metheny seems perfectly happy with his role on the team; people tend to assume he will be the next to transfer but he has got Happy Hoo written on his face. Talk about a guy that loves UVA. I don't expect him to transfer, but neither do I expect he'll be seen as an obstacle. Watford is a wild card, of course, and may or may not end up at safety or something. At any rate I don't think this two-man QB class will be a huge impediment to 2013 recruiting. It won't help, but it won't be a decisive factor.

Both of these guys have "prototypical" size, which means they're tall, at best moderately mobile, pocket passers. In terms of the recruiting metrics - stars and offers - Johns has a profile awfully similar to Metheny, while Lambert is the star attraction who was courted by Alabama, Georgia, etc. etc. But Johns had the more productive senior year of high school. Lambert will no doubt continue to be a star attraction this spring, as the new kid on the block in spring practice, but the truth is both are likely to stay in the shadows for a couple years, and compete with each other the whole time. If all goes well, by the time Rocco has graduated as the all-time leading passer in UVA history (don't laugh - he will if he stays on pace) the decision as to who will succeed him will already have been made. This class sets up a stable succession order, a much better state of affairs then yearly camp battles.

RUNNING BACK/FULLBACK

Kye Morgan should be a solid addition, but he's the only one. We could've really used a big bruiser to complement this class. And there aren't any fullbacks or any candidates to move there, meaning that position will have to be filled from within the current roster as we only have Zach Swanson there next year.

WIDE RECEIVER/TIGHT END

A bit unnecessarily in my stupid blogger opinion, London and co. loaded up on the receivers like crazy. We FUMA-shirted Adrian Gamble, and he's joined by no fewer than five other players at this point at receiver. That includes Kyle Dockins, who the school lists as a receiver rather than a tight end. This is the kind of thing that fuels speculation that guys like Anthony Cooper will end up at safety. Since we have zero safeties in this class (as Kevin Green pretty much officially didn't make it and Demeitre Brim is a linebacker) this would seem like it sorta kinda makes sense. Plus, Cooper is listed as "ATH" by the school right now. So.

The biggest catch (you see what I'm doing here?) is Canaan Severin. Cooper is every bit as talented, but like I said: probable future safety. Severin and Cooper are the two guys driving the rankings. Then there's Mario Nixon, one of my favorite recruits just because he got the Hokies' panties all in a twist by flipping allegiances in August. It caused them to say stupid things like "Anyone that breaks a commitment is not someone we want on our team," which means they'll be kicking Darius Redman off the team any day now.

Max Valles will likely join the team as a tight end, replacing Dockins in the pipeline, which is an improvement because Dockins would've had to put on a ton of weight. Valles is much closer to field-ready in that department.

OFFENSIVE LINE

No stars here. But no fliers, either. OK, maybe one, in Canadian FUMA prepper Ryan Doull, but even that isn't like we had to dig real deep. This class is the very definition of solid when it comes to the offensive side of the trenches. And as I've mentioned, VT will have the higher-ranked class when the dust settles today - but they flamed out almost completely on the O-line. If you can't get any major stars (think Eugene Monroe or Morgan Moses when they committed) this kind of class is the ideal O-line group. (And this was a thin year for offensive linemen in the state.) UVA has done a nice job maintaining continuity and a stable succession plan at O-line, and the remarkable thing is it carried over nicely between coaching regimes. This class keeps the conveyor belt humming along.

A short note: four linemen signed LOIs, but there will be a fifth in the class - instate lineman Jackson Matteo committed yesterday as a recruited walk-on. Matteo had committed to a scholarship from Temple over several other MAC offers, but preferred to pay his own way in the ACC.

DEFENSIVE LINE

Here's where to find the star power. Eli Harold is not only the #1 recruit in the state (even Doughty says so) he's the top guy on our list according to everyone you ask. Freakish athletic pass-rushing ability is something we now lack on the current roster, giving Harold a wide open lane to freshman-year playing time. Both he and Michael Moore turned down the lure of Florida and the approximately forty-two hepzillion other offers they had, to play for Virginia, and in Moore's case, Dad. In any other year Courtnye Wynn would be an attention-grabbing pickup, but this year, he gets a tad overshadowed. No matter. UVA's defensive line of the future is scary.

And we shouldn't forget about the fourth D-liner, Tyrell Chavis, who, through family circumstances out of his control, will need a FUMA-shirt year before he's eligible. Not only has he got a great shot to be a starter at nose tackle in the future, he's helping keep a Varina pipeline open to UVA - a happy hunting ground for sure.

LINEBACKER

The big deal here, of course, is Kwontie Moore. Moore is one of the top three recruits in this class, and if all goes well during his career, he'll give us the kind of range at inside linebacker that we haven't had in a while. Guys like Steve Greer and Jon Copper are/were strong, powerful, and heady players, but they never had the side-to-side abilities that Moore should possess.

The other two linebackers are intriguing and two of the more interesting stories of the recruiting season. Mark Hall was the first commit of the class, and he comes from a UVA family; his younger brother Devon is said to be an even better basketball player than Mark is a footballer, and will likely give his commitment to Tony Bennett eventually. Demeitre Brim was another very early commit, sold on the school and coaches by Kwontie Moore (who wasn't even committed yet.) He gave his verbal before even visiting, and for a while was a target of a great host of other schools attempting to pry him free. It didn't work. UVA got in the door early on a fairly big-time Florida prospect here and slammed it shut before the big-timey-ness really got out to the world.

DEFENSIVE BACK

There isn't the star power here, but there's certainly quantity. The best-known name to UVA fans is Maurice Canady, who isn't a guarantee to land at cornerback anyway. Canady was a camp commit and not generating much attention otherwise, until a senior season where he was forced into quarterback duty for Varina and left cleat marks on everyone unfortunate enough to have to try and stop him. After a rocky first outing, he dominated.

But as a cornerback, he's as much a square-one guy as the rest of this class. C.J. Moore is fast (insanely fast) but small. Kelvin Rainey is the purest cornerback in the class, but he comes from Houston so he hasn't generated much buzz, and he didn't get much of a sniff from instate schools above C-USA level. This group is essentially a big blender, from which a couple of these guys will emerge as players and a couple will not.

KICKER/PUNTER

No scholarship guys, but some recruited walk-ons who'll join other recruited walk-ons in a wide-open, no-holds-barred, celebrity deathmatch for the starting jobs in the fall, at which point we'll all hold our breath the first time the winner trots out to try a field goal because there's nothing worse than breaking in a new kicker. This is not as much fun as when we yoinked Jimmy Howell from Northwestern.

***********************************************

OK, so, let's get to the lists:

Top five stories of the 2012 recruiting season:

1. UVA flips Mario Nixon to complete the Norfolk Christian quadfecta, along with Wil Wahee, Courtnye Wynn, and Kwontie Moore. Nixon, at the behest of his NCS teammates, visited a UVA fall practice while still technically a VT verbal, causing the Tech contingent to huff about broken promises and such. If you believe Hokie fans, their coaches are petty enough to pull his offer for that; regardless, it made waves for a couple days.

2. UVA fans hold their breath as Michael Moore, in trying to decide between Florida and Virginia, schedules a trip to Gainesville, reschedules at Will Muschamp's suggestion due to the latter's absence, takes the trip, and chooses Virginia anyway.

3. Greyson Lambert commits after Mike London demonstrates what a coach should do in the event of his absence during a prospect's visit: make a personalized video for him to watch. Lambert was so impressed he and his dad asked to watch it a second time so they could record it on their phones and show Mom.

4. Demeitre Brim makes a surprise early commitment, and UVA fends off a number of other suitors over the summer, including Miami and Wisconsin.

5. Eli Harold, whose mother passed away from cancer a couple years ago, chooses her birthday to announce his choice of UVA (over Penn State and Florida), and immediately becomes Virginia's recruiter-in-chief among prospects, much as Clifton Richardson was in 2011.

Five most likely to play as true freshmen:

1. Eli Harold
2. Canaan Severin
3. Maurice Canady
4. Demeitre Brim
5. Michael Moore

This is in order, by the way. Harold is the top choice because he checks off all the boxes: he's got the athleticism and the talent, and he fills a need. Severin doesn't quite fill a need, but he does fill a niche - he's a likely candidate to jump right in as a possession receiver, with Matt Snyder and Kris Burd graduating. When Snyder went down with a broken foot, he was simply replaced with more of Burd, which indicates that nobody on the roster was available and/or ready to fill that possession role. Severin might.

Canady is the latest exhibit in the assertion that Virginia fans get way too excited about instate talent that dazzles in high school. Still, dazzle he did, and if he's got half the athleticism of the hype, he'll make a great special-teamer as a freshman, and make a push to get on the field as a nickel corner, too. London has made passing references to the idea that Ausar Walcott might have outgrown linebacker (I still think this is a motivational tactic, but still.) If that's the case then we need a new Will. Caleb Taylor is the current backup, but Brim could find his way into a role there. And Moore is simply a big guy with the kind of talent you can't ignore. Eventually I think he settles into a role at tackle instead of end, but even with a stacked lineup at D-line, he's got the ability to carve out a role for himself.

All that said, we played quite a few true freshmen at various places last year; this season, there'll be a lot more redshirting going on.

Five I'm most excited about:

1. Eli Harold
2. Kwontie Moore
3. Michael Moore
4. Greyson Lambert
5. Canaan Severin

Defense, defense, defense. My favorite thing in football to watch is an unstoppable running back; we don't have that, but we do have my second-favorite thing: a stacked defensive line. All of these guys had offers from the kind of schools that people don't expect UVA to beat out for talent.

Five sleepers:

1. Demeitre Brim
2. Mark Hall
3. Ryan Doull
4. Maurice Canady
5. Kye Morgan

Inclusion on this list requires two things: you must have been given the two-star of doom by at least one recruiting service, and I must think something about your game is well above two-star. This year we had a lot of choices, because there was a lot of disagreement among the services who our two-stars were. Only one got two stars from everyone. These are my top five "two-stars," but the truth is that all of them had three-star ratings from at least two services.

Hell, Brim was thisclose to being a four-star at both Rivals and ESPN. But Scout left him at two. That plus the fervor at which other schools tried to convert him makes him sleeper #1. Hall is a mid-to-high three-star to everyone but ESPN, and I think because he committed so early, he's the #1 most-overlooked recruit by UVA fans. Doull got his two-star from Scout, but he's a 300-pound guy with a lacrosse/hockey background. ESPN says strength and run-blocking are his positives, and this is a guy who supposedly runs a 5.0 forty (per Rivals.) I'd be skeptical of that time, but "nimble feet" are always mentioned in his scouting reports no matter who's writing them. I'll take it.

Canady, we've discussed in some detail already, but still got three stars from just two services. And one was a late-season adjustment. Morgan got a baffling two stars from ESPN, which is disappointing considering his offer list. The funny thing is that Morgan was a heavy Rutgers lean until Rutgers informed him his spot was taken, and by a guy with almost universally lower ratings and no offers but the Rutgers one. (And now the one coach that wanted him is employed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.) Thanks, Rutgers.

Eat it, Tech:

Eli Harold
Andre Miles-Redmond
Courtnye Wynn
Kwontie Moore
Mario Nixon

The guys with Tech offers. The list the other way round is much bigger, though.

Eat it, Terps:

Eli Harold

The surprisngly teeny-weeny list of guys with Maryland offers. No, the list the other way round is not any bigger, comprising just two players: Wes Brown and P.J. Gallo, the latter of which I've never heard of. There are other players we both offered, of course, who went to other schools, but this is a shockingly tiny overlap all the same. How, for example, did Michael Moore not have a Maryland offer? Do you suppose things like that are why Terp fans are so pissed at Randy Edsall?

Eat it, Carolina:

Eli Harold
Kwontie Moore
Michael Moore

Dude even had a Carolina offer. We didn't succeed in pulling anyone out of North Carolina this year. This is a 3-to-3 tie, with Carolina getting three guys with a UVA offer, although none of them are on this level. But they can probably claim victories in the real head-to-head showdowns, earning commitments from both Jon Heck and Nathan Staub, both of whom we recruited fairly hard.

The ones that got away:

Stefon Diggs (undeclared)
Alex Carter (Stanford)
DeVante Harris (Texas A&M)
J.C. Coleman (Tech)
Win Homer (Boston College)
Trey Edmunds (Tech)
Adam Bisnowaty (Pittsburgh)
Imani Cross (Nebraska)
Brent Wilkerson (Penn State)
Chris Mangus (Tech)
Nathan Staub (North Carolina)
C.J. Prosise (Notre Dame)

These are the biggest misses of the class. All of them are players we had a legitimate, real shot at, and would still fill a real need even today. I didn't include, for example, Nigel Williams (because we have Courtnye Wynn, who's a very similar player) or Brendan Nosovitch (because we ended up just fine at quarterback) or Eddie Goldman, with whom our chances were always tenuous at their very best. Guys like Staub or Cross would've filled a real role that's more or less missing in this class. Same for Prosise or Carter, as talented safeties.

***********************************************

You asked for it last year and I didn't have it, so here it is this year: the original recruiting board, from back when I first posted it. As you'll notice, not a lot of overlap between this and the final result. 2012 was definitely the year of the surprise, with UVA getting a lot of commitments (Brim, Hall, Dockins, Brown, etc.) before anyone had even had a chance to hear of the name.

There you are. The final, updated product is available at the link on the side, and if you're curious about the final straggler names on there, their fates are as follows:

- Imani Cross to Nebraska
- Korren Kirven to Alabama
- Stefon Diggs hasn't decided yet.
- Mike Tyson..... poor, idealistic (or lazy) Mike Tyson. He had offers from PSU, UVA, and VT this summer, but either he didn't want to be bothered with the process at the time or just procrastinated, and all those doors closed. Tyson missed the bus. He talked, at the time, of wanting to focus on other things besides recruiting, not a totally unreasonable thing for a high school rising senior to say, but unfortunately not the way things work these days. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

If you click over to the board, I'd like to finish this up by drawing your attention to one thing. Something I've been noticing since around the beginning of the season in September, but that I didn't want to mention for fear of jinxing it. Previous final editions of the recruiting board have had a maroon section at the bottom; this one is conspicuously missing it. This is not as high-powered a class as 2011, and Tech can claim victory in this year's recruiting wars - in fact it took one of their best classes in quite a while to do it. But London and Co. can claim a major victory in keeping that maroon section completely off this year's board.

Who gets slotted into the maroon? Decommitments.

game preview: Clemson

2012-01-31T16:45:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Tuesday, January 31; 7:00

TV: ESPN2

Record against the Tigers: 67-50

Last matchup: UVA 49, Clemson 47; 2/2/11; Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 61, NCSt. 60 (1/28); Clemson 71, WF 60 (1/28)

Opposing blogs: Shakin' the Southland

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.1 (#340)
CU: 64.9 (#254)

Offense:
UVA: 104.9 (#99)
CU: 100.7 (#165)

Defense:
UVA: 84.7 (#4)
CU: 93.3 (#52)

Pythag:
UVA: .8992 (#17)
CU: .6862 (#101)

Common opponents:

Winthrop: UVA won 69-48; Clemson won 60-40
Boston College: UVA won 66-49; Clemson lost 59-57
Duke: UVA lost 61-58; Clemson lost 73-66
Miami: UVA won 52-51; Clemson lost 76-73
Georgia Tech: UVA won 70-38; Clemson won 64-62

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (6.1 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.1 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.3 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.7 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.6 apg)
F: Akil Mitchell (3.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 0.8 apg)

Clemson:

PG: Andre Young (13.9 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Tanner Smith (11.1 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 4.1 apg)
G: T.J. Sapp (4.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 0.8 apg)
SF: Bryan Narcisse (3.1 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 0.5 apg)
PF: Devin Booker (10.7 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 1.2 apg)

Last year, UVA beat Clemson by two in a game so ugly I felt it necessary to apologize to the ghost of Naismith. Our defense held Clemson to 13 points in the first half, and then hung on for dear life in giving up 34 in the second. But the glacial pace that UVA favors is fine by Clemson, which exists in a group of three other ACC teams vying for the title of second-slowest in the conference. Those other two: VT and Miami. Recall the scores of this year's games against those two teams, and suddenly another 49-47 affair seems not just possible, but likely.

Clemson will go into this game without starting power forward Milton Jennings, suspended yesterday for academic suckitude. This throws an ever-shifting lineup into further disarray; Clemson has started eight different players this year and only two have started every game. Brad Brownell has continued to tweak through the ACC season.

Conventional wisdom would say that this is naturally a really bad development for a team already struggling to find an identity, and not a very good team at that, with losses to Boston College, Hawaii, and three mediocre-to-poor instate schools. (And somehow they beat Florida State by 20. Go figure.) The closest player they have, size-wise, to Jennings is freshman Bernard Sullivan, who doesn't get much burn at all. So it will be interesting to see whether they go big or small to adjust the rotation. But I'm not convinced this isn't a case of addition by subtraction when all's said and done.

-- UVA on offense

This is where Clemson will probably miss Jennings. Percentage-wise, he's the team's best rebounder and second-best shot-blocker. Clemson has nobody as athletic as him to fill his spot. However, they could probably make up for it by filling his minutes with 7'2" center Catalin Baciu. Baciu is a senior who's frustrated Clemson fans by not living up to a lot of potential, but UVA would have no similarly-sized player and Baciu would be, at worst, a shot-blocking threat in the paint.

There's no doubt that defense is the strength of the Clemson team. Even with a slightly poor showing against three-pointers (35.7% allowed) and an unlucky 70% free-throw shooting percentage by their opponents, Clemson has one of the better defenses in the country - just outside KenPom's top 50. That's how you go from losing to Hawaii and Coastal Carolina to beating FSU by 20.

And even without Jennings, the Clemson guards are dangerous. Their starters could not be more different in size - point guard Andre Young is 5'9" and shooting guard Tanner Smith is 6'5" - but both are equally tough, averaging nearly two steals per game apiece. Given the Clemson pace, a solid number. If Clemson goes small, Smith will certainly cross over and guard Joe Harris and let T.J. Sapp (or Rod Hall) take Sammy Zeglinski. The awesomely-goggled Bryan Narcisse plays bigger than his 6'6", but he's too slow to check Harris on the perimeter. If Clemson goes big and starts Baciu, then Narcisse will probably draw Harris, which is why the lineup above doesn't include Baciu.

As for who will guard Mike Scott, it will probably be Devin Booker regardless of starting lineup. The advantage of starting Baciu is that it would provide a good hedge against the dangers of letting Scott work one-on-one, but Booker is solidly built and will at least occasionally be able to get the better of Scott. Occasionally, I said.

Clemson presents a challenge here, because they're not on their third game in six days and their defense is generally good. But the loss of Jennings means there will almost always be an exploitable mismatch somewhere. If tired legs don't affect the shooting and the driving, UVA could hit 65 points, which would be quite a milestone in what's likely to not be a 60-possession game.

-- UVA on defense

This is the part where Clemson won't miss Jennings. I mean this emphatically. Despite having played just 60% of Clemson's minutes, Jennings was their highest-usage player and carried a pathetically dismal O-rating of 85.3. He shouldn't have been hoisting threes, but he occasionally did; he couldn't shoot free throws; and he was a turnover machine.

The Tigers' offense will now run almost exclusively through three people: Smith, Young, and Booker. All are quality players. Young has an exceptional O-rating of 122.1, thanks in large part to a very good A/T ratio of almost 3-to-1 and a near-perfect FT%. Both Young and Smith are good, if not amazing, three-point shooters at about 36% each. And unlike your stereotypical 6'5" white guy shooting guard, Smith is a very good creater as well, with 4.1 assists per game and a 27.5% assist percentage (again, for the uninitiated, it means that 27.5% of the shots Clemson makes with Smith on the floor are assisted by him.) These numbers are better even than point guard Young, though Young is better at taking care of the ball. (In fact, Young is outstanding in this regard.)

When the ball goes inside, Booker is the guy who'll get it. His shooting percentage is low for a forward, but the truth is Booker typically plays center and has to go against players much taller than he is. Nobody else is a major threat, unless they start using the Romanian tree, Baciu, who might give us fits considering we don't have anyone that tall. But essentially, the loss of Jennings means a lot more shots for the much more capable top three, and that's probably addition by subtraction.

That said, Clemson doesn't have anyone unstoppable. Not by any stretch. Young, Smith, and Booker are good players, but they'd be better if there was a real go-to guy who could take the emphasis off of them. At any given time, Clemson will have at least two guys on the court who simply aren't a major threat. Those guys will knock down a shot here and there, but the reason Clemson isn't going to even sniff the tournament bubble this year is because, in the end, they just don't have the horses. It wouldn't surprise at all to hold yet another team under 50 points here.

-- Outlook

I'll keep this simple: Clemson is the second-worst team left on the schedule, ahead of only Wake Forest, and the only thing making me nervous about this game is the three-games-in-six-days thing. In other words, fatigue is our worst enemy. But that's the midwinter grind and it's a fact of life in basketball. Gotta get over it.

-- Final score: UVA 61, Clemson 48

untracked is not a word

2012-01-30T20:07:00.002-05:00

However, announcers would be using it right now to describe the state of affairs of UVA basketball, and the next time I see one (which will be the first) I'm gonna ask how they'd like to ride a train that got untracked.

Regardless, we know what they mean: things are going the way you want them to. I do not subscribe to the theory that the Boston College game "was closer than the final score." You may describe a game like that if it's close at the end and then we hit a whole bunch of free throws brought on by clock-stopping fouls. When you go on a 22-5 run to seal it up and it's five instead of three only because BC hit a meaningless jumper over our five-foot-something walk-on, it's perfectly fair to accept the final score as a proper one. Yes, the game was close three-quarters of the way. But look at it like this: if we'd started the game with a 22-5 run and then the last 30 minutes were dead even, the story would be how UVA "coasted" to an easy win that was never in doubt. Good teams blow up on bad ones, that's how things go.

That run was essentially the difference between Brick Sammy and Splash Sammy. That's the Z Factor. UVA could never have played the NC State game at the relatively frenetic early pace* and actually been in the lead at halftime without Sammy hitting threes. Likewise, the whole floor opened up against Boston College once Sammy knocked one down. Suddenly a whole galaxy of offensive options are open to us. This team is Sweet-16 capable when Sammy Zeglinski hits his jump shots, because he's the guy opponents don't game-plan for.

We're now in the middle of a stretch, starting with the BC game, where we alternate a theoretically easy game with a theoretically difficult one. So winning the difficult ones are a big deal. NC State is a difficult one, and you have to be encouraged by a game on the road where:

-- our second-biggest strength - defensive rebounding - wasn't working at all,
-- putting two and two together (the crowd not sounding frighteningly loud on TV plus Tony Bennett's description of the atmosphere as "festive") we come up with the extreme likelihood that our guys were hearing a lot of, um, interesting language from the student section,
-- an intelligent guy like Akil Mitchell calls the State players "borderline dirty" and says it in such a way that he knows he might get in trouble for saying it and doesn't care**

and yet we come out ahead. Don't care if it makes my heart bruise my ribs from the inside. Have some beer and settle down in there. It doesn't get any easier on the road, with the next two trips being to Tallahassee and Chapel Hill, so I'll take 'em where I can get 'em. Before the conference schedule began, you remember, I split the season's games up into two halves, one of mostly foregone conclusions and the other where the year would be maked or breaked. The "foregone" half has gone as assumed, and we're 2-1 in the important half. That means: go 3-2 in the rest of the important half and we're right where we want to be.

We'll finish today's basketball discussion with a little exercise. You're a basketball coach and your team is down by 1 with eight seconds to go and you have the ball. Who would you least rather be facing? Yeah, ditto.

*at one point in the first half the announcers made note of NC State playing a zone defense and suggested they were doing it "to slow Virginia down." I'll take "wacky basketball" for $400, Alex. "This school has the politest student section in the ACC." "What is Maryland?" Correct!

**and still NC State fans are whining about the refs. They let you take five steps with the ball while trying to inbound it. 99.9% of referees call that traveling, because they know what the rule book says. Then again, Roger Ayers is the same highly observant rocket scientist that let Louisiana-Lafayette put six guys on the court on the game-winning play. So.

***********************************************

- In a rare moment of candidness about his lineups, Brian O'Connor told Jeff White about this season's starting rotation, among other lineup revelations. It comes down to three righties (Branden Kline, Whit Mayberry, and juco addition Joel Effertz) and two lefties (Kyle Crockett and Scott Silverstein.) Kline and Crockett are locks. That's Friday-Saturday right there. If I were guessing right now I'd give Mayberry the solid edge for Sunday. BOC has talked in the past about being happy to see Mayberry taking no prisoners in attacking the plate, which is the BOC/Karl Kuhn way. Nibbling gets you banished to batting practice pitcher. Mayberry does a good job of attacking even without ideal stuff.

I would guess Effertz will land the weekday starter spot. If Silverstein starts, it leaves us without any remotely proven lefty bullpen options. (These coaches are not actually the type to obsess over lefty-righty matchups, though.) Effertz, by the way, comes from the same juco that sent us Cody Winiarski, and spent a year at Arizona before that.

By the way, I can't wait to see if Keith Werman gets any time behind the plate this year. Cue jokes about the equipment size and the idea that it's a strike if he can reach it. Humor aside, the Werm is the consummate ballplayer; really, if I told you that a random surprising position player was pulled in for some catcher duty this fall and is now listed as one on the roster, he's one of the least surprising choices. He could play first base or pitch an inning and I wouldn't bat an eye.

-- The TV schedule for the lacrosse season came out last week, and it's the same as last year with two additions: Stony Brook and Penn both on ESPN3. (Last year, Stony Brook wasn't on TV at all and Penn was on the UVA video service, which I sure hope returns this spring.) Otherwise all the usual suspects - three ACC games plus all the marquee matchups. This is what is known as a step in the right direction. I don't necessarily care for the TV-driven expansion of the ACC to 14 teams, but I can more than put up with it if it means eventually 100% of UVA lacrosse will be in front of my eyes. Add that to the seven televised baseball games (plus the ACC tournament) and you have the makings of a quality spring.

Speaking of lacrosse, on Thursday I plan to unveil a KenPom-esque math system for evaluating the college lax teams. Like KenPom's system for basketball, it is intended to be a tempo-free way of determining the quality of offense and defense each team plays. Should be fun if you're a math nerd.

-- BC Interruption had an interesting discussion on the future of the ACC basketball schedule, which will almost certainly be 18 games. The question on the table was: what to do about the permanent rotation buddies? Currently UVA plays two games every year against VT and Maryland, which is how it ought to be; you can see the rest of the pairings at BCI. The ACC will discuss going to one permanent buddy (which would certainly pair us with VT) but more likely will go to three. In BCI's world, we get Syracuse added to the rotation. I wouldn't exactly be fired up about adding that awesome of a team to the schedule as a guaranteed twice-a-year thing, but then I can understand wanting to make sure the schedule was nice and tough for maximum SOS purposes. But if you buy the north-middle-south alignment they have (which makes a lot of sense), then the only options to add are BC or the two Big East newcomers. So.

-- Did I miss something? It wouldn't be the first time. Regardless, here is Oday Aboushi on crutches. I don't know how old the picture is or what - it was tweeted a couple hours ago by Connor McCartin - or if it's an injury that'll last through the spring or anything at all really, but there it is. If running around in circles and waving your hands in the air is your thing (and let's face it we're UVA football fans so whose thing is that not?) then you are hereby licensed for twenty seconds of that.

-- In the "it's pronounced Jop" department, here is a free throw shot by the erstwhile UVA recruit. Even Mason Plumlee thinks that's shitty. The best part is he still got the customary high fives from teammates.

game preview: NC State

2012-01-27T17:56:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Saturday, January 28; 8:00

TV: ESPN2

Record against the Pack: 57-80

Last matchup: UVA 69, NCSt. 58; 3/1/11; Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 66, BC 49 (1/26); UNC 74, NCSt. 55 (1/26)

Opposing blogs: Riddick & Reynolds, State Fans Nation, Backing the Pack

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.2 (#340)
NCSt.: 69.5 (#50)

Offense:
UVA: 104.7 (#101)
NCSt.: 109.6 (#51)

Defense:
UVA: 84.5 (#4)
NCSt.: 96.2 (#94)

Pythagorean win%:
UVA: .9002 (#20)
NCSt.: .7913 (#58)

Common opponents:

Georgia Tech: UVA won, 70-38; NCSt. lost, 82-71
Boston College: UVA won, 66-49; NCSt. won, 76-62
Miami: UVA won, 52-51; NCSt. won, 78-73

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (6.1 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 3.6 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (8.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.3 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.6 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 1.6 apg)
F: Akil Mitchell (3.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 0.8 apg)

North Carolina State:

PG: Lorenzo Brown (12.2 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 6.9 apg)
SG: C.J. Williams (11.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.1 apg)
SF: Scott Wood (13.2 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: C.J. Leslie (12.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.2 apg)
F: Richard Howell (11.7 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 1.2 apg)

I want you all to know how lucky you've been this month, and will continue to be. Every minute spent writing and blogging and such is a minute not spent playing Skyward Sword. This is the kind of sacrifice I make for my readers. It is not a trifling one. You're welcome.

-- UVA on offense

If you watched last night's game, then you're now well-educated on what needs to happen for UVA's offense to get rolling: Sammy Zeglinski hitting shots. The difference between Brick Sammy and Splash Sammy is the difference between playing Boston College tight and being unable to shake free, and rolling them with extreme prejudice on a 22-5 run. It matters little what type of defense other teams run, they will alter it to make sure Mike Scott is double and triple(!!)-teamed when he touches the ball. (And he scores on triple teams, sometimes.)

NC State's defense is decent but not outstanding, their numbers hurt by a susceptibility to three-pointers. You know the story there: it doesn't do any good if you can't hit the open ones. C.J. Leslie has a seven-foot-plus wingspan and thus is likely to draw the primary Mike Scott assignment, but he'll likely have help. Leslie is a very good shotblocker; Jontel Evans has wisely taken to driving the lane more often lately, so he'll have to keep a weather eye for Leslie's presence. He'd be well-advised to look for a drive-and-dish if Leslie is in his way. Additionally, point guard Lorenzo Brown averages two steals a game, something else Evans and whoever is running the point will have to be careful of.

Brown is a big guy for a point guard at 6'5", and the weird thing about the Pack lineup is that he's the smallest guy they run. (He's also skinny - 186 pounds.) Everyone in that starting lineup is between 6'5" and 6'8". NC State's seven-man rotation also includes 6'9" DeShawn Painter and finally, 5'10" Alex Johnson, the only size outlier. That kind of size could give Evans and Sammy some problems, and Malcolm Brogdon could see extra time. On the flip side, there aren't any trees down low (other than perhaps the long-armed Leslie) and UVA should be able to find operating room in the frontcourt.

Regardless, though, it comes down to shooting. Are we in a slump? The perception is yes. And that's the worst thing to try and analyze because nothing matters unless you can reliably hit a jump shot. If the other team thinks you can't, and you don't, then matchups and everything else go out the window. Winning this game would be a great way for everyone to forget there was ever a shooting issue.

-- UVA on defense

Schematically, this is an interesting match. Mark Gottfried runs an offense that likes to back-door cut and plays at a high tempo. UVA wants to slow down (duh) and probably doesn't mind if you back-door cut because that kind of thing relies on the defense being overaggressive on the edges. UVA's defenders are happy to let you run around on the edges and are already there when you open the back door.

Lorenzo Brown is adept at running the show, with an A/T ratio of better than 2/1 and a whopping 37.5% assist rate. (Meaning that three out of baskets scored while he's on the floor are assisted by him.) That rate is pretty consistent with a guy who's tossing backdoor passes for easy layups. Everyone gets in on the act - all five starters average between 11.5 and 13.5 points a game.

When NC State doesn't get the ball down low, they look for Scott Wood on the perimeter. 74% of his shots are three-point shots - higher, even, than Sammy's rate. And he's hitting better than 44%. That will be Joe Harris's assignment, and it's a tough one - Harris must do it without fouling, because Wood is a perfect 48-of-48 shooting free throws. Except for C.J. Leslie, nobody in the Wolfies' seven-man rotation is worse than a 70% free-throw shooter.

Oh - and NC State also happens to be an excellent offensive-rebounding team. About the only thing they don't do well is get to the line, and they can be a little cavalier with the ball - the Pack are slightly below average nationally in both categories. But this is a tough matchup in general - a good test for our defense. Their well-roundedness is a strength - anyone in the starting lineup can hurt you, and what they do well, they do very well. In UVA's favor is the scheme matchup and the fact that NC State isn't deep; once they start substituting past the top six, they're taking offense off the floor.

-- Outlook

All of that, plus the fact that this is on the road, plus the Wolfies' good win-loss record, would tend to make this one of our tougher matchups. To ease your mind some, double-check their resume. They haven't done all that well when faced with quality competition - the best game they got is a win over 13-7 Texas. They're 4-2 in the ACC, but they ought to be 5-1; losing to GT is a bad sign. The Hoos are going into a tough atmosphere, but they've proven the road doesn't faze** them. Expect a really close one. Our record streak is likely to be broken, but, ever the optimist, it's time for another winning streak.

-- Final score: UVA 65, NC State 62

**If I make no other mark on humanity through this little blog of mine, I at least will make sure everyone remembers not to write "phase" when they mean "faze." TWO DIFFERENT WORDS DAMMIT

game preview: Boston College

2012-01-26T17:18:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Thursday, January 26; 9:00

TV: ESPNUVA

Record against the Eagles: 7-6

Last matchup: BC 63, UVA 44; 2/26/11; Charlottesville

Last game: VT 47, UVA 45 (1/22); Wake 71, BC 56 (1/21)

Opposing blogs: BC Interruption

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.2 (#339)
BC: 66.3 (#199)

Offense:
UVA: 104.8 (#95)
BC: 91.8 (#292)

Defense:
UVA: 84.1 (#4)
BC: 101.4 (#185)

Pythagorean win%:
UVA: .9046 (#16)
BC: .2655 (#262)

Common opponents:

Virginia Tech: UVA lost, 47-45; BC won, 61-59

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (5.9 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.5 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.6 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 1.6 apg)
F: Akil Mitchell (3.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 0.7 apg)

Boston College:

PG: Jordan Daniels (5.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 2.3 apg)
SG: Matt Humphrey (9.6 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.3 apg)
G: Lonnie Jackson (7.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.6 apg)
F: Ryan Anderson (9.6 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 1.0 apg)
C: Dennis Clifford (9.8 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 1.1 apg)

Another stretch begins today of many games in little time, and this one's an even crunchier stretch with a game tonight, Saturday evening, and then Tuesday evening. Three in six days. A fine time to be missing our center with a broken foot, and, potentially, our #2 scorer with the flu.

Hopefully, BC is the cure to what ails ya. One of the worst BCS-conference basketball teams in the whole country visits the JPJA tonight, so despite the depth issues and the injuries and all, UVA has to get a win - an easy one - or else face a bottomless well of doubts about the season's direction. Right now the Hoos are getting a favorable narrative from the media - despite an ugly loss on Sunday, the line about UVA in Yahoo's bracketology is one about how our losses are only by a combined eight points. UVA might not be in any bracket projections if they can't shake the shooting problems from Sunday and dispatch a terrible team with prejudice.

-- UVA on offense

Usually when I'm trying to find out how to beat a team, one thing I typically do is check out their losses and see if there's a pattern in how other teams did it. With BC it's the other way around: how on earth did anyone lose to them? The answer generally lies in their defense. BC's offense would be below-average in at least 30 of 34 conferences, but their defense - while not ACC-level - has its moments.

BC will have the luxury, at least at first, of attempting to guard Mike Scott with one guy, because Assane Sene's absence means 7-footer Dennis Clifford can shadow Scott. Scott's favorite move, the Sheed Wallace turnaround jumped, probably won't make it to the basket against a seven-foot defender, so we'll have to hope Scott can bang him around in the post.

On the perimeter, however, BC can be worked on. Actually, their three-point defense is just to the good side of average, but it's the steals - or complete lack thereof - that I like. They hardly get any. Georgia Tech was another team I pointed this out about, and it played into our hands nicely as the Hoos only had eight turnovers. BC is even worse, ranking 324th in the country at steals percentage. Point guard Jordan Daniels is a midget at 5'8", 153, a good sign as our point guards typically are bothered more by size than by quickness. This'd be a good game to give Malcolm Brogdon minutes at the point and force one of BC's bigger guards to defend him out there; in fact if I were Bennett I'd start the game that way just to mess with Steve Donahue and see what he does to counter.

Big-picture-wise, BC's defense has actually been improving (somewhat), so it'd be a mistake to judge it by the early-season games. In ACC play they've allowed just fewer than a point a possession, which is actually better than their performance early on against the likes of Holy Cross and Rhode Island. (Of course, the Hokies didn't have Erick Green when they played BC.) Donahue likes to mix a little zone defense in now and again, even including a 1-3-1 sometimes. Given the way UVA has been shooting threes of late, I wouldn't be surprised to see an early dose of the 2-3, to force the Hoos to find their range.

-- UVA on defense

Freshmen are stuffed into every nook and corner of the BC basketball program, and Donahue needed years at Cornell before his offense caught on and started really producing, so it's little wonder that the Eagles are so bad at it. Not one player has a double-digit scoring average; not one player has an O-rating of over 100. (Though the former is slightly unfair, as there are four players less than half a point away from 10.)

The most dangerous player will probably be Dennis Clifford. I would say Lonnie Jackson, because he's got the team's best O-rating at 98.2 and is the only consistent three-point shooter, but Clifford presents a matchup problem because he's seven feet and heavily involved in the offense, and of course, no Sene.

Still, this end of the floor is major strength against major weakness. Whether by design, incompetence, or both, BC is a terrible offensive rebounding team, and you know by now that the Hoos are an elite one on the defensive glass. BC's offensive rebounding is just 23%, which ranks 342nd of 345 D-I teams. (Even Tony Bennett's get-the-hell-away-from-the-rebound-and-play-some-damn-defense style has resulted in a slightly better than average rebounding percentage on offense.) Not only that, but I look forward to unleashing Jontel Evans. The Eagles have two options at point guard: the aforementioned midget, or Gabe Moton and his astronomical 30% turnover rate. Evans is bigger than Daniels (who is a freshman besides) and probably just as quick, and he should be able to harass either one of these guys til they hop the train to Turnover City.

BC's well-roundedness is a strength, but if everything is playing out as it should, UVA has a comfort level and plenty of experience in playing a truly nasty, odious defense to try and score on. That bodes very ill for an extremely green, freshman-laden team trying to run a complex offense on the road. The 1-2 record in the last three games might be worrisome, but keep in mind the defense hasn't been the issue at all.

-- Outlook

One slot behind Boston College in KenPom's rankings, you'll find High Point. One slot above: Pepperdine. I would tell you who's just below BC in the Sagarin list, but you'll start having bad flashbacks and I don't want you to get your heart rate up. (Hint: they're on the West Coast.) In other words, theoretically this game should be easier than a lot of our nonconference ones.

It's a bad state of affairs in the ACC when that's true, but then again, funny things happen in the ACC. But then, remember what I wrote earlier about defense: it's much less susceptible to inconsistency than offense. This should be a good back-on-track kind of game, and hopefully after one win streak failed to launch, the second try will be a go.

-- Final score: UVA 63, BC 43

the recruit: Divante Walker

2012-01-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

Name: Divante Walker
Position: CB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Salem
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160

24/7: 83; three stars; #89 ATH; VA #32
ESPN: 71; two stars; #186 RB; Atlantic #284; VA #61
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: N/R

Other offers: instate I-AAs only

Almost a year ago to the day since Divante Walker committed on Sunday, UVA took Mason Thomas's commitment, a surprise since Thomas's entire profile (what there was of it) screamed I-AA and nobody had ever heard his name and UVA's in the same sentence. The more things change. Like Thomas, Walker was an uncommitted recruit (this year, he was the only one) at UVA's Verbally Committed Recruit Extravaganza and All-Weekend Party, so he was surrounded by a bunch of guys saying "you're coming too, right?"

Walker is a little bit different though, which means a little bit more optimism. For one thing, he was first-team all-region as selected by the coaches, and made the Virginian-Pilot's first-team all-Tidewater as well. (Thomas was only second-team in the district.) Walker got these honors on the strength of his work at running back, where he totaled nearly 1,400 yards rushing. One recruiting site offers a really high rating for a guy who had no other I-A offers; in fact, 24/7 has him higher-rated than guys like Sean Karl (BC and Syracuse offers), Kye Morgan (Illinois, Cincy, BC), and Demeitre Brim, who Wisconsin and Miami tried to pull away from a UVA commitment. To them he's the #32 prospect in the state, and that's still not as optimistic as it gets; Doug Doughty ranks him 28th, ahead of four UVA commits and three Tech ones.

The other sites, though, are way down on him, dropping mid-to-low two-star ratings. Why the huge discrepancy? I'm willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the optimistic assessments are the ones that think he's 175 pounds (as Doughty does) and the pessimistic ones list him at 157. Somebody, somewhere, made a typo, and it spread, and I don't know which it's supposed to be.

Truthfully, I don't believe either. It's probably in the middle. He doesn't look like 175 pounds in his pictures at all. On the other hand, I'm 5'7" and can't get down to 157 to save my life. Walker is 5'10" or 11", if he weighs 157 pounds he's got no muscle and is strong like mosquito, which would explain all the low ratings.

The problem with those accolades, of course, is that Walker won't be playing RB for us. At this point there's no need for yet another small back. There is a need for athletic bodies with cornerback experience, so toss Walker into that very large mix of incoming freshmen. Walker will redshirt because he's not 175 pounds, and after that.....well, the cornerback shuffle in this class will sort itself out somehow. Walker has a little bit of a disadvantage because he's not as fast as C.J. Moore, not a pure corner who played the position every day like Kelvin Rainey, probably not quite as athletic as Maurice Canady, and not as big as Wil Wahee. Yes, the deck is stacked a little bit against him, but it'll be interesting to see who comes out of that big spin cycle on top.

2013 recruiting board

2012-01-24T15:44:00.000-05:00

It's time to unveil next year's recruiting board. It is below for your perusal.

By now you probably know the drill. A prospect on here has to be listed as offered by UVA on at least two or three of the major recruiting sites. (Two will probably do if it's a prospect close to home, in Virginia or Maryland - or if those two sites are Rivals and 24/7, the more thorough of the four big ones. Others require three.) Not any ol' prospect goes on the board - I do have space limitations. They don't make it if:

- They're only listed by one site, or only two if one is only semi-trustworthy.
- The size of the offer pile means UVA doesn't seem to rate a second thought.

Even the guys in red (as of now, January) it's conceivable, albeit unlikely by my guess, that they could choose UVA.

Grains of salt are issued standard to every reader. One reader requested, when the 2011 class was signed, to see the original 2011 board, for comparison's sake. To see how the various colors on the original listing played out. I didn't have that, but I decided to keep the original 2012 board (and have kept this one separate too) and you'll get to feast your eyes on it next week during the February 1 Signstravaganza. Sneak hint: of the four colored sections, this is the breakdown:

- 2 of 4 blue prospects committed to UVA
- 2 of 7 green prospects etc.
- 0 of 9 and 0 of 7 yellow and red etc. etc.

For the non-math-majors, that makes four of an original 27 prospects that ended up committed. I spent a lot of last year just adding guys directly to the committed section, because that's the way the year went. At least half the class went straight to orange without passing Go or any other color. Hence the salt.

In a likely futile attempt to fix that, I tightened up my internal criteria for starting off blue or green and made the yellow section pretty huge as a result. Therefore the dominance of yellow and red shouldn't frighten you. In fact I think 2013 will be an absolutely magnificent year for Mike London on the recruiting trail. We have lots of things going for us:

- It's an odd year, which for some reason have always been better. This means nothing, but still.
- A breakout season on the field; the results of a particular season always seem to manifest themselves most with that year's juniors. Unlike the seniors, they're only just beginning to form their impressions.
- Mike London.
- Iron balls, as evidenced in the much-talked-about letter that the staff sent to juniors around the state that read, as paraphrased, "By the time you get this, we will have already upset Georgia Tech. By the way, come play at Virginia."

So it should be a fun recruiting season. Keep your hands and arms inside the carpet.

the home court rims are supposed to be bigger

2012-01-23T17:18:00.000-05:00

I would like to begin this week's posting efforts by pointing out that when I write game predictions, I don't take into account the possibility of the rim actively working to block our shots. I'm sure I've never seen a game in which so many layups, free throws, and jump shots rimmed in and out of the basket. Layups! All Akil Mitchell had to do was drop the ball in the rim!

The too-obvious assertion was that we missed Assane Sene's defense, sitting out the first of six weeks' worth of games with a broken ankle. I can think of a time or two when VT scorers took the ball unabated to the rack, and Sene might've had a thing or two to say about that, sure, but the fact is: 47 points! Tech was held to about .85 points per possession, which is right in line with the season average. We might've missed Sene's offense.

Despite having too many turnovers, including one by Joe Harris that looked like something out of a certain Miami game last year, I can't be too upset with the execution. It's just frustrating as hell to watch layups circle around the inside of the rim and circle right back out. 12 turnovers are too many, but even a below-average shooting night would've offered a comfortable win.

I'm often critical of Seth Greenberg's coaching, but you have to give Fester credit for a few things last night. Once he figured out he could take away Mike Scott because he didn't care if Jontel Evans was shooting, that's exactly what he did. VT normally plays a more aggressive defense on the perimeter, because they think they have better athletes than you and they want to force you into turnovers and turn them into transition buckets. Instead it looked like playing basketball in the mirror, with the interior denied. Shit, if you're gonna shoot 1-for-14 from three-point range, teams will be happy to watch you do it.

That was so bad I don't even wanna talk about the GT game any more. It's like that happened in October. That's how quickly you go from "on a roll" to "oh man, I know Boston College is terrible and we really should win, but actually we have to otherwise everyone will be legitimately questioning this team's ability to do anything right." In other words, don't lose to Boston College.

Unfortunately, thanks to the two Christmastime transfer, this is the team we got and there's no other options. If Sammy Zeglinski happens to be struggling with his shot, which wouldn't you know it he is, the number of people we can turn to are awfully limited. With Sene hurt and the bottom of the net suddenly requiring a treasure map to find, we sure could use another big man and another shooter, the latter if for no other reason than to see if he's got a shot on a night when nobody else seems to. Big man and a shooter, where can we find.... oh dammit, they left.

At any rate, no need to panic. Vent, yes, don't panic. I mean, how many other teams can play offense like that, shoot 1-for-14 from three and 32% overall, and lose by two? Only if you play nice defense. As big of a pisser as that game was, it teaches this lesson: that's why Tony Bennett emphasizes defense the way he does. Because you can go into shooting slumps, but there's essentially no such thing as a defensive slump. On defense, you are what you are and it's unlikely you'll see any inconsistency from game to game. Which means you can always fall back on that while you work on that offense. Which combined with the fact that Selection Sunday is seven weeks away, is encouraging.

*************************************

I went back and forth and back and forth again on whether or not to make any mention at all of Joe Paterno's untimely passing. I don't really dig on politicking and philosophizing here on what should be a sports-only escape. Obviously I have decided to do so this time. If the death of any 85-year-old can be considered untimely, that would be it. Not even half a year ago (not even a third of a year ago) they were interviewing him weekly wondering when he'd be back on the field and not in the coaching box, as if that was the most important question that could possibly answered in all of football. His health went downhill like that, and it's not surprising - even Paterno himself was afraid that he'd be one of those guys who immersed himself in his job and literally couldn't survive without it. His fears came true. Yes, he was getting treatment, but I don't think he actually fought his lung cancer one iota.

Thanks to a certain former defensive coordinator of his, we are not having the lionization ceremonies we expected we would on this occasion. Opinions range from "Paterno was still a great man" to "Paterno enabled and permitted children to raped, fuck him." As best I can tell, the general narrative and opinion lands about three-quarters of the way to the "great man" side; this is healthy. There are two things that can be said about Paterno's life right now, both of which are true:

- He affected more people in a positive way than almost anybody in this country.
- He did less than he could've and (in hindsight) should've to stop a serial child rapist.

It is not right to forget either. It is especially wrong to forget the former. In fact, it is dangerous to do so.

If you remove the good from Paterno's life and call him evil because he allowed the perpetuation of evil, then the lesson is this: evil things are done by evil people. But people aren't black and white like that. And to make things more complicated, nobody (except people with warped minds) sees themselves as evil. Good Lord, even Jerry Sandusky doesn't. And because we think we are generally good people, we associate ourselves with others who we think are good people.

So if you remove the good from Paterno's life, because a thing that bad be can't be done or tolerated by someone good, then he's an evil person. But if you do that, you cloud your eyes - just like Joe Paterno clouded his. Jerry Sandusky, why, he's this good guy I've known all my life who works his tail off and does all these charitable things and is loyally devoted to his wife and family. To forcibly ignore all the good things Paterno did - well, in a way, that's how Sandusky was let off the hook time and again. Because in the end Paterno couldn't see, even through Coke-bottle glasses, how good and evil could exist in one person simultaneously. Because he believed that evil things are done by evil people - not the good ones that he knows.

Human nature doesn't want to let us believe otherwise; that's why it's considered strong and courageous to blow the whistle. We get a nasty case of cognitive dissonance, which makes it easier to allow ourselves to let JoePa's legacy be one or the other. But his legacy is most valuable to us as an unadulterated whole. "It can't happen to me, because I would or wouldn't do X" is a dangerous thought; if it can happen to Joe Paterno, who can't it happen to?

game preview: Virginia Tech

2012-01-20T17:22:00.001-05:00

Date/Time: Sunday, January 22; 6:00

TV: ESPNUVA

Record against the Hokies: 81-52

Last matchup: UVA 61, VT 54; 2/19/11; Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 70, GT 38 (1/19); UNC 82, VT 68 (1/19)

Opposing blogs: Gobbler Country, The Key Play

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.4 (#338)
VT: 64.3 (#280)

Offense:
UVA: 106.7 (#77)
VT: 107.6 (#62)

Defense:
UVA: 84.1 (#4)
VT: 94.0 (#62)

Pythagorean win%:
UVA: .9198 (#13)
VT: .8004 (#56)

Common opponents: none

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (5.6 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 3.7 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.7 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.9 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 1.6 apg)
C: Assane Sene (4.9 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 0.4 apg)

Virginia Tech:

PG: Erick Green (16.1 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 3.3 apg)
SG: Dorenzo Hudson (11.7 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 1.7 apg)
SF: Jarell Eddie (9.8 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 1.1 apg)
F: Dorian Finney-Smith (6.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 2.3 apg)
PF: Victor Davila (6.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 0.5 apg)

That was fun. I don't really enjoy beating up on Georgia Tech specifically, but any time you get an ACC game that looks like Somalia State, you have to enjoy it. I can't remember UVA beating an ACC team like that, ever. Some old-timer who used to be a brontosaurus hunter back in the day can probably tell us a story about the time Ralph Sampson did something or other, but semi-recent history has nothing quite like that.

So UVA is now "on a roll" and hoping to keep it that way on Sunday when the other Tech shows up. The only negative from the GT game was Assane Sene rolling his ankle and spending the second half in warmups. Whether he'll play on Sunday probably won't be known til someone strolls out to take the opening tip, but if he's going to miss time, this is the place to do it - VT doesn't use a center and the next opponent, Boston College, is Boston College.

-- UVA on offense

The 38 points scored by GT got all the attention, but what shouldn't be overlooked is that UVA scored almost 1.2 points per possession - on the road. It was the fourth-best performance of the year in that regard, and far and away the best opponent we've inflicted it on - the only three games that topped it were Winthrop, Seattle, and Longwood.

If Sene plays, he could be a weapon in this game, as Tech's starting lineup features nobody over 6'8". They simply do not have a center. If Victor Davila, the largest man in the Tech starting lineup, is assigned to Sene, then that probably leaves Jarell Eddie or Dorian Finney-Smith - both athletic but kind of skinny - to try their hand at guarding Mike Scott. Or does Davila, a better defender in general, take Scott? Either way, UVA will have a very exploitable matchup advantage in the frontcourt. Tech may try out 6'9" Cadarian Raines in the starting lineup instead. IF Sene is healthy enough to play.

If not, you'll probably see Akil Mitchell take his place in the starting lineup, and UVA will still be bigger than Tech, but otherwise rather similarly put-together. It doesn't negate the problem of trying to decide whether to defend Scott with someone who's either slower or much less powerful.

This is a matchup of two teams that defend the three-pointer at a nationally awesome level. Specifically, UVA is 2nd and VT is 4th in the country at defending threes. And we haven't been shooting them too well lately, so long-distance opportunities will be tough to come by. Tech is simply athletic enough at all positions to consistently shut down opponent three-pointers, and Finney-Smith is long-armed dude. It's likely that Joe Harris will be his assignment, and that's a tough deal for Joey Hoops, because his game is based on being just quick enough to get past bigger players guarding him and tall enough to hit threes over guards. Finney-Smith out-athletes Harris by a ton and presents a tough barrier to try and shoot over.

No, the way to attack the Hokies is inside-out. Mike Scott is a guy that few teams in the ACC are prepared to deal with, VT among the least of all. And you know they'll foul. Tech is undisciplined and it shows in their foul totals, as by the end of the game, at least one of their bigs is always in foul trouble. Against Wake, it was Eddie; Raines fouled out of the FSU game, and Finney-Smith from the UNC game. Against BC, guard Marquis Rankin fouled out, and no fewer than three other players finished with four. This despite the relatively slow pace that VT employs. Not only do they foul, they might be the one team against whom we look to crash the offensive boards. Tony Bennett emphasizes getting back on defense over the offensive glass, of course, but Tech is so bad at defensive rebounding we might end up with a bunch of boards on this end just by accident. UNC actually outrebounded them in this area, with more offensive boards than Tech had defensive. That is hard to do. Against ACC competition, VT has been allowing opponents 40% of their offensive boards. By working the ball inside and letting Mike Scott be Mike Scott, putback opportunities should be there for the taking. UVA should look to pound, pound, pound inside, take advantage of the inevitable fouls, and get our threes, to employ a galactically overused phrase, the old-fashioned way.

EDIT - so much for the seven-foot mismatch, as Sene will be out six weeks (GGGGGRRRHHHGGGRHRHRHR) with a broken ankle. "Virginia" is ancient Latin for "we can't ever have nice things around here."

-- UVA on defense

Let me go off-topic for a second. Here is a short list of teams for you to peruse:

Holy Cross
Massachusetts
Boston University

What do these teams have in common, besides being bad at basketball? They all beat Boston College by at least 14 points. In the case of Holy Cross, which plays in the Patriot League, it was a 22-point beatdown. You don't want to know the UMass score if you like the ACC. And this is to say nothing of the double-OT loss to 3-16 Rhode Island.

And to illustrate just how important Erick Green is to the VT offense, the Hokies lost to BC without him.

Green is simply an excellent, highly efficient player. KenPom gives him an offensive rating of 120.9. He's got a shooting percentage of .484, 40% from three-land, a solid A/T ratio, and a FT% of .885. He can hurt you a lot of ways. Jarell Eddie is even better from downtown; this season, he's over 50% in that regard. Those two, plus Dorenzo Hudson, are guys you just don't want to send to the line, either, because they're nigh-automatic.

Unfortunately for Tech, a lot of their offensive efficiency gets eaten up by Hudson, a brute-force volume-scorer who shoots a ton of threes and hits only 27% of them. Hudson actually came off the bench for the first time this season against Carolina, in favor of freshman Robert Brown, but Brown isn't much of an improvement. He and fellow freshman Finney-Smith are combining to make only 35% of their shots.

Part of the reason Tech is so maddeningly (to their fans - or enjoyably to us) streaky is that they like to bomb from three; any one of five players is liable to give it a try. Only Eddie and Green are much good at it. Outside of transition, their other preferred scoring method is to slash at the hoop and either beat you with athleticism, or draw a foul, or both. The top four scorers are all guard-types (with Eddie being listed as "G/F"); the bigs like Raines and Davila are well down the list.

Not to be forgotten is Finney-Smith - he "looks lost" on offense, to quote Gobbler Country, and appears to be hitting a freshman wall of sorts, but what he can definitely do is crash the offensive boards. Nobody else is really noteworthy in this regard one way or the other, but Finney-Smith's nose for the ball is an asset. He has pulled in 11.2% of available boards on offense alone, and is by far VT's leading rebounder overall. UVA, of course, is one of the best rebounding teams in the nation - third-best at defensive rebounding after the GT game, in fact - but Finney-Smith will be a challenge.

-- Outlook

On paper, VT looks like a team that can really hurt you. Despite losses to two horrible ACC teams and an 0-4 start in the conference, their KenPom numbers still look decent. They have viable scorers and play perfectly acceptable defense. On paper.

But they play the games on a court made of hardwood, and Tech's season is on the brink at the moment. No tournament bid is likely coming, and they're teetering on the edge of blowing even any shot at the NIT. They were looking good against UNC, taking a 44-36 lead, and then UNC remembered how to play basketball and blew them out. Tech plays an undisciplined, freelancing style, good at out-athleting inferior teams but generally unable to break down a determined, patient effort or a really well-executed system. And what looked like a challenger for non-Tobacco Road supremacy in the ACC is now staring over a ledge and wondering where the bottom is; Tech fans are wondering about an 0-7 start, and even 0-9 is not implausible. The arena will be sold out and loud, and UVA is a confident bunch. This is no time to slow our roll, and I don't think the Hokies will be able to.

-- Final score: UVA 68, VT 56

game preview: Georgia Tech

2012-01-19T16:16:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Thursday, January 19; 8:00

TV: ACC Network, ESPN3

History against the Jackets: 33-38

Last matchup: UVA 62, GT 56; 2/23/11; Atlanta

Last game: Duke 61, UVA 58 (1/12); Md. 61, GT 50 (1/15)

Opposing blogs: From The Rumble Seat

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.5 (#338)
GT: 66.2 (#211)

Offense:
UVA: 105.0 (#99)
GT: 100.3 (#178)

Defense:
UVA: 85.9 (#6)
GT: 94.0 (#65)

Pythagorean win%:
UVA: .8875 (#25)
GT: .6618 (#113)

(Explanation of KenPom stats: "Tempo" number is number of offensive possessions per game. "Offense" and "Defense" numbers are points scored/allowed per 100 possessions. All numbers are adjusted, using the magic KenPom formula; therefore they are not actual, but projections of predicted results against an average team on a neutral court.)

Common opponents:

LSU - UVA won 57-52 (A); GT lost 59-50 (N)
Duke - UVA lost 61-58 (A); GT lost 81-74 (H)
Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (5.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 3.6 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.9 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.4 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.9 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.6 apg)
C: Assane Sene (5.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 0.4 apg)

Georgia Tech:

PG: Mfon Udofia (10.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SG: Brandon Reed (7.8 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.2 apg)
SF: Glen Rice, Jr. (13.8 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 2.4 apg)
PF: Kammeon Holsey (9.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 0.8 apg)
C: Daniel Miller (8.3 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.8 apg)

We're finally at the end of a maddening stretch of going two weeks with only two games to show for it. This is annoying because 1) we don't get to watch any damn hoops and 2) you know it's gonna catch up to us at some point. This week is when it catches up, as UVA has three games in eight days. The highly anticipated, sold-out matchup with VT is on Sunday (which means you get the rare sighting of back-to-back game previews out of me) and then next Thursday is Boston College. It'll be nice to finally catch up to the rest of the ACC, as we're the only team who has yet to play three games, while some have four.

Georgia Tech is very literally in a rebuilding year; this game will be played at the downtown home of the Atlanta Hawks instead of on campus, as the Alexander Memorial Coliseum has been razed for a total renovation. Since we don't visit the sleepy Conte Forum in Boston this year, it might be the easiest road game of the season in terms of atmosphere.

-- UVA on offense

Georgia Tech hasn't played to the level expected of an ACC team this year, but their defense mostly isn't to blame. Thanks to a team blocked-shot percentage of 16.2 (that is, they block 16 percent of opponents' shots), which is 9th in the country, they're allowing opponents a shooting percentage of just 41.8% from two-point range. This is mostly the result of the presence of block machine Daniel Miller, who gets almost three per game. Miller is 6'11" and a stocky 258 pounds, making him very likely to shut down Assane Sene if that is his assignment. If guarding Mike Scott, it could be an awfully fun battle. Scott's Sheed Wallace fadeaways will be the key to winning that one, as even Mike Scott will have a tough time backing down a guy as big as Miller.

However, GT does not do well in the causing-turnovers department. Combined with their propensity to turn the ball over themselves, that should set up a decent advantage for UVA, which does a solid job of taking care of the ball. Point guards, if they're pretty good at defense, should get their share of steals, but Mfon Udofia has only nine - just three more than Assane Sene. Expect UVA's veteran guards to be able to keep the turnovers to a minimum here.

GT's size at guard may give UVA some trouble. They don't have any short guys. Udofia is the smallest at 6'2", and Rice and Jason Morris both stand 6'5", meaning there won't be size mismatches to exploit in the backcourt. A big lineup that includes Scott, Sene, and Akil Mitchell might be fun, as GT doesn't have a deep frontcourt, but I suspect that would be getting too cute. The way to beat Tech will simply be patience and taking advantage of the fastbreak opportunities that will appear when they turn it over.

-- UVA on defense

Here's where UVA has a sizable advantage, as Tech's offense leaves something to be desired. FTRS suggested in the Q&A session that if you shut down Udofia at point, you've shut down Rice as well. That's good news for UVA fans; Udofia's A/T ratio is a lousy .89/1. Combine that with Jontel Evans's on-ball skills, and Udofia could be in for a long night. Four of Tech's players, in fact, average over two turnovers a game, and the team averages 11 assists to 15 TOs.

GT gets their scoring primarily from six rotation guys; the rest of the team just eats up minutes. Those are the five starters plus Jason Morris, who starts his share of games himself and is more like a fifth-and-a-half man than a true sixth. When I wrote the season preview, the seventh-best scorer was Nick Foreman; now he's down to 1.5 ppg and the next-highest (after sixth-place Brandon Reed) is Julian Royal with 3.7 ppg. Reed has 7.8, so the gap is quite large. The truth is that any time one of the six scorers are off the floor, GT is playing four-on-five on offense.

And nobody but Rice and Miller are very efficient. Rice is a legitimate star, who'd probably have better numbers if he had better teammates, although even he has trouble from three-point range. Miller can be a bit rough; his FG% is low for a center, but he shoots free throws quite well. On the flip side, power forward Holsey has a tremendous shooting percentage of .639, but his offensive efficiency is being dragged down by his anchoresque free-throw shooting. It's worse than Mason Plumlee's - Holsey shoots just .415 from the charity stripe, so when I say anchoresque I mean it's like he's tossing anchors at the backboard. Teams are figuring this out, too, which is hurting his shooting percentage. In the last four games, he's taken 25% of his shot attempts on the season (about right, since that's four of GT's 17 games) but 40% of his season's free-throw attempts.

The other thing GT does poorly is shoot threes. This was a theme from last year, and it's not changed. The guy with the most attempts (Reed) is also the team's worst shot at .279 from behind the arc. Rice has the most makes (20 for 60) which is still only 1 make per game.

These kind of tendencies mean that the way to play GT is to take the pack-line principles to extremes. Pack it in tight, take away any chance of dribble-driving and dare them to shoot threes, and play the ball aggressively. Holsey can be safely fouled if he gets the ball in the paint with a lane to the hoop. Miller will be a load, but I would have no problems with overrotating to double him if it means leaving a guard open for a three; I'll take my chances.

-- Outlook

There's a reason I always caveat my final-score predictions in the Q&A sessions. I have something more of a respect for the GT defense than I did before. But my thoughts on their anemic offense haven't changed a bit. It does have the capability of exploding, as NC State found out; then again, NC State's defense is kind of poor. Certainly among the poorer ones in the ACC. The last time GT faced a defense as tough as UVA's, they were scoring 48 points against Alabama.

So I expect UVA to handle the Jackets, in one of those games that make ACC purists claw their faces and go "oh god what did you do to my beloved conference." UVA is favored by 3.5 in Vegas and by four by KenPom, but this one ought to be easier than that.

-- Final score: UVA 58, GT 49

the recruit: Canaan Severin

2012-01-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Name: Canaan Severin
Position: WR
Hometown: Marlboro, MA
School: Worcester Academy
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 210

24/7: 93; four stars; #26 WR; MA #3; US #216
ESPN: 77; three stars; #97 ATH; MA #4; Atlantic #119
Rivals: 5.8; four stars; #22 WR; MA #4
Scout: three stars; #50 WR

Other offers: Penn State, Boston College, Michigan State, Missouri, Iowa, NC State, Purdue, Syracuse, Rutgers, Connecticut, a few smaller ones

And so we come to the temporary end of this series for 2012; Canaan Severin was the most recent recruit to commit to UVA, and he did so way back in September. It's been that kind of recruiting year. There may be one or two more commits on the way, but the bulk of the class is basically done.

Severin is my favorite kind of recruit. Following recruiting is a lot more fun when they follow a path like his. He started out (from our perspective) as no more or less of a name than a lot of others, and UVA was in a large pile of worthwhile offers. Virginia stayed in the mix every time the offers were narrowed, all the way to a top three of UVA, PSU, and BC, and there was actually a little drama in the decision. In fact, he chose UVA less than a week after visiting Penn State. From the perspective of this site's recruiting board, Severin was added in February to the yellow section, moved up to green in June, blue in August, and orange in September. So he's a guy we got to follow for a while, and with a happy ending to the story.

Oh, and he's pretty good too. His game has positives and negatives and both are pretty glaring, which translated to some disparity in his recruiting rankings between the sites. Let's get the negatives out of the way. First, he's kind of slow for a receiver. Everyone that evaluates him makes a point of saying he's a very good athlete, but Scout registers him at 4.7 in the 40. That would be pretty good for, say, a linebacker, but if you're going to be ranked as one of the top 250 or whatever, the sites want to see that blazing 4.5, 4.4 stuff. Second, on defense he's a little bit of a tweener - too slow for safety and not big enough for linebacker. No, we don't care because he's not going to play defense for us, but the recruiting sites aren't in the business of predicting a player's ultimate position, only projecting it.

Severin's size is his biggest positive: he's listed at 210-215 and looks like he could add to that, and he's nice and tall at anywhere from 6'2" to 6'4" depending on which site you ask. (We'll just say 6'3".) UVA has a few receivers of similar size on the roster - Miles Gooch, Bobby Smith, Kevin Royal, for example - but you notice I didn't list too many regulars, and only Gooch has athleticism comparable to Severin's. Smart, too - there was a little chatter about early enrollment which never came to pass, and I think that was more of a deal with his high school's standards than with UVA's. And he's a little older than the usual recruit - Severin repeated the 10th grade upon transferring to Worcester Academy at the urging of his father.

Part of the reason Severin chose UVA is because our coaches were recruiting him at wide receiver; Penn State kept the possibility of tight end or H-back open, which he wasn't keen on. So initially at least, that's where he'll be, despite any thoughts you might have about a big guy being moved elsewhere. He'll have a good chance to come in right away and fill the big-receiver role that's being voided by Matt Snyder. There'll be some competition in that regard in camp, but Severin comes in on at least an even footing. None of those aforementioned big receivers saw much of the field, you'll remember (though in Bobby Smith's case, he was hurt,) even though Snyder missed a chunk of the season with a broken foot. He was just replaced with more Kris Burd.

That means Severin should step right in during the fall and have a chance. We have a ton of receivers, but Severin's in a niche that's presently unfilled. Don't look for him to be the kind of guy who gets behind the defense for big yardage; he won't be fast enough. But he should be able to outmuscle small nickel backs and outmaneuver linebackers for those crucial third-and-sevens. I don't expect a redshirt year. I don't expect a 600-yard receiving season right off the bat either, but on the checklist of requirements to contribute right away as a freshman - fills a need, football-mature, athletically capable - Severin fits to a T. Darius Jennings was the same way, and finished with 20 catches for 238 yards; expectations should be similar for Canaan Severin.

a civil conversation with From The Rumble Seat

2012-01-17T14:49:00.000-05:00

It is a thrice-yearly ritual, and a pleasure of course, to swap questions with the Georgia Techers at From The Rumble Seat. That is the next hoops opponent, so it's that time again. You probably know the drill by now, and the other half the conversation is found at FTRS.

1. Is life without Paul Hewitt everything you thought it would be? Compare Hewitt and Brian Gregory for us.

Hewitt was a recruiter and a politico in the basketball world. He had more friends outside of Georgia Tech than inside. He recruited well nationally. He wasn't a great regular season coach but really performed in short turnaround settings like tournaments comparatively speaking.

The big difference we've seen with Brian Gregory is that he is a much better in game coach. He doesn't have the accumulated talent or experience of some of Hewitt's better teams yet so it's hard to compare their successes and failures. I think most Tech fans are happy to see a team fighting on every play and playing strong team offense. Also, Brian Gregory won Tech's first game in Athens, Georgia in 13 tries.

2. Being temporarily homeless and playing at the Hawks' arena, what kind of home court advantage will GT enjoy on Thursday?

There won't be much of an advantage, I would venture to say. Duke fans were in force against Tech in the last home game and I'm not sure where the student body even sits in Phillips Arena. If there are more than a few thousands fans, I will surely be impressed.

3. What kind of defense will GT deploy? Is it any good?

Tech uses mostly man defense from what I've seen. We feel like we match up athletically with most teams we've met. Unfortunately, the defense hasn't really limited Georgia Tech. Turnovers and poor shot decisions have really limited this squad. The defense is actually not too bad. We're limiting opponents to 61.5 points per game (5th in ACC) and have the second best field goal defense in the conference at 0.382. Once again, we're just hamstrung by execution on offense.

4. What's the best way to limit Glen Rice, Jr.?

Going back to question 3. If Glen's cohorts are limited, he will be limited. GRJ needs Mfon Udofia, Jason Morris, and Brandon Reed to play well so the defensive focus can be put entirely on him. If Mfon is having a turnover heavy night, GRJ and the rest of the offense will struggle. Glen Rice has been fairly good for us this season but he cannot win in spite of other key players having poor performances. Limit Mfon and you'll limit GRJ.

5. Mike Scott gets the ball in the low post. Who's guarding him? Will Tech see if Holsey can handle him, assign big-ass Daniel Miller to the job, or will Scott see nothing but double-teams til his head spins?

Daniel Miller has been playing the 5 pretty well defensively and Holsey is very athletic 4. I imagine Scott will see a mixture of guys rotating against him. Daniel Miller is leading the team with 2.8 blocks per game. He's 9th in the ACC in total rebounds per game and just behind John Henson in blocks per game.

6. Also you must make a final score prediction. It is the only way.

UVA is playing really well. I see the Cavaliers knocking off Tech in Atlanta by about 12. I'll give the Hoos a 67-55 win.

*******************************************************

Time to take this opportunity to point out that Mike Scott made the midseason watch list for the Wooden Award. Tolja so. I don't expect that he's the best player in the country, but official confirmation that he's one of the top 25 is nice to see. He's probably top 15 or so. Of course, the commentary on the article is still pretty pacist. Not sure how some of the names mentioned as potential all-Americans got the nod over Scott. I'll stipulate to one thing: some of those players are on really good teams, surrounded by better players than we have, and their stats would be better if they were the unquestioned top dog the way Scott is. That said, #EndPacism.

UVA also held steady in this week's coaches poll and moved up a spot (tolja so again) in the media poll, assisted by Louisville's WTFer against Providence and Michigan's ugly loss to Iowa (dammit.) The next game the Hoos will likely be the underdog in will be the road tilt at Florida State (though it's possible we might be dogs by a point or so at NC State) and thus there's a fair-to-decent chance we exit January at 19-2. I wouldn't bet on it, because all basketball teams have inexplicably shitty games at one point or another and we're certainly not impervious to that. Lunardi seems to think the Hoos are in for one or two of those, because he suggests that by season's end, we'll end up in an 8-9 game. I'm much more optimistic than that, of course, but maybe irrationally so.

too-late review, too-early preview: defense 2011-2012

2012-01-16T21:06:00.000-05:00

I did the offense almost two weeks ago. Did I wait this long for the defense because I'm scatterbrained, or because I wanted the title "too-late" to make sense this time? A philosophical mystery.

Anyway, reasons #1 and #2, in whatever order, that UVA went 8-4 in the regular season and earned a Peach Bowl bid, are the cohesiveness of the offensive line, and the entire defense fixing itself. Last year I had serious, and I think legitimate, concerns about Jim Reid. We went 4-8, the defense took like eight steps backward, and this despite the fact that the 4-3 was pitched as a simple scheme that wouldn't need much if any adjustment time. Well, this year, we got those eight steps back. The defense had its stepping-out party against Georgia Tech and then timed its true renaissance to coincide with the emergence of Mike Rocco at quarterback, and the resulting four-game winning streak propelled UVA to its best season in quite some time. Let's see how these position groups did.

DEFENSIVE LINE

This year.....

The team settled nicely into a six-man rotation that saw each of them earn plenty of time. Cam Johnson played well enough to earn a Senior Bowl invitation and will get his shot at playing on Sundays. His four sacks led the team, and that doesn't look like much of a number, but Johnson was rarely blockable one-on-one and his pressure caused plenty of quarterback mistakes. My lasting impression: watching him ignore a block by Indiana's hapless left tackle and simply absorb the football from quarterback Edwin Wright-Baker. By osmosis, apparently, because the ball was in the quarterback's hands, and then it wasn't, and there was nothing in between.

Also disruptive: Matt Conrath, another likely draft pick. Just ask Duke, who was forced to put up with being terrorized by Johnson because they were tired of being terrorized by Conrath. Nick Jenkins was solid as the one-tech next to Conrath, and Will Hill emerged as a very capable backup. Bill Schautz also played very well; Schautz didn't have the athleticism of some of his linemates but makes up for it with technical near-perfection. In Al Groh's last season he really wanted to find a spot on the field for Schautz and talked him up quite a bit in the preseason; we found out why this year.

Next year....

This is one-half of the anxiety over next year's defense, because three seniors - Conrath, Jenkins, and Johnson - all graduate. All were extremely important players. At defensive tackle, Hill will be the only player left with significant game experience. However, Justin Renfrow and Chris Brathwaite showed some promise when they had a chance. I particularly like the potential of Brathwaite. Those two will likely have the first shot at replacing Jenkins and Conrath, but don't overlook David Dean, who'll be a redshirt freshman. Of this year's redshirts, Dean is the one most consistently mentioned for making an impression in practices.

At end, Schautz and Jake Snyder are the top two returnees; Snyder was the third man in the DE rotation this year, so there's a little more experience. But is there a pass-rush terror in this group? From here, in January, it doesn't look like it. Brent Urban will start the season the third guy, and of the three, the big Canuck might be the most likely to get to the quarterback regularly. Because of the dearth of pass-rushing freaks, look for true freshman Eli Harold to see the field. Harold was a highly-sought recruit before his senior year on the strength of his potential and blazing athleticism; he rose to the top of the prospect rankings in Virginia (and opened eyes at the Army game) thanks to backing it up with his performance and production this fall.

A large group of freshmen emerges from redshirtland, and there'll be a competition starting in the spring to see who rises on the pecking order. Having a slight leg up on that competition might be Thompson Brown, who didn't actually redshirt - you'll remember him from the Miami game, chasing down Jacory Harris and forcing him to go to his left, against the grain of his throwing arm.

The story for next year on the D-line is really that even though we lose more talent from the middle, we start in a stronger position there in 2012. This should be a stout group against the run; it's a smart bunch with guys like Hill and Schautz that know their assignments very well. The pass rush will be a question mark; it'll be interesting to see how quickly Harold can translate his high school dominance to college success.

LINEBACKERS

This year....

Ausar Walcott had an interesting 2011. He began the year as the starting weakside linebacker, was suspended for his role in the JMU party house brouhaha, reinstated and dropped to the very back of the defensive end depth chart, and finally returned to the field as a platooning Sam backer, with Aaron Taliaferro.

Taliaferro had slid over from the middle; neither he nor Steve Greer is very rangy there, but Greer is quicker to diagnose plays and a better tackler. Greer missed the Peach Bowl; his absence was greatly felt, because he's quite a bit ahead of Henry Coley in his development, and it showed. On the weakside, Laroy Reynolds took several steps forward in his development over last year, when his overaggressiveness caused a lot of spectacular plays - some by him and some by the offense. I wouldn't say he looked more comfortable this year (and that's because he was often too comfortable last year) but he clearly had better knowledge of his position. Reynolds made a perfect linebacker play to help seal the Miami win: he diagnosed the play with lightning speed and shed his block equally quickly to wind up in the backfield, making a tackle for loss on fourth down.

Still, there's a lot of room for improvement with this unit. It's not very good in pass coverage, and the athleticism must be upgraded. Reynolds is the only one with much speed. Taliaferro was only average in this area, and Walcott had to lose some offseason weight - I continue to believe his short-lived move to defensive end was mostly a wake-up call rather than a tactical decision. And Coley is either not much more athletic than Greer, or he's slower at diagnosing plays.

Next year....

Taliaferro is the only graduating player, so there's a lot of hope for some consistency. In fact, it looks as though it'll be an all-senior group, with Greer, Reynolds, and Walcott. Like Schautz, Greer masks his lack of athleticism with smarts, and if Walcott is a diligent worker this offseason in the weight room, the outside backers will be able to cover enough ground to make up for it.

But who are the backups? Coley is on track to replace Greer after next year, so he's a no-brainer - though he will be having Kwontie Moore breathing down his neck starting in August. Daquan Romero spent the year as Reynolds's backup on the weak side, but didn't see many plays. Nevertheless, he's your man. And on the strong side, Caleb Taylor will be first in line behind Walcott.

That's a young group I just listed. A very veteran bunch of starters, but a very green bunch of backups. Burnt offerings to the gods of health are in order.

SECONDARY

This year....

Hell, what is there to say about Chase Minnifield that hasn't already been said? Nobody wanted to throw at him and he still had three interceptions. I don't mind rehashing his touchdown-saver against FSU, of course, in which he definitely lived up to his name. It was the play of the season. The NFL is calling.

His counterpart, Demetrious Nicholson, certainly had some moments this year. He had no choice - everyone decided to throw at him because when you're offered the choice between picking on the senior who'll be playing in the league next year and picking on the true freshman, 10 out of 10 offensive coordinators choose the latter. Even Ron Prince knows enough to do that - at least, in between third-and-nine draw plays. Given that set of circumstances, Nicholson was outstanding. Oh, sure, he made his share of mistakes, too, but he was far from a disaster. Believe me: I watched freshman cornerbacks at Michigan coached by Greg Robinson. I know what a disaster looks like.

Safety was awfully similar, except maddeningly played by seniors instead of freshmen. Rodney McLeod had three picks against Maryland, and that was cool, and also really annoying because two of them came on fourth down when batting the ball down would've been the better play. Both safeties, McLeod and Corey Mosley, made a habit of getting burned deep against Duke, but they were also good in run support all season long. Fans had much complaints about the safeties giving up big plays, which was justified, but I have a nasty feeling we won't know what we had til it's gone.

Next year.....

DOOM

GLOOM

Of the starters, we get Nicholson back. Nickel corner Dom Joseph also happens to depart, meaning that someone that we never saw hide or hair of will be the other starter. The top two candidates would be Brandon Phelps and Drequan Hoskey; I suppose it's not totally fair to say we saw nothing of these two, because Phelps played on special teams and Hoskey made a very, very nice play in the end zone to help preserve the FSU win.

Still, it'll make for some nervous moments. It probably doesn't matter who wins the battle to start, because you need three cornerbacks. About four true freshmen will enter in the fall, and in the best-case scenario we'll never see 'em. But it's likely we will.

Safety is even scarier. Rijo Walker will replace Mosley at free safety, so it'll be nice to at least have a veteran. Walker made a crazy-nice interception at Indiana, but we didn't see much more of him as time went on. Walker's backup, at least nominally, is probably Pablo Alvarez, but this is going to be way up for grabs. At strong safety, the likely starter is Anthony Harris; again, though, this could be up for grabs with a ton of freshman-type substances vying for a place in the pecking order.

Overall, this defense will be as good as the secondary lets it be. With three seniors slated to start at linebacker, you have to figure they'll be able to find their way around a football field. And the defensive line has a lot of playable depth that didn't play this year, meaning we should at least be fine, albeit probably not spectacular. But how the secondary will be, I can't say, with the possibilities ranging from "pretty good" to "unwatchable," with unwatchable being the more likely. Only two of the four starters (whoever the starters end up being) have played enough to earn much confidence.

Somebody will have to really break out and surprise people for the defense to be as good or better than it was in 2011. That's really what it boils down to. Possible candidates: Chris Brathwaite, Eli Harold, Anthony Harris, among some others. If I could pick the one I most want it to be, it'd be Harris, so that secondary-induced heart attacks are at a minimum. My actual pick: Brathwaite, a player I've had an inexplicably good feeling about since he was recruited. My bet is that Brathwaite leapfrogs Renfrow and starts to make himself a name as a really nasty, disruptive force on the inside.

In any case, this year's defense was a big improvement, and Jim Reid gets a lot of deserving credit as the coordinator. But this was also a veteran squad, and should have been at least halfway decent. Next year, if the defense stays pretty good, give Reid and the coaching staff a big pat on the back.

season preview: Wake Forest

2012-01-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Media prediction: 11th

Last season:

Record: 8-24 (1-15) - ACC 12th seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 251st of 345

Returning scoring: 54.1%
Returning rebounding: 65.7%
Returning assists: 62.2%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: none
Rookie: F Travis McKie
Defensive: none

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Tony Chennault (So.)
SG: C.J. Harris (Jr.)
SF: Travis McKie (So.)
PF: Nikita Mescheriakov (5Sr.)
C: Ty Walker (Sr.)

Bench:

G Chase Fischer (Fr.)
C Carson Desrosiers (So.)
G Anthony Fields (Fr.)
F Daniel Green (Fr.)

Coach: Jeff Bzdelik (2nd season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, NC State
Once: Florida State, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Last season, the Deacons turned in the worst year for an ACC team in maybe all of time and space. Which made it that much more fun to lose to them and be the only team preventing Wake Forest from being the only 0-16 team in ACC history. This season, Wake Forest is better, but still not actually good.

Wake's offense is highly perimeter-oriented; weirdly, their perimeter guys are shooting around .500 while their bigs (except for Ty Walker, who's recently been inserted into the starting lineup) have lousy shooting percentages. The offense is basically whatever C.J. Harris and Travis McKie do, with some contribution from point guard Tony Chennault. Harris and McKie each average better than 17 points a game, can both shoot threes, and statistically are basically the same player except that McKie rebounds and Harris distributes some.

They have fair amount of height - between Walker and Carson Desrosiers, Wake almost always has a seven-footer on the floor - and Desrosiers will even take the occasional three. But Wake gets precious little offense from the frontcourt. Power forward Nikita Mescheriakov is brutal offensively, and for all that height, the Deacs don't block many shots, either. And they're a poor rebounding team.

Obviously, Wake Forest isn't going to the tournament this year. If there were any doubts about that, losing to Wofford cemented it. But the Deacons have two games each against Boston College, Clemson, and Georgia Tech, who are fellow bottom-feeders in the ACC, and they might've helped create another bottom-feeder by helping run a train on Virginia Tech, which has now lost to Wake and BC. With the team being such a two-and-a-half-man show, chances are they'll finish with another losing record. But Harris and McKie are good enough to play spoiler for some unsuspecting team, and Wake has such a cushy schedule that they can't possibly finish 1-15 again. There won't be any postseason for this team after the ACC tournament, but they have some potential to be dangerous for teams that can't exploit their soft middle, and at least they're moving in the right direction.

go the distance

2012-01-13T15:53:00.000-05:00

That might've been my favorite loss ever. I got over the Peach Bowl loss within a couple hours, and I thought that was pretty good. Then I was over last night's loss to Duke a few fractions of a second after the final horn.

No, it's not "OK" to lose, and we shouldn't settle for second fiddle, etc. etc. Then again, Rocky was alright with it, at least for a while. You go the distance with Apollo Creed, you ain't just some bum from the neighborhood any more. UVA hit first, hit hard, took Duke's best shot, and instead of folding like we saw last year, hit back. And the result was a game that could've swung on any number of what-ifs, like, what-if just one lousy three had fallen in the second half, or, what-if Seth Curry didn't decide to channel his inner Dookieness and flop like an Italian midfielder?

They're there, but I don't even care about them. Such a scare was put into Duke that if a rematch were held at the JPJ, UVA would be favored. UVA went up, not down, in the KenPom ratings, and it wouldn't surprise in the slightest if they went up, not down, in the polls, too. (#14/#15 Louisville got boned by Providence(!) to the tune of a 31-point loss since the last poll.) This is the main thing: Loss column aside, UVA earned respect, and plenty of it. In the big picture, it hardly even matters that we came out three points short: the tournament committee knows a good loss when it sees one, and the theme from the talkyheads is that UVA is cementing its spot as the #3 team in the conference. I'll take it one farther: Duke is 2-0 but vulnerable, having beaten UVA and GT by a total of just 10 points. (And GT isn't, like, good.) I don't see why we shouldn't think that, when the ACC tournament comes around, it's a given that seeds #1 and #2 are spoken for. Play good ball the rest of the way and #3 doesn't have to be the ceiling.

In the end, you just can't have any complaints about a team that has proven itself not the least bit scared of the toughest gym in the country. They went a full fifteen rounds. Ain't gonna be no rematch, which is the disappointing part..... but then again, there was a sequel after all.

Scattered bullet points:

-- How can you tell that UVA showed out? As effusive in his praise as Dickie V was for Duke, which is par for the course, he was nearly as effusive for UVA as well.

-- Similarly, the Duke crowd was howling at the refs at times, which also means it was a fair game from the stripes. We bag on the zebras quite a bit, so it's only fair to point out when they call a very good game, especially at Cameron. Curry's flop was the only beef I had, and really you have to blame the Dookitude for that, not the refs. They picked up on two moving screens by Miles Plumlee, which were definitely fouls but not always called - particularly the first in which Plumlee sneakily stuck out a limb or two. And I don't remember any ticky-tack fouls called on either team. Duke had a big free-throw advantage, but they should've.

-- I finally figured out how to remember which Plumlee is which. Miles (the eldest) looks like a truck driver, who drives a lot of..... miles. GEDDIT?? Mason just looks like.... well, he looks like a Dookie.

-- With 23 points and 10 rebounds on national TV in front of Dick Vitale at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Mike Scott might have leapt to the front of the ACC POY conversation, and probably won't be left off of anyone's Wooden lists any more.

-- Probably the single most disappointing aspect of the loss was that if we had won, Akil Mitchell's thunderous tomahawk putback (which ended up being the final bucket of the game) would have otherwise gone down in history. Now that is some damn athleticism.

-- Paul Jesperson had a nice slam, too, fed by Sammy Zeglinski's beautiful backdoor pass. Not to be outdone in the white-guy dunking contest, Miles Plumlee had a pretty splendid breakaway jam, but Jesperson is four inches shorter and hella whiter. Advantage UVA. And speaking of Jesperson, I was glad to see him in the second half, because I'd like to not see him relegated to the purgatory that is the token-three-minutes-in-the-first-half role that we've seen guys fall into. (Prime example #1: Will Regan.) Jesperson got a total of ten minutes - his second-highest total of the season, and against Duke no less - which is good to see.

game preview: Duke

2012-01-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Thursday, January 12, 9:00

TV: ESPN

History against the Blue Devils: 48-114

Last matchup: Duke 56, UVA 41; 2/16/11; Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 52, Miami 51 (1/7); Duke 81, GT 74 (1/7)

Opposing blogs: Duke Hoop Blog

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.7 (#339)
Duke: 69.9 (#45)

Offense:
UVA: 104.4 (#104)
Duke: 119.8 (#4)

Defense:
UVA: 86.6 (#9)
Duke: 92.3 (#50)

(Explanation of KenPom stats: "Tempo" number is number of offensive possessions per game. "Offense" and "Defense" numbers are points scored/allowed per 100 possessions. All numbers are adjusted, using the magic KenPom formula; therefore they are not actual, but projections of predicted results against an average team on a neutral court.)
Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (6.0 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.9 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.7 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.3 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 1.5 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.7 apg)
C: Assane Sene (5.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 0.4 apg)

Duke:

PG: Quinn Cook (5.5 ppg, 1.1 rpg, 2.4 apg)
SG: Seth Curry (12.9 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.9 apg)
G: Austin Rivers (14.7 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.1 apg)
PF: Mason Plumlee (11.7 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 2.1 apg)
C: Miles Plumlee (7.3 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 0.5 apg)

Go time. UVA fans are amped up for a game that has the attention of pundits and talkyheads all over the country. Hell, UVA fans have the attention of pundits and talkyheads all over the country. Dick Vitale is coming, and in between effusive praises of the building, the fans, everyone in white, Coach K, and whichever Dukie just scored a bucket, he might even have something nice to say about Mike Scott. This is the big chance to make Tony Bennett a coaching superstar, because if we win, the entire storyline will be about how Bennett's picture-perfect fundamental defense shut down the mighty Blue Devils in their own barn. And for once, the storyline will be right.

-- UVA on offense

Duke has more tall people than we do. They don't have Mike Scott. Scott is quicker than the powerful but ponderous Plumlees and stronger than Ryan Kelly, and it will take a concerted, all-out effort by Duke to stop him. Scott can score one-on-one against anyone in this league, and if Duke doubles him, then he's smart enough and skilled enough to pass the ball back out (if he has to) and see if someone can't bomb from deep. This is one of the Hoos' top two hopes for winning: having the best player on the court.

Sammy Zeglinski has been a potent weapon at times for UVA, and I expect that Duke will deploy Seth Curry, an excellent defender, to stop him. (If they tried putting Curry on Brogdon or Harris, they'd just post his ass up.) UVA will need to do good work on the screen game in order to get Sammy any open looks against Curry, otherwise Z will have a quiet game.

This is where Joe Harris comes in. If he stays poised, he could potentially have a big game being guarded by one of Duke's freshman guards, almost certainly Austin Rivers, who is a jawjacker and a half and a terrific talent, but prone to going on tilt at times. Again, making Rivers work through a thousand screens could frustrate him. Another potential hole to poke is the other freshman guard, point guard Quinn Cook. Jontel Evans is generally unflappable and has the persona and the patience to break Cook down. It'll be a good matchup because both are quick players. Because of Duke's height, though, potentially being able to put three 6'10" or higher players on the court (they can do this if they like because of Ryan Kelly's peculiar skill set, but it's not exactly common) Evans probably won't get many chances to drive the lane, which will nullify his veteran advantage a little.

The X-factor (oh, I really hate using that word, but it seems apropos here) is Malcolm Brogdon. He's a freshman in his first time at Cameron. But he's also a big, scoring guard. Rivers is the only Duke starting guard with the size to guard Brogdon, and if Brogdon's really on, he's got a good chance to abuse Rivers on the defensive end. If he can do that, Duke would probably be forced to use Andre Dawkins, taking their best scorer out of the game. If Brogdon gets heated up, and Bennett deploys a big-guard combo of Brogdon and Harris, things could get interesting.

Overall, Duke is a good, solid defensive team - but not unbeatable at this end. If your shots are falling, you have a chance. Georgia Tech shot 49%, and Temple, 56%. Washington, 48%. If you only look at the crappy teams on Duke's schedule, even those teams have averaged better than 9 points every 10 possessions, which isn't exactly good, but we're talking about Western Michigan and UNC-Greensboro here. If UVA brings good execution to the table, and the threes don't brick out too much, we will be able to keep the pace on the scoreboard.

-- UVA on defense

This is the part that everyone's looking forward to. UVA has an elite defense that allows barely 8 points per ten possessions. Duke has an elite offense that scores 11.5 per 10. UVA likes to make you use all 35 seconds on both ends. Duke prefers to get up and down. Something's gotta give.

Duke never puts anyone on the floor that isn't a threat to score, forcing you to win the one-on-one battles. Teams rarely do. Duke will have a decided advantage in the post, as I think the Plumlees, particularly Mason, are too much for Assane Sene. UVA must deny the entry pass, which fortunately the pack-line is designed in part to do, because Duke's shots are likely to fall if taken from the interior.

Another big question is: can the pack-line keep Austin Rivers out of the lane? Rivers is their leading scorer, and Seth Curry happens to really like the two-point jumper as well. Jontel Evans may be forced to guard the bigger Rivers, because I'm not sure who else on our team can really do it. And then there's Ryan Kelly, the kind of player who just when you think you've got the game under some semblance of control, or are at least within striking distance, hits a damn three-pointer. Kelly has been coming off the bench lately, which is probably just as well because I don't know who besides Akil Mitchell can guard him.

Frankly, though, let's hope this side of the ball doesn't come down to those individual matchups. If it does, we lose. Period. This needs to be about Bennett's scheme and perfect execution thereof, and then Mike Scotting the rebounds. All of the rebounds. Rebound or die.

-- Outlook

I sort of gave it away just now. Play great team defense in the context of the pack-line, and we can win. Play perfect team defense in the context of the pack-line, and we should win. Even against Duke. Duke is talented enough to conquer the mighty Tony Bennett style, however, and perfect team defense is probably too high a peak. UVA must find and exploit Duke's weaknesses on offense to make up for the inevitable cracks in our own defense, and play offense so patient and slow-paced that the Crazies get tired of bouncing on the balls of their feet. Oh hell, let's just be honest: we need to play the kind of basketball that makes Tobacco Road declare us a stain on the holy purity of the game. Embrace the snail as the symbol of our style, limit Duke's chances, and then stick the dagger when it counts.

Duke is so talented that common sense says I ought to be picking them to win, like always. After all, practically every one of their players is an ugly matchup problem for our defense, one-on-one. It's even more frightening that we were twice labeled an upset pick by ESPN writers, one even going so far as to say that it's a shame we only play Duke once. But a couple months ago I wrote that I couldn't wait to see Mike Scott unleashed on an unsuspecting ACC. If that doesn't apply to now, when does it? This is a night for Mike Scott to be unleashed on an unsuspecting nation. I will embrace the snail and my undying fanboi-ism and declare tonight's game an upset in the making.

-- Final score: UVA 66, Duke 62

season preview: Virginia Tech

2012-01-11T17:58:00.000-05:00

Virginia Tech Hokies

(I knew there had to be a reason I kept that picture around)

Media prediction: 6th

Last season:

Record: 22-12 (9-7) - ACC 6th seed
Postseason: NIT second round
KenPom: 34th of 345

Returning scoring: 36.7%
Returning rebounding: 29.3%
Returning assists: 36.2%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: G Malcolm Delaney
2nd team: F Jeff Allen
3rd team: none
HM: none
Rookie: none
Defensive: none

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Erick Green (Jr.)
SG: Dorenzo Hudson (5Sr.)
SF: Jarell Eddie (So.)
F: Dorian Finney-Smith (Fr.)
PF: Victor Davila (Sr.)

Bench:

G Robert Brown (Fr.)
F Cadarian Raines (rSo.)
F C.J. Barksdale (Fr.)

Coach: Seth Greenberg (8th season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Virginia
Once: Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest

This is going to be so much less fun than in the past. Literally my favorite post that I've ever done in three and a half years of this blog is the Jeff Allen interview from last year. Allen was easily my favorite rival player in any sport to lampoon, and I tried to take advantage whenever given the opportunity. Now he's gone and graduated, and the only real target left on the Hokie basketball team (for now) is the coach.

The more things change, however. Tech is still the fouliest team in the conference, with more fouls per possession than any other team. And Seth Greenberg still has the team on a short rotation....although this latter tendency has been freed up somewhat from the absurd levels it reach last year.

Leading that rotation is point guard Erick Green. Green was forced into more playing time last year when Tech got hit with the injury bug, and he was pretty clearly an improvement over Dorenzo Hudson, the man whose minutes he took. Green is a dangerous scorer and capable distributor, and Tech's offense runs through him this year. Hudson is also a scorer, but an inefficient one who shouldn't shoot threes - he's a senior and has been a sub-.300 three-point shooter all his career. Hudson is also turnover-prone.

Tech doesn't have a true center (that they use) but they tend to play big because they can put a lot of big guys on the court at once. In some respects they have to, because their guard depth took a hit when Tyrone Garland decided to transfer; outside of Green and Hudson, the only other guard in the rotation is freshman Robert Brown. They start three guys over 6'7", though, and bring two more off the bench. Jarell Eddie is a matchup difficulty as a 6'7" three-point shooter - he's taken 48 of them this year and hit on more than half, and Eddie is also the team's best defensive rebounder, though when it comes down to it he's more of a big wing than a true forward. The offensive glass belongs to freshman forward Dorian Finney-Smith, who gathers an excellent 12.3% of available offensive boards.

The bigs can hold their own in the scoring department; none of them are stiffs, exactly. But VT's style is to attack with their guards, all of whom are outstanding free-throw shooters. They'd prefer to either slash to the basket or put threes in the air, and they don't have much of a preference as to which guard does what, as evidenced by the fact that they still let Hudson shoot from downtown. Eddie and Green can hurt you from deep, though, and all three of those guys are nearly automatic free-throw shots. Tech is happy to let you hack away, if you wish. The downside to their game is that it's pretty undisciplined, and they too will hack away.

This tends to lead to underachievement. VT has established a solid pattern, which they don't appear to have broken this year: they're more than talented enough to beat bad opponents, but not disciplined enough to consistently perform against opponents as good or better than they are. They began the year in a familiar spot - right on the bubble - and will probably end it in the same place as ever: on the outside looking in, because they can't gather the resume-boosting wins they need to get in.

****************************************************

-- One nice thing about having ~~a snail-paced war crime~~ Tony Bennett as Virginia's basketball coach is that Virginia fans are better than most about picking up on the gospel of the tempo-free statistic. Certainly much better than Jason King of ESPN, whose list of Wooden Award (basketball's Heisman) candidates omitted Mike Scott but included no less than three Tar Heels, who play the fastest pace in the country outside of VMI. In the words of the man himself: tragical. I link you this article not for the article but for the comments section, which turned into a list of Mike Scott Facts that Chuck Norris would be jealous of. Some of them are even hilarious and original. Mike Scott is the new poster boy for the cry to End Pace-ism Now.

-- In other exciting news, UVA is gaining a 2012 commit a few months early, as Teven Jones has decided to leave Fishburne Military Academy and enroll at UVA for the winter semester. This is a very rare thing for hoopsters. Football players do it all the time because it doesn't start the clock on their eligibility; it does for basketball players because it's the middle of their season. Jones will join the team immediately and take his redshirt season this spring. But he'll get the benefit of practicing with the team, and it'll help ease the transition between the current point guard combo of Evans/Zeglinski and the future one of Jones/some 2013 recruit. Zeglinski graduates after the year, and the way chemistry is on basketball teams, the early addition of Jones is a nice, outside-the-box headstart on 2012-2013.

the recruit: Kelvin Rainey

2012-01-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

Name: Kelvin Rainey
Position: CB
Hometown: Houston, TX
School: Houston Stratford
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175

24/7: 81; three stars; #91 CB; TX #206
ESPN: NR
Rivals: 5.5; three stars
Scout: three stars; #115 CB

Other offers: Rice, local I-AAs

It seems evident that Mike London and staff have decided to make a concerted effort to recruit the state of Texas. I can't think of any other good reason to give UTSA a home game against us. Rainey is London's first success in this regard (Zach Swanson doesn't really count, as it was really Swanson that sought out the Hoos after Stanford kind of decommitted him.) In the last ten recruiting classes, exactly three players before Rainey have come from Texas: Swanson, Riko Smalls, and Ian-Yates Cunningham. That last name ought to give you an idea of how frequently we do this.

If you're really into this recruiting thing, Rainey's high school might ring a bell for you; it's where Stanford got Andrew Luck. Stratford is a biggish school that holds its own in the tough Texas high school environment. UVA also recruited, but didn't end up offering, Rainey's teammate A.J. Justice.

Rainey didn't really put up "stats" this year because opponents refused to "throw at him." He came into the season with a good reputation, having earned Newcomer of the Year honors in his district last year, playing safety. He's got bloodlines, too: two older brothers playing football at New Mexico (eldest Johnathan) and Arizona (next eldest Derrick.) You might be thinking, though, that it's pretty rare that a Division I talent is a "newcomer" to varsity football as a junior; the explanation is that he transferred schools and had to sit a year. (The source for that is just a random message board dude, but his brothers both have Northbrook listed on their bios as their high school, so it checks out OK.)

So with a little bit of history on the guy, and ratings that are all pretty consistent at the low three-star level, why was hometown Rice the only other school to offer? You'd think he'd have at least a handful of CUSA deals. TheSabre mentions an SMU offer - possible, since that's where his teammate Justice is going - but that's the only place I've seen that. 24/7 also says North Texas offered. It'd warm my heart a little if those were both true, because it's hard to get too excited over winning a battle with just Rice.

Still, the relatively consistent guru ratings say something. High school football in Texas is a little bit more psycho than the rest of the country, and talents are identified early; the fact that Rainey didn't even step onto a varsity field until his junior year probably delayed his evaluation by the college coaches. And no offense to Rainey, but he's the #206 guy in the state according to 24/7; in other words, there's enough talent to fill the rosters of pretty much all the colleges in the region, so you might slip through a crack or two if you get a late start. Normally I prefer to go by offers over evaluation, but if I did that here I'd view Rainey as a Sun Belt-level guy, and the consistency of the ratings are good enough to sway me.

There's no telling whether Rainey will redshirt or not; he joins a biggish cornerback group that enters in 2012 and probably includes Maurice Canady, C.J. Moore, and Wil Wahee. Demetrious Nicholson has one side of the field to himself, but what happens after that is anyone's guess. You'd think it might be Brandon Phelps with the first shot to replace Chase Minnifield, but Drequan Hoskey was the guy they sent out there on Florida State's almost-game-winning drive, and look what he done did. That group of four all comes in on the same level playing field, and the best of the bunch out of that competition probably does not redshirt. Could be Rainey as much as anyone; could be anyone as much as Rainey. I usually like to offer predictions that are more specific than this, but the best I can say is that his ceiling could be anything from eventual starter to scout teamer, the same as anyone else in this cornerback muddle right now. Perhaps the one thing that separates Rainey from, say, Canady or Wahee, is that Rainey is one of the more unlikely candidates for a position switch. That's as specific as you're getting right now.

weekend review

2012-01-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Admit it, you were thinking it. Collapse: imminent. In fact, it's probably your own damn fault Joe Harris missed that free throw, forcing the Hoos to defend a 1-point lead. All that negative energy is what caused the brick. Maybe he needs to start thinking of brunette chicks on a beach or something, like Michigan's kicker. At any rate, it's pretty much official now that no lead against Miami is quite safe. I was going to say "to remedy this we should go up by 30 next time we play them" but I don't want to test the basketball gods.

Anyway, no complaining allowed about the close win, because Miami doesn't get another crack at us. We don't have to worry about "damn that was in our place, what's it gonna be like going to theirs?" (Not scary. Miami has no home court atmosphere whatsoever. But I digress.) Instead, UVA is now 1-0 in the tossup side of the schedule. I like 10-6 as an achievable goal for our ACC record, so UVA just needs to go 4-3 to achieve that - or else steal a win from Duke on Thursday.

The nutty thing is, people actually think we can do it. Blew-my-mind quote of the week: "On a neutral court, you might even take the Cavaliers to win." Against Duke, that is. UVA is a fashionable upset pick, as Duke is coming off a loss to Temple and a struggley win at Georgia Tech, and UVA is "(the only) non-UNC team in the ACC that has a chance to force Duke to play to its style." This is certainly true - you can't make a team shoot before it wants to, and the defense is good enough to possibly be able to force Duke to also use the whole shot clock.

Really, that's the question. Of course, there'll be a game preview on Thursday for this one, but what it boils down to is which version of the sometimes-inconsistent Hoos show up. UVA has done an uncanny job this year of playing just slightly above its level of competition no matter what the competition, except for TCU in which we played just slightly below it. I'm not worried about Cameron; the Hoos proved last year they could handle the place. I am worried about Ryan Kelly's shooting, Austin Rivers's athleticism, and the size of the Plumlees; and I'm worried about the men in stripes. Did you know the ACC doesn't even send refs to Durham? It's true. Fifteen minutes before every tip-off, they just ask for student volunteers, preferably ones who've reffed IM games but all you really have to do is be able to fit into the shirts.

At #16 in the AP poll and #17 in the coaches' poll, UVA is now at the point where it would take a couple bad weeks in a row to get knocked out of the rankings, and that's not likely any time soon. (Unless you literally shit on the floor, pollsters don't usually penalize you for losing at Cameron, and three of the next five games after Duke are win-column padders, plus VT at home.) I still think that's a touch high, but after the events of this week (we won, and so did most of our good wins) it's a hell of a lot harder to claim we don't belong in the top 25. I'd rank K-State ahead of us, for example, but I don't think I can pick up nine more teams and move them ahead, so here we are. Also, a dreaded five-seed in Lunardi's bracketology (which is to say, somewhere between 17th and 20th in his reckoning.) If his bracket were the real thing, we'd be playing Belmont, which has me screaming in terror because Belmont opened the season by losing to Duke by one, and it's the 5/12 matchup and that's an evil place to be. We either need to win a lot more or lose a little more, because I really and truly would rather be the 6 seed than the 5.

****************************************************

Anyway, there needs to be more to this post than just basketball, or I can't justify calling it a weekend review. So how about a recruiting board update? We don't get many of these, these days, and in a little while here I'm gonna start putting together the 2013 model. It'll be a little earlier than in previous years, because the 2012 recruiting season is gonna finish with very little drama. There might be a late addition somewhere, and we'll be keeping an eye on Stefon Diggs, but otherwise, we're just kind of loping to the finish line here. You'll hate me for saying this if it does happen, but I don't even think we'll have any decommitments. That would be a first in quite a while. For housekeeping's sake, here's what's changed on the 2012 board:

-- Changed QB Greyson Lambert from "verbal" to "enrolled." Because he is.

-- Re-added RB Imani Cross to green. Cross decommitted from Tennessee a little while back, and there's just too much going on around his recruitment to ignore it. If there weren't a bunch of conflicting reports, I'd put him in blue. Cross would be a great pickup, because he's something we don't have, either in this class or on the roster: a really big bruiserback.

-- Moved S Mike Tyson from yellow to red.

-- Removed RB Wes Brown (Maryland), OT Kyle Fuller (Baylor), and ATH Cyrus Jones (Alabama.)

About Brown: he was swayed to Maryland pretty rapidly by the newly hired Mike Locksley, Maryland's new offensive coordinator. Maryland is making no bones about what Locksley was hired to do: his bonuses for performing on the recruiting trail are larger than those for his offense's on-field performance.

This raises some pretty interesting questions about what's a good idea for coaching contracts. ESPN has pointed out that this is par for the course in the SEC; also par for the course in the SEC is oversigning and then kicking nonperformers out of the program under the guise of "medical scholarships." LSU famously told a kid he was not going to have the scholarship he'd signed up for after he'd already enrolled and moved into the dorm. Obviously, if oversigning is happening because the coaches have their eyes on their bonuses, it only makes a shitty procedure even shittier, so even the appearance of such a thing is probably not a good idea.

Neither is putting a guy in charge of your offense when his real job is recruiting. Locksley's record at UNM speaks for itself (on the plus side for Maryland, it probably means he'll never be hired for a head coaching job ever again), and his only other coordinator experience was at Illinois working for Ron Zook. Locksley's prime recruiting catch from his DC stomping grounds was wide receiver Arrelious Benn, which was quite a grab. And Illinois's offense did improve in each of Locksley's four years, but whether that was because of the appearance of Juice Williams or Locksley's coaching is up for debate. At any rate, though Locksley might be a recruiting challenge for UVA in the next couple years, I don't feel threatened by his presence in the coach's box on Saturdays.

Lastly, both the basketball and lacrosse depth charts are getting updates; a long-needed one in the case of the hoops chart. Bad news already appears on the lacrosse one with Nick O'Reilly's season-long suspension and Blake Riley's season-killing injury; both were set to see a lot of playing time, and both had really picked up their play toward the end of last season. You might remember that it was Riley who checked the ball free of a Bucknell middie's stick in overtime to set up UVA's eventual game-winner. Also please note that the lacrosse one isn't gonna be perfect; positions are a little fluid and I don't think all the information that's out there is necessarily correct, not even the officially listed ones on the roster.

And yes, I'm doing all of this stuff for you in the middle of the BCS championship game. It's not much of a sacrifice; it's difficult to watch a game when you know for a fact that both coaches are perfectly willing to screw a player's career in the name of winning and you suspect that the reason Mom got pissed at that one player's decision to pick Bama over LSU was that the LSU boosters offered her a better deal. I wouldn't be surprised if this game had a Subway Series effect; the TV ratings for the 2000 Yankees/Mets World Series plummeted because if something's a big deal only in your slice of the country, the rest of the country tends to be much less interested. ESPN and their ilk do not get this, but whatever.

season preview: NC State

2012-01-08T21:23:00.000-05:00

NC State Wolfpack

Media prediction: 8th

Last season:

Record: 15-16 (5-11) - ACC 10th seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 91st of 345

Returning scoring: 66.3%
Returning rebounding: 70.7%
Returning assists: 58.4%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: F Tracy Smith
Rookie: F C.J. Leslie
Defensive: none

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Lorenzo Brown (So.)
SG: C.J. Williams (Sr.)
SF: Scott Wood (Jr.)
PF: C.J. Leslie (So.)
F: Richard Howell (Jr.)

Bench:

C DeShawn Painter (Jr.)
G Alex Johnson (Sr.)
F Tyler Harris (Fr.)

Coach: Mark Gottfried (1st season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Wake Forest
Once: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech

One of the greatest pities of the ACC coaching carousel is that we'll no longer see Clifford the Big Red Coach - also known as Sidney Lowe in a plus-sized, red-as-hell sportcoat - patrolling the sidelines at NC State. Would've been even better if he'd borrowed some of Chuck Amato's red shoes. (Let's hope Seth Greenberg doesn't get any ideas, though.)

NC State has quietly been one of the better teams in the ACC through the nonconference schedule under new coach Mark Gottfried. In each of their losses - all to teams that will probably be in the tournament - they had a lead or otherwise put a big scare into the opponent. Even Syracuse. And they knocked off Texas on a neutral court. They haven't earned a ton of press for their efforts, though.

The Pack are led by sometimes-mercurial sophomore C.J. Leslie, a mega-recruit who picked NC State over Kentucky to end his recruitment. Leslie is an athletic scoring forward with long arms and a talent for shot-blocking - he gathers 2.3 per game. Leslie had to miss the first three games of the season for accepting benefits and was suspended for the Duke game last year, and might be as famous for his poetry as his basketball. (Lord Byron he ain't, but on the plus side, at least he wrote it himself, which isn't always the case with athletes sometimes.) The Duke suspension plus Leslie's occasional tendency to hork up shots that never had a prayer of finding the rim even led to point-shaving rumors, almost certainly unfounded since "he jacks up stupid-ass shots" isn't exactly an uncommon gripe about hyped-up basketball players. Leslie has dialed down the three-point attempts considerably this year, anyway.

All five of NC State's starters, however, average between 12.2 and 13.0 points a game. Partly this is an artifact of the fact that NC State plays with the third-fastest tempo in the ACC, but the players are about that good, too. The Pack have the 18th-best offense in the country, per KenPom, and they crash the offensive glass and do it very well. Richard Howell gathers in 15.5% of available offensive boards, an excellent number that makes him top-25 in the country, and he's a terrific rebounder on the other end, too. Howell battling Mike Scott on the glass should be a great rebounding duel. Scott Wood is an excellent three-point shooter (though he's really the only one on the team) and C.J. Williams is a guard who's hitting a shooting percentage of .533. Plus, there isn't a weak free-throw shooter in the bunch; if any could be called that, it's Leslie, but at .618 he's not exactly terrible.

If there's a weakness, it's in the lack of true big men. With 7'1" center Jordan Vandenberg having been phased out of the rotation lately, the largest player that usually sees the court is 6'9", 235-pound DeShawn Painter, a former UVA recruit. Painter is essentially NC State's sixth man, and he, Howell, and Leslie make for one of the ACC's better frontcourts, if somewhat undersized.

They say that UVA could well turn out to be the ACC's third-best team - assuming, of course, that Duke and UNC are the obvious top two. But NC State is one of the biggest threats to that particular prize. They're a well-rounded team, and one of a handful of contenders (including UVA, Miami, and VT) for a tournament berth. They have a great chance at both that tourney berth and a winning record in-conference, neither of which they ever achieved under Sidney Lowe.

game preview: Miami

2012-01-06T16:44:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Saturday, January 7; 6:00

TV: ESPNUVA

History against the Canes: 4-9

Last matchup: Miami 69, UVA 62; 3/10/11; Greensboro, NC (ACCT)

Last game: UVA 57, LSU 52 (1/2); Miami 99, UNCG 89 (1/2)

Opposing blogs: none that give hoops the time of day

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 61.2 (#336)
Miami: 65.1 (#261)

Offense:
UVA: 105.1 (#90)
Miami: 110.8 (#32)

Defense:
UVA: 87.2 (#12)
Miami: 99.0 (#150)

Pythagorean win%:
UVA: .8713 (#29)
Miami: .7593 (#68)

(Explanation of KenPom stats: "Tempo" number is number of offensive possessions per game. "Offense" and "Defense" numbers are points scored/allowed per 100 possessions. All numbers are adjusted, using the magic KenPom formula; therefore they are not actual, but projections of predicted results against an average team on a neutral court.)

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (6.0 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 3.4 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (10.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.8 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (13.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (16.0 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 1.7 apg)
C: Assane Sene (5.2 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 0.4 apg)

Miami:

PG: Durand Scott (13.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Malcolm Grant (14.5 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 1.7 apg)
G: Trey McKinney-Jones (8.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 2.0 apg)
PF: Kenny Kadji (10.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 0.5 apg)
C: Reggie Johnson (10.8 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.3 apg)

When last we met, Miami was the beneficiary of possibly UVA's most astounding collapse in 80+ years of basketball. There was technically an overtime period following the clusterfuck, but I don't remember it and neither do you because it might as well not have happened. Let's face it, if you've watched enough of any sport at all you knew for a fact that the chances of UVA winning that game in OT were zero, because that's how sports work.

Technically, less is at stake here because this isn't a tournament, but let's not kid ourselves: This game means stuff. As I detailed yesterday, you can divide UVA's schedule up into the givens and the non-givens, and this is a non-given right here. If the givens hold to form, then we need to go 4-4 in the other games, so really, this is one of the season's eight most important games, right here. And it's at home, so no screwing up allowed. On the face of it, Miami might appear to be just another underachieving ACC squad, with no good losses and one bad win, but the matchup isn't as easy as all that.

-- UVA on offense

Tony Bennett's not the only guy in the ACC known for bringing maddening defensive schemes to the floor. Jim Larranaga, new to Miami after the departure of Frank Haith for Missouri, brings what's known as the scramble defense to Coral Gables.

This isn't going to be fun for UVA fans used to watching their team struggle when pressured in fullcourt situations. Larranaga likes to press, and at a minimum, someone is always hounding the ballcarrier starting in the three-quarter court. If you bring the ball too close to the sidelines, they trap. UVA's ballhandlers will have to be better than they were in the final minute of regulation last year, and as always against a trap, finding the open man is paramount. This is why Bennett stresses defense; it is always, always easier to deal with a fullcourt defense if you don't give up a basket.

This is the first season for Miami in the scramble defense, of course, and what's more, they haven't been at full strength. They are now, having bolstered their frontcourt with the return of mammoth center Reggie Johnson, which leaves their guards freer to trap on the wings and away from the basket. This overwhelmed Appalachian State and Miami won by 30, but UNC-Greensboro found success by getting open looks from three and hitting on 11 of 21. (They still lost, but only by ten.)

In order to score, UVA will also need to hit on jump shots. A trapping defense like Miami's forces turnovers, but also leaves open spaces on the floor, which, if your shooting is good, you can exploit. Not just threes, but I expect UVA will also find opportunities from the elbow, as well as some Mike Scott fadeaways. Sammy Zeglinski will be a key player for the Hoos tomorrow, as someone who's expected to both handle the ball and shoot it, and Joe Harris must be relentlessly in motion looking for the open shot as well.

-- UVA on defense

The twin towers of Reggie Johnson and Kenny Kadji pose a serious threat. Both are matchup problems; Johnson because he's 280+ pounds, and Kadji because he can hit an occasional three despite standing 6'11". (Both are shotblockers, too.) I expect that UVA will need to double them up at times on the block in order to keep them from having their way, because as ferocious as Mike Scott can be, he's not 280 pounds.

The thing about Miami's guards is that none of them stand out with any really special abilities. But none of them are slouches and all have the ability to hurt you. It's a rare team that's assembled of players with 100+ offensive ratings in KenPom's system, but that's what Miami has. They spread the ball well, too, with everybody on the court getting their shot at chipping in. If there's a weakness, it's probably that the Canes have a tendency to turn the ball over.

This will be a great test of our so-far-vaunted defense. Miami shoots threes fairly well, and the downtown bomb can come from practically anyone. Malcolm Grant has attempted 79 of them, but there are five other players who've tried at least two per game. Can UVA deny the three-ball and, at the same time, hold Miami's starting frontcourt in check? Justin Hamilton's game on Monday has to give you some concern about what Johnson and Kadji might be able to do.

-- Outlook

This all seems gloomy, but the obvious upside, of course, is that Miami hasn't often faced a defense as proficient as UVA's, and when they have, the results weren't pretty. Miami has hurdles of their own, including meshing the newly-returned players into their lineup, and the fact that, like all teams in the first year of a new coach, they don't perfectly execute their new system. Neither team really likes to crank up the tempo, but I think you'll see a higher-scoring game than we've gotten used to, and of course, there's home court advantage. KenPom gives us a 79% chance of a win, but that's using stats that don't take into account the new additions to the lineup; I think this'll be much, much closer. I could easily see us losing this one, but I think this team has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to rising to the level of their competition, so I'll cross my fingers, shut my eyes, and call for a close win for the Hoos.

-- Final score: UVA 79, Miami 75

season preview: North Carolina

2012-01-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

North Carolina Tar Heels

Media prediction: 1st

Last season:

Record: 29-8 (14-2) - ACC 1st seed
Postseason: NCAA Elite Eight
KenPom: 12th of 345

Returning scoring: 81.7%
Returning rebounding: 76.1%
Returning assists: 79.2%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: F John Henson, C Tyler Zeller, F Harrison Barnes
3rd team: G Kendall Marshall
HM: none
Rookie: G Kendall Marshall, F Harrison Barnes
Defensive: F John Henson

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Kendall Marshall (So.)
SG: Dexter Strickland (Jr.)
SF: Harrison Barnes (So.)
PF: John Henson (Jr.)
C: Tyler Zeller (Sr.)

Bench:

G Reggie Bullock (So.)
G P.J. Hairston (Fr.)
F James Michael McAdoo (Fr.)
G Justin Watts (Sr.)

Coach: Roy Williams (9th season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Duke, Maryland, Miami, NC State, Virginia
Once: Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

Last year, when I did my Duke preview, I decided there was hardly any point to it. So I mailed it in, declaring that Duke was pretty much unstoppable regardless of how you broke it down and if they didn't make the Final Four it'd be a major, major disappointment. So of course, they didn't make the Final Four. In an effort to jinx Carolina in a similar fashion, I hereby declare them automatic Final Four material. You don't really need me to tell you the various ways in which that lineup can kick your ass anyway. The NBA lockout no doubt had something do with it, as it probably scared Harrison Barnes and various other Heels back to school for another year to ride out the storm. Now the whole crew is back and they better do something worth doing in the tournament so the ACC doesn't look like a top-to-bottom mess. Instead of breaking down North Carolina, let's talk RPI instead.

UVA's RPI has oscillated pretty wildly between games, which you'd expect for a small sample size. After dispatching LSU and successfully navigating the OOC schedule, we now sit at 47th. If we stay there through the ACC season, is that good enough for a tournament berth? Yes, because we're an ACC team, not a mid-major one. Mid-majors at this level are looking at a 50/50 proposition; high-majors tend to be given 8 seeds.

However, it's a precarious perch. UVA's nonconference strength of schedule is 261st right now, worst among the RPI top 50. That means no screwing around in the ACC. My best guess is that an 8-8 record in-conference would send us to Hokieland - that dark place where you sit in front of the TV (or worse, Jumbotron) on Selection Sunday and never hear your name, until the analysts ask the committee member "why not Virginia?" We don't wanna be Greenberged.

Our schedule does not put us in a happy place, because we get all the crap teams just once. If you figure that BC, Wake, GT, and Clemson are the four worst teams (I do) and that we can chalk those up as wins relatively safely (I do) that gives us five wins. (Only Clemson shows up twice.) And if UNC and Duke are losses, that makes us 5-3 with eight tossups. Well, not tossups. We should be better than most of those teams - those teams being Miami, FSU, NC State, Maryland, and VT. That doesn't mean we'll win all those games, but assuming I'm right about the other half of the schedule, even 4-4 would get us to the tournament. Worse than 4-4 in those eight games, and you're really sweating Selection Sunday.

In a normal year, 9-7 in the ACC would basically be an automatic selection, but this isn't a normal year, it's definitely a drought year. And we didn't help ourselves by scheduling mainly middle-to-bottom teams in their respective conferences. Michigan is the best team we've played, but unfortunately the Big Ten is maybe the strongest top-to-bottom conference in the league. LSU and Oregon are middling teams. So are Drake and TCU and UWGB. George Mason should finish in the top third of the CAA, but the CAA is terrible this year.

I think the lesson is this: don't bother with the really bad teams. Take Winthrop. That is going to be a really bad, bottom-feeding team, in the Big South. They're 4-10. Campbell is also in the Big South, and is 9-6. Would Campbell be any harder to beat than Winthrop? I doubt it. But my very rough calculations with the RPI formula tell me that if we could swap the two on our schedule, it'd be worth a jump from 47th to 38th, right now. Isn't that kind of a big deal? That's kind of a big deal. One swap like that would have less of an impact after we double the number of teams on our resume by playing the ACC season, but four such swaps would make a dent in things. I mean, when a team went 4-26 last year? Don't put 'em on the schedule. Just don't do it.

Anyway, that was kind of a tangent. The hand we're dealt is one that we have to play correctly throughout the season. As we stand right now, a lot of people are calling UVA the third-best team in the conference. Play like it, and nobody will care much about the strength of schedule and we'll end up with a nice five seed (I know, I know.) Don't play like it and we'll be nervously testing the strength of our bubble in March.

too-late review, too-early preview: the offense 2011-2012

2012-01-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not really "late," exactly, because the bowl game was less than a week ago. But this is the title I gave this post last year, so let's use it again this year, just for giggles. Consider this something of a season wrap, in a somewhat objective sense. Time to go down the position chart and evaluate the play of each unit, starting with....

QUARTERBACKS

This year....

....kinda sucked until Mike London scrapped the QB platoon. After a couple games, not many people liked that idea, and the only disagreement was whether it should be Mike Rocco or David Watford who actually gets the snaps. The answer was Rocco, and he proved everyone right about that platoon thing almost immediately by directing a win on the road at Miami.

Rocco's passer rating, pre-Miami, was 113.1; post-Miami (inclusive), it was 141. Give Rocco the former rating for the whole season, and he'd be the 100th-best passer in the country; 141 would be good enough for 36th. This is as a sophomore, mind you. Rocco's play impressed a lot of neutral observers in the Peach Bowl, and really, that was a very good game but it wasn't even heads and shoulders above some of his others. (It came against a better defense than, say, Maryland, though.)

Next year....

UVA will enter the 2012 season with the kind of certainty at quarterback that we haven't seen in years. There's no reason to think there will be any kind of competition in camp this year. Rocco is The Man. The only question is the pecking order among the backups, and I think there will be a reasonably interesting race again, with Watford, Ross Metheny, and freshman Greyson Lambert taking reps in camp in an effort to see who comes in should the worst happen to Rocco. Lambert is officially enrolled at the University, the third straight year a quarterback has enrolled early, so his development might be the most eagerly anticipated aspect of the spring. (He's also the only early enrollee, so don't get your hopes up for more.) Still, he and Matt Johns will hopefully redshirt.

RUNNING BACKS/FULLBACKS

This year....

The dual-starter platoon worked much better at tailback, with Perry Jones and Kevin Parks working as the clearcut load-carriers. Jones totaled 915 yards despite sharing the ball, the most since Alvin Pearman's 1,080 in 2004. If the workload were a five-way pie, Jones and Parks got two slices each and Clifton Richardson got the other, and he was just as productive as the other two as the third-string guy.

Max Milien was more of an H-back than a true fullback, since his role was mostly pass-catching, at which he was a good change of pace. But when it comes to pass-catching, none of the backs could touch Perry Jones, who lined up as a receiver at times and happened to have the longest reception of the season.

Next year....

I don't see much changing, except that Milien is graduating. Zach Swanson is the up-and-coming (and only) fullback on the roster, so expect him to be suddenly very visible. As a converted tight end, he should be as much as, if not more of, a pass-catching threat than Milien was. As for the tailbacks, Jones's role will certainly not be shrinking, and Richardson's might be expanding. If anything, Richardson might get a few of Parks's carries, but that shouldn't be a long-term problem since Jones is graduating after next season.

But you have to be really excited over what Jones can bring to the table as a senior. Already a captain as a junior, his football knowledge and leadership are way up there. It might actually be healthy for the offense if he scaled back his receptions some (because it might mean the wide receivers are performing better) but I think we'll all be on 1,000-yard-watch next year to see if Jones can crack the four-digit barrier. The other really exciting possibility is what Clifton Richardson might do with a year under his belt. Jones might make it to 1,000 yards next year, but Richardson eventually will. He's that good.

WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS

This year....

If you're like me, you'll be surprised to hear this: Kris Burd had more receiving yards than any UVA pass-catcher of any kind since Billy McMullen in 2001. That includes every year of Heath Miller's career, all of Kevin Ogletree's, and some of McMullen's as well. This is an odd stat, or it feels like one since I spent all year thinking "why aren't the receivers more productive?"

But the stats don't lie: Burd had a great season. No doubt about it. They're solid proof against my preseason assertion that Burd would need a #1 guy lining up on the other side in order to reach his potential.

I still think it would've been nice to have someone besides just Burd as a really good, dependable wideout option. Matt Snyder's broken foot did not help in that regard. But he had the dropsies a couple of times this year, and Tim Smith was kind of inconsistent. And the tight ends were almost nonexistent in the passing game. Colter Phillips only had three catches, Paul Freedman eleven, and Jeremiah Mathis six. They were hardly ever thrown to outside the red zone.

It's probably fair to say that the offense didn't quite reach its full potential, thanks to the lack of an array of passcatchers. This is what we hope we'll get by stockpiling guys like Darius Jennings and Dominique Terrell, but it was always unfair to expect they would jump directly into that role and catch 50 passes.

Next year....

This will be the position group with the most uncertainty. Burd's UVA career is over, and the productivity of the unit will depend on whether anyone can fill his shoes. Snyder also will not be back, depriving UVA of a dependable possession receiver. People will be looking at Tim Smith first and foremost, and the Wondertwins, Jennings and Terrell, are likely to have every opportunity as well.

But you need more than three receivers, so that means we'll see some guys on the field who we haven't seen much of at all. Bobby Smith? E.J. Scott? Miles Gooch? Kevin Royal? I think this will be the most intriguing camp battle - not only between Tim Smith and the wondertwins to see who is Rocco's primary option, but to see who is going to emerge on the second level.

OFFENSIVE LINE

This year....

We had remarkable good luck and good health. The same five guys started every game at the same position. You could argue that that's the #1 reason we won eight games. The effect that that has on success can't be understated. Just a terrific year for the whole unit. You can't say more than that.

I might also add that Matt Fortin stepped in as long-snapper in replacement of Danny Aiken, and the long-snapping was not a problem, not even once. Fortin is a redshirt freshman, so I think we're set for the next three years.

Next year....

Two of those starters must be replaced. We'll need a new center after Anthony Mihota had a surprisingly excellent year (and a good thing too after our backup center got himself booted.) And Austin Pasztor graduates after being a four-year starter, an exceedingly rare breed among offensive linemen.

So if wide receiver is the position group with the most uncertainty, center is the position with the most. Cody Wallace is the heir apparent, and let's hope he's a good one, because if you don't have a good center, you don't have a good running game. A new left guard will be required, too. Currently, Matt Mihalik is listed as the backup there while Conner Davis is listed as the backup right guard, but I think we'll see a camp battle between the two; or else, Morgan Moses will slide inside and Sean Cascarano will play tackle. Either is a likely possibility. I think London's philosophy is to get the best five guys on the field, so however that can be accomplished is what they'll do.

Fortunately, we won't have to deal with the tacklepocalypse that there was potential for, as both Oday Aboushi and Moses will be back.

You'll notice that not once in here did I mention any true freshmen, except at quarterback where I figure they'll both redshirt anyway. That is progress. If there's a place for a true freshman to contribute, it's most likely at receiver; you may see someone like Canaan Severin find his way onto the field. But the truth is, as we stand here in January, there's very little room for a freshman. That's as it should be. In part, it's a reflection that pretty much all our (current) verbal commits of a high-star variety are on defense, but it also means we no longer have a program that's badly in need of a talent infusion. At least on this side of the ball.

season preview: Miami

2012-01-04T01:12:00.000-05:00

Miami Hurricanes

Media prediction: 5th

Last season:

Record: 21-15 (6-10) - ACC 9th seed
Postseason: NIT quarterfinals
KenPom: 58th of 345

Returning scoring: 80.3%
Returning rebounding: 68.7%
Returning assists: 88.7%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: G Malcolm Grant
HM: C Reggie Johnson
Defensive: none
Rookie: none

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Durand Scott (Jr.)
SG: Malcolm Grant (Sr.)
G: Trey McKinney-Jones (rJr.)
PF: Kenny Kadji (rSo.)
C: Reggie Johnson (Jr.)

Bench:

G Shane Larkin (Fr.)
F DeQuan Jones (Sr.)
G Garrius Adams (Jr.)
G Rion Brown (So.)
F Erik Swoope (So.)

Coach: Jim Larranaga (1st season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Boston College, Florida State, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State
Once: Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

Fortuitous timing on this preview, since Miami happens to be the ACC season opener on Saturday. Good thing, too; the last ACC game we played was also against Miami and it didn't go so well. This should hopefully be a little bit cathartic.

On paper, the Canes look like they should be a good team. They return a whole bunch of veterans - really, almost nobody left that could be called a key player. Malcolm Grant and Reggie Johnson each earned some kind of all-ACC recognition last year; Johnson in particular is an absolute load who weighs in at 284 pounds, which means he's slimmed down and dropped 20 from last year. This is what I wrote about Miami in last year's preview:

The Canes are one of the few teams in the conference blessed with the two things that every ACC coach would give their left nut for: a combo of excellent scoring guards and a big true center who scores and rebounds.

Well, they still have those guys, and they've added another dangerous player to the mix in Kenny Kadji, who is 6'11" and just dropped 30 points on UNC-Greensboro. Kadji transferred in from Florida. That gives them two front-liners over 6'10", a very difficult pair indeed to deal with. So with all this, why has Miami likely played themselves out of a tourney berth?

Well, they're just now getting Johnson back from injury, for starters. It's a little like Maryland in which we haven't really seen the team at full strength. Johnson tore cartilage in his knee in the offseason - his nose-tackle-like weight no doubt having something to do with it - and is getting back into the lineup just recently. The Canes are also just now getting back depth player DeQuan Jones, who was taking an NCAA-mandated timeout in the wake of Nevin Shapiro's Miami Vice scandal.

So with Johnson back, lining up next to Kadji (who has real potential to be a matchup nightmare in the mold of Duke's Ryan Kelly) and two dangerous scorers in Grant and Durand Scott (a very solid point guard who scores and takes care of the ball) Miami will be a tough out for ACC teams this year. They're very well-rounded - as a matter of fact, every single one of their players currently has an above-average (that is, 100) KenPom offensive rating. Overall this team has the profile of a high-performing, tournament-level ACC squad. It's just - the results haven't quite shown up in the win-loss column, as Miami has no good wins, one bad loss (Ole Miss) and too many close calls. I can only chalk this up to not having Johnson and having to learn a new system, and the fact that they play only average defense. But frankly I'm glad we're seeing Miami early in the season because they could be scary when the light bulb comes on. Because of their early-season missteps I don't see them making the tournament (unless the committee decides they've reformed their ways, which has been known to happen) but don't be surprised if they make life tough one night for a Duke or a UNC. And even if they don't make the tournament they could hang a banner as NIT champs.

***************************************************

As for our own team, maybe you'd appreciate a thought or two as we close out the nonconference schedule. A solid win over a solid opponent, to be sure, on Monday night. Yes, I know - you were disappointed we missed out on Justin Hamilton and now you're really disappointed. The way he played on Monday, he'd look pretty good in our colors alongside Mike Scott, wouldn't he?

UVA has now done enough, I think, to warrant tournament inclusion as long as we don't play like fools in the ACC. And the rest of the ACC, for the most part, has fueled a lot of confidence in their beatability. Oregon and LSU won't be in the tournament, most likely, but they're good enough that beating both of them at their own place is very committee-friendly.

However, I have a hard time believing this is one of the top 25 teams in the country. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being ranked. It's almost meaningless in basketball, but not completely: it does mean that ESPN acts like you're important to the casual viewer. I only mean that half-sarcastically - the exposure is good for the program. The fact that Virginia is constantly on the score repeater and on the website headlines puts Virginia just a little bit closer to the forefront of people's minds, and that is a good thing if "people" includes recruits. But I don't think we're quite ready for that prime-timery just yet. The loss to TCU and too many close calls to lousy teams - this really isn't the profile of a top-25 machine. At least, I don't get that impression. Yet. One of the top 68? You bet. Top 25? Work to do. Not complaining about the positive press, but I think there's more room to earn it at the moment. The real grind starts on Saturday, and I'm looking forward to what happens on the other end, two months from now.

a special finish

2012-01-02T23:13:00.001-05:00

So 2011 finished on a down note. But the nice thing about bowl games is that there really aren't any negatives to losing them.** Other than not getting all the awesome positives from winning.

Even the way we lost couldn't muster a lot of OUTRAGE and disappointment from me. It only lasted, like, half an hour. A far cry from the weekend-ruination that is a regular-season Saturday loss. It wasn't close enough for me to point to one or two lousy calls (though I could certainly beef with the refs if I felt like it, as they missed a lot of calls both ways) or spend all day Sunday going "if only we had...." And it wasn't, like, a total facewashing.

In fact, the offense played well. Very well. Well enough to win, if it hadn't been forced to play in comeback mode for over half the game. Mike Rocco was terrific. Rocco has surely cemented the right to go into spring and fall camp in 2012 as the unquestioned starter, and it ought to take a superhuman effort - I mean, like, Watford comes out looking like Vince Young - in order to unseat him by the first of September when the team takes the field against Richmond. The Auburn pass defense was exactly as advertised: shaky. But I'll tell you what: if Rocco starts the next two seasons and doesn't get hurt, he will break Matt Schaub's career yardage record. You can bank that. He only needs to average 2,415 yards a season to do it and he had 2,671 this year.

Our own defense could certainly have been better, and the stat sheet makes the following statement look silly, but - it didn't completely suck. Not like the stat sheet says it did. Unfortunately they ended up with a lot of short fields to defend. Which leads us to what you and I and everyone else can all easily pin this loss on.....

....yes, the special teams. Maybe I said the defense didn't completely suck because I was comparing it to the atomic fiasco that was the special teams. How many points do you suppose we gave up because of special teams? I count 22:

- 7 for the first blocked punt, which gave Auburn the ball in the red zone
- 7 for the onside kick, which gave Auburn the ball at our 41
- 3 because we couldn't execute a fake field goal
- 2 for the safety on the second blocked punt
- 3 for the field goal that came after Auburn's long return of the ensuing free kick

You could even get crazy and say 7 for the failed fake FG, and bring the total to 26. Auburn won by 19. I don't subscribe to the notion that "special teams are 1/3 of the game," because obviously you don't spend 1/3 of game time on special teams. But let it never be said they aren't important. They just cost us the Peach Bowl. Period.

I mean, the blocked punts drive you crazy because it's not like there's some mythical athleticism gap that caused them. Anyone who comes through as unblocked as all that will block the punt. And - really? A rugby punt in the end zone? When you have one-third fewer yards to work with? Coaching failures brought on those blocked punts, and a coaching failure led the team to be unprepared for an onside kick. And the kick coverage has been trouble all year, not to mention kicking the ball out of bounds on the kickoff.

So that'll be your number one adjustment for the offseason. It's a tough situation because your special teams coach is none other than UVA legend Anthony Poindexter, whose recruiting chops are crucial to our success. But nobody else on the staff has ever been a special teams coach, either. Idea lobbed in from the back of the peanut gallery: have London take over special teams himself until eventually someone leaves the staff and someone with special-teams experience can be hired. Cause that might've been the worst game anyone in the country has played on special teams, all year long.

I do have one last gripe. And if you have gotten, over the years, a good enough feel for my general, overall attitude toward college football, you might have guessed it already. If you don't know, and I tell you what that attitude is - it can be summed up in the four words "get off my lawn" - maybe you too can guess. Have you figured it out? If you guessed, "Brendan hates the orange helmets" give yourself a smiley sticker.

Look. First off, that makes us, by my count, the 52nd team in college football this year to play helmet reindeer games. 52 of 120 teams did not wear the same helmet in all of their games. So that doesn't exactly make us special, OK? We don't exactly stand out from the crowd. I hear this all the time, too: "Recruits like it." "The players like it." I'll tell you what else players really like: bowl games. But that doesn't stop the majority of college football fans (and annoying writers) from harboring the opinion that the bowls are a parasite that should be replaced with a playoff. The point there is that you can hide behind "players like it" all you want but when you see something that the players like but that's beyond your tolerance level, suddenly it no longer matters what they players think. So that's nothing but a copout.

For the record, I thought orange helmets over orange jerseys - not a great look. Worse yet: I didn't feel like I was watching Virginia. Suddenly it felt like another team was wearing our jerseys. Here's a fact: we are the only team in the ACC that uses navy blue as a primary color. That will change when the conference expands, but we will still be the only team that has true blue helmets. Why is that not good enough???

I get that we are in an age where people have microwaveable attention spans. Nobody's happy any more, everyone's bored, if you come out looking the same week to week. They want the newest, sickest, latest thing. They want wikked sikk warriorzz uniformzz from Nike, they want black, they want chrome, they want to be able to strut around glove-pimping for the cameras or watch their favorite player do it, they want new and different every year, if not every week, or else they get bored. All I ask is that one damn thing stay the same every now and again. As I said: we are the only team in the conference with blue helmets and with navy blue as a point of emphasis. Why that's not good enough, I have no idea.

(I know, I know: I probably just spent more words on the helmets than the special teams fiasco. Priorities, etc. Whatever, it's my blog. I have my rights.)

**Unless the other team's fans are assholes. I have no idea if that's the case here. I do know it was kind of a thing when I went to Purdue-Maryland a few years ago in support of my Boilermaker brother.

game preview: Auburn

2011-12-29T21:06:00.000-05:00

Date/Time: Saturday, December 31; 7:30

TV: ESPN

History against the Tigers: 1-1

Last matchup: UVA 19, AU 0; 9/3/98; Auburn

Last game: VT 38, UVA 0; UA 42, AU 14

Line: Auburn by 3

Opposing blogs: Track 'Em Tigers

In 2011, UVA won a national championship in lacrosse, went to the College World Series on the heels of a thrilling ninth-inning comeback, won multiple ACC titles, and placed the basketball team in the top 25.....so what better way to cap off an awesome year than with a prime-time bowl game - the best we've had since, well, the last time we went to the Peach Bowl. It's a well-deserved reward for a great season. Auburn and UVA don't share a lot of history, at least on the field; the last and only matchup was a home-and-home series in the late '90s, in which each team won on the other's field. Perhaps a little-known fact: it was a Virginia grad who founded Auburn's program and gave them their school colors. (So Auburners ought to be grateful to Allen Potts for his summer excursion to England, or else today they might be looking like Ohio State!) UVA has a golden chance here to make a huge impression in a prime-time slot; Auburn, as we've seen, is nothing like the Auburn of last year, but that's the kind of thing that filters out of impressions.

-- UVA run offense vs. AU run defense

Top backs:
Perry Jones: 176 carries, 883 yards, 5.0 avg.
Kevin Parks: 141 carries, 661 yards, 4.7 avg.

UVA offense:
165.33 yards/game, 4.26 yards/attempt
54th of 120 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)

AU defense:
194.75 yards/game, 4.66 yards/attempt
88th of 12 (national), 11th of 12 (SEC)

If there's an area of this matchup that has Auburn fans worried, this is it. UVA's run game hasn't been as productive lately as it was earlier in the season, but then, the last two games of the year (FSU and VT) were against the best run defenses we've seen all season. Auburn's run defense is more comparable to Georgia Tech or Maryland, both of whom we rolled.

The Auburn front four is inexperienced; three sophomores and a freshman. Defensive tackles Jeffrey Whitaker and Gabe Wright each top 310 pounds, so there is cloggability in the middle. But neither is a dynamic playmaker. Quite a bit of the runstopping is done by outside 'backer Daren Bates, plus the safeties in run support. UVA's higly seasoned and cohesive offensive line should at least occasionally be able to blow a few holes in the Auburn line, and I expect a quality performance overall.

I don't think an overly complicated game plan will be necessary here. I think the old Big Ten plan should work just fine: line 'em up and see if your guys are better than theirs. I'll bet they are. Do that and at a minimum, UVA should be able to control the ball and the tempo. Auburn has pulled out a couple really nice games this year (they shut down South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore) but for every game like that one there are three in which they presented no obstacle. I don't doubt we'll have a 100-yard rusher in this game, and we should be able to pound out 175 yards in total.

-- UVA pass offense vs. AU pass defense

Quarterback:
Michael Rocco: 196/325, 60.3%; 2,359 yards, 11 TD, 11 INT, 7.26 yds/attempt

Top receivers:
Kris Burd: 60 rec., 810 yards, 1 TD
Perry Jones: 41 rec., 416 yards, 3 TD

UVA offense:
231.5 yards/game, 6.9 yards/attempt
65th of 120 (national), 8th of 12 (ACC)

AU defense:
211.0 yards/game, 7.2 yards/attempt
70th of 120 (national), 11th of 12 (SEC)

The UVA passing game has never been described, exactly, as explosive, but since Rocco took the reins (NOT "reigns") for good, he's produced eight touchdowns against just three interceptions, and has averaged 8.2 yards a throw. That's a very nice number that, if extended to the whole season, would've put UVA in the top 20 passing offenses in the country.

This game would scare me more if Auburn's best cornerback weren't on the sidelines with a destroyed-up knee. Without him, the Auburn cornerbacks are green as hell. That said, though, the safeties are to be accounted for. Neiko Thorpe is a good playmaker, and Demetruce McNeal isn't bad either. And the number-one threat when Rocco drops back is the speed-rushing terror, Corey Lemonier. With 9.5 sacks, he's arguably Auburn's best defensive player. Oday Aboushi will have his hands full with Lemonier all day.

The first priority, I think, should be to attack the edges and test Auburn's rookie cornerbacks. They will probably start the game in something close to press coverage on our receivers, trusting their safeties to cover for mistakes. If the run has been established and the safeties have their eyes on the handoff, throwing deep on play-action could pay off. I think Kris Burd, the grizzled veteran of the WR corps, will have a big day working on whoever has him as their assignment, catching at least six Rocco passes. As long as Lemonier doesn't end up setting up camp in the backfield, Rocco should become the seventh passer to complete more than 2/3 of his passes against Auburn.

-- AU run offense vs. UVA run defense

Top backs:
Onterio McCalebb: 102 carries, 532 yards, 5.2 avg.
Tre Mason: 19 carries, 97 yards, 5.1 avg.

AU offense:
174.75 yards/game, 4.26 yards/attempt
54th of 120 (national), 7th of 12 (SEC)

UVA defense:
128.33 yards/game, 3.70 yards/attempt
38th of 120 (national), 4th of 12 (ACC)

Those running backs might look a little thin on stats, but there's no point in including the suspended Michael Dyer. Without him, Auburn no longer has the bruising workhorse that carried their running game all season. In his place, there's scatback Onterio McCalebb and relative unknown, lightly-used Tre Mason.

McCalebb can be dangerous; he'll also be returning kicks for Auburn and has taken at least one to the house this year. He's broken a double-digit run in every game this year, despite never having more than 15 carries and often having just 3 to 5. On the other hand, his season-long is 21. Mason - I have no idea. In limited time, his per-carry average is every bit as good as anyone else Auburn has, but it's not even out of the question that he'll see as many carries in this game as he's had all year combined.

The key matchup here will be our defensive tackles vs. Auburn's excellent freshman center, Reese Dismukes. Dismukes is the only Tiger O-lineman to start every game at one position. The defensive line must also be prepared to play entire series without substitution because of Auburn's fast-paced no-huddle. This is where it will hurt not having Bill Schautz - with him, we had a highly dependable three-man rotation at each of the two D-line positions.

UVA will also have to defend the zone read and other running plays designed for freshman quarterback Kiehl Frazier, who comes in the game primarily to run the ball. Frazier can scoot. I'd rather have the ball in his hands than McCalebb's, but not by much.

The ground game is Auburn's best chance at moving the ball, and even though we likely have the trench advantage, I expect Auburn to be able to pick up some yards, in fits and starts at worst. Auburn's up-tempo offense is something we haven't seen before, and that's probably good for at least a long drive or two. Since they don't have Dyer to lean on, I think Frazier, McCalebb, and Mason will split the carries pretty evenly, so as to keep the defense off-balance. Really good run defenses have held Auburn under 100 yards, but we're not LSU - I think they'll top 175 just as we will.

-- AU pass offense vs. UVA pass defense

Quarterback:
Clint Moseley: 65/104, 62.5%; 794 yards, 5 TD, 3 INT; 7.64 yds/attempt

Top receivers:
Emory Blake: 30 rec., 505 yards, 5 TDs
Onterio McCalebb: 30 rec., 291 yards, 1 TD

AU offense:
153.4 yards/game, 6.8 yards/attempt
73rd of 120 (national); 8th of 12 (SEC)

UVA defense:
214.8 yards/game, 6.7 yards/attempt
40th of 120 (national), 2nd of 12 (ACC)

Evidence of the lack of confidence Auburn has in their quarterbacks is the 65-35 split in playcalling, leaning heavily towards the run. They actually had an even heavier split last year, but that had everything to do with Cam Newton. Newton's passes and non-Newton runs were much more evenly balanced.

Clint Moseley and Kiehl Frazier will platoon, but it's highly unlikely Frazier will do much throwing. Gene Chizik says "the whole playbook is open," but that's almost certainly just coachspeak. Frazier hasn't thrown but 12 times all year, I don't think he's suddenly good for 10-15 passes.

Auburn's receivers might be part of the reason for their lack of desire to pass. Emory Blake is the only one that has numbers that look like a starting receiver. Trovon Reed has 21 catches but averages a paltry 7.8 yards a catch. A lot of the passing game involves McCalebb and/or H-back Philip Lutzenkirchen. Lutzenkirchen is a red-zone weapon; nearly one-third of his 24 receptions are touchdowns. McCalebb is also a frequent target; in fact, between the emphasis they give him in the passing game and suddenly being the #1 running back, it's probable he'll have his best game of the season, well outstripping the 119 combined yards he had against Arkansas.

But, you have to like the idea of Chase Minnifield on Blake. Blake is a good receiver, but Minnifield's covered better this year. I expect Auburn will try and pick on Demetrious Nicholson, being a true freshman and all, but I don't think they have the weapons to do that consistently. When it comes to moving the ball through the air, Auburn will have to scheme to get their yardage - getting Lutzenkirchen in mismatches and things like that. Moseley and Rocco are about even as far as their effectiveness, but Rocco has more weapons to work with.

-- Outlook

Vegas has UVA as three-point underdogs, and that's not even where it started; the money came in and moved the line from an opening of 1.5. Is this largely on reputation? Either as a halo effect from last year's championship, or from being in the SEC? I think so. UVA has a big advantage in the trenches. Our offensive line is a veteran group and everyone has started at the same position, every game, all year. The same for the defensive line. Auburn's are inexperienced and shuffley. The Tigers' advantage is in the versatility of their schemes and personnel, but if the UVA lines are dominant enough, it won't matter. There's a decent chance I'm overrating our talent. I'm a UVA fan, it's what we do. But I think I've done my homework enough on Auburn to be able to say: I think we pull off the upset and wrap up 2011 in fine style.

-- Prediction summary

- UVA has a 100-yard rusher.
- UVA runs for over 175 yards.
- So does Auburn.
- Kris Burd has at least six receptions.
- Mike Rocco's completion percentage is over two-thirds.
- Onterio McCalebb leads Auburn in receptions.
- McCalebb has at least 120 combined yards, not counting returns.

Final score: UVA 28, AU 21

-- Rest of the ACC

- Missouri 41, North Carolina 24 (Independence Bowl; not even as close as the score indicated)
- NC State 31, Louisville 24 (Tire Bowl; the Pack made me nervous, because that's not a game we wanted to lose if we want to act like the ACC is a high-major conference.)
- Florida State 18, Notre Dame 14 (Tangerine Bowl; probably the first time in my life I've actively pulled for FSU** - it felt really, really weird.)
- Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State (Music City Bowl; Wake is very likely to get rolled, which means they'll probably win.)
- Georgia Tech vs. Utah (Sun Bowl; I keep forgetting this game is actually happening.)
- Virginia Tech vs. Michigan (Sugar Bowl; this is like another Ohio State game for the Michigan fan in me.)
- Clemson vs. West Virginia (Orange Bowl; let's be honest - this ought to be a blowout for Clemson.)

**I realize Florida State has played VT before, but the fact is my hatred for FSU used to be deep and abiding, and it goes back much further than my hatred for Tech. So that was always a meteor game. I still don't like the Noles, exactly, but since they've stopped being the ACC hegemon and Bobby Bowden is no longer the coach, it's begun dissipating to where I can at least root for them for the sake of the ACC.

season preview: Maryland

2011-12-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

Maryland Terrapins

Media prediction: 9th

Last season:

Record: 19-14 (7-9) - ACC 7th seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 36th of 345

Returning scoring: 38.7%
Returning rebounding: 25.5%
Returning assists: 53.0%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: F Jordan Williams
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: none
Rookie: G Terrell Stoglin
Defensive: none

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Nick Faust (Fr.)
SG: Terrell Stoglin (So.)
G: Sean Mosley (Sr.)
F: James Padgett (Jr.)
F: Ashton Pankey (rFr.)

Bench:

PG Pe'Shon Howard (So.)
G Mychal Parker (So.)
C Berend Weijs (Sr.)
F John Auslander (So.)
C Alex Len (Fr.)

Coach: Mark Turgeon (1st season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia
Once: Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, NC State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

The fortunes of two programs changed when Jordan Williams left for the NBA. Finally reaching his last straw with Williams's departure, longtime coach Gary Williams decided he'd had about enough of the coaching profession, and retired shortly thereafter, causing Maryland to undergo an awkwardly-timed coaching search. (And of course, the coaching change prompted Justin Anderson to swap his commitment to UVA.)

Maryland did about as well in that coaching search as you'd expect, considering it was such an impromptu one, hiring Mark Turgeon away from Texas A&M. It's been a rough start to the season, though. Maryland got a win over Notre Dame, but hasn't beaten any of the other marquee teams on their schedule, not even the MAAC's likely eventual champion, Iona. The Terps are 7-3, with their biggest margin of victory being nine, over the woeful UNC-Wilmington. They have even narrower wins over equally woeful teams: six points over FGCU, three points over Mount St. Mary's, four points over FIU, five points over Radford. None of these teams are currently in the top 200 in the KenPom ratings - the highest is 225th and the lowest, 314th.

However, we haven't seen the full-strength Terps just yet. Nick Faust is ill-suited to the point guard position, but he was forced to play the one when Pe'Shon Howard started the season injured. Howard returned against Radford, and didn't start but played 32 minutes. And 7'1" freshman center Alex Len will make his debut in Maryland's next game (tonight), after serving a 10-game suspension for having signed a semi-pro contract in Europe prior to his Maryland commitment.

Howard's return will probably change Maryland quite a bit for the better as they get used to his presence in the lineup, as Faust has been absolutely horrendous so far. His shooting has barely hit the mark and he's turned the ball over too much. Going back to shooting guard will do him good. Maryland has leaned far too heavily on the electric Terrell Stoglin. Stoglin is averaging over 20 points a game, almost a third of Maryland's output by himself. He should; he takes 37.2% of Maryland's shots when he's on the court (and he averages 33 minutes, so that's almost all the time) which is the 6th-highest total in the country.

There's little else to know. Stoglin so dominates the offense that the rest of the team kind of fades into the background. They're awfully generic. And with the team having been incomplete in the first month of the year (in which the Terps did not look good at all) it's hard to say how the pieces will mesh in the ACC season. My guess is that Howard will improve the efficiency of the offense and take a little scoring load off of Stoglin. Len is a mystery. Without him, Maryland has had to play very small; the 6'10", 200-pound-skinny Berend Weijs is at the back end of the rotation and the rest of their forwards are just that - forwards. Len offers the only hope for a true frontline center, and not even Maryland followers know quite what to expect out of him.

So while Maryland will be a more dangerous team than the one that beat Mount St. Mary's by three, just how much more is up for debate. I don't think it'll be a great amount. There's just too much remodeling that had to be done. If they could have brought back Jordan Williams they'd have at least been a bubble team; Williams was that talented. But quite a few seniors left, too, and the upperclassmen that are left are role players, not statistical leaders. With Duke, UNC, and UVA all on the schedule twice, look for Maryland to end up in the bottom half of the ACC this year.

christmas weekend review

2011-12-27T23:53:00.000-05:00

"Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out...."

You may already know what that picture means - it means we are in for an ACC Roundtable session. One in which most of our knights followed the lead of brave Sir Robin, so there will only be three responses to round up in this session. Four if you count me. (Lesson: never try to get people to do things within about ten days of Christmas.) Our participants:

BC Interruption
Blogger So Dear (Wake Forest)
Duke Hoop Blog

Only one of them (the BC folks) actually printed their responses, so that means I get to paraphrase the others. And I'll take a shot at speaking for the other ACC teams, too. Here are the questions we asked:

1. How did the season go, relative to expectations? For bowl teams, are you ahead or behind the slot you thought you'd be at the beginning of the year? For non-bowl teams, is the season indicative of a trend or simply a bump in the road?

Obviously, UVA wildly exceeded expectations, and I'd wager we're the only team that can say so, outside of maybe Clemson. Tech going to a better bowl than even they thought they deserved doesn't count. Just about everyone else in the ACC felt they underachieved, or at best, ended up where they thought they should. BC Interruption points out that BC's win totals over the past few years have been 11-9-8-7-4, which is a disturbing spiral.

2. It looks as though this will be the first offseason since about 2005 or so in the ACC that sees no head coaching changes. For each of your head coaches, on a scale of -10 to 10 with 10 being "we're building him a statue as soon as he retires, which we hope is never," and -10 being "when they build the space elevator to the moon, we're tossing that loser inside and locking the door," how badly do you want to fire or keep your coach?

People are pretty happy with their coaches. Caveat: No response from Maryland this time. The BC guys want to include the athletic director in the space elevator, which is understandable for a guy with way too itchy a trigger finger on Jeff Jagodzinski and not nearly enough of one on Al Skinner.

3. Besides head coach if you're way on the negative side in question 2, what one change do you want to see on your team for next year?

This turned out sort of like a Christmas wish list, so it ended up being an apropos question. Duke wants to pick a quarterback and stick with him, which kind of sounds like a pretty good idea to me, considering. Wake wants a killer instinct; also very understandable, with close losses this season that could have swung Wake into the "exceeded expectations so hard" category had they been wins. BC would like an offensive coordinator. And as for me, I want what we're already getting: an extra year of experience and confidence. As the team gets into the swing of things with Mike London and gets some experience under their belts, games like the NC State game - where we mysteriously forget how to do things - will become scarcer and scarcer.

4. How do you feel about eventually going to a nine-game ACC schedule, if the ACC does indeed go that route?

You know my feelings. I'd be all over it. Other bloggers agree it makes sense, too. (To some degree, most of us ACC bloggers, whether they answered these questions or not, have in the past reacted to a nine-game schedule in the general range from "it's inevitable so fine" to "it's necessary and proper." There's little resistance to the idea.)

The amusing part was this: Wake says "great, fewer games against Liberty and The Citadel" and Duke says "great, fewer games against Stanford and Alabama." Someone's going to be disappointed. I suspect it'll be the Wake camp, truthfully speaking. I don't see UVA canceling its instate I-AA games against William & Mary and Richmond and whatnot.

5. Who do you want in your division, when they finally join the league: Pitt or Syracuse?

By a 2-1 vote, the bloggers want Syracuse in the Coastal and Pitt in the Atlantic; also by a 2-1 vote, they prefer to have Syracuse in their own division. I agree most with BSD's point: Pitt fitting with the Atlantic teams (Maryland, Wake, FSU, Clemson, BC, NC State) "just makes more sense." As does Syracuse with the Coastal teams, though BC is the dissenter here, wanting to play Syracuse every year. (That might happen regardless - it's more than plausible that if Syracuse joins our division, the cross-division rivalries, which currently have BC playing VT, would shuffle so that BC plays Cuse and VT plays Pitt.)

6. What was your team's best single play of the season? Which single play would you change the outcome of if you could?

You know my thoughts on the subject. As for the worst, let's see if we can reverse that 3rd-and-23 conversion by Southern Miss and then see if that game can be won.

BC and Wake picked plays by those they considered their best and most dynamic players; in BC's case, a pick-six by Luke Kuechly (who'd look awfully good in Honolulu blue and silver if he goes to the NFL) against Jacory Harris and Miami, and for Wake, "anything by Chris Givens." DHB went with a sack against FIU that sealed Duke's only win against a bowl team.

Missed field goals plague the memories of fellow bloggers; BCI wants another try at the one that cost them the Duke game, and DHB wants the ones that lost Duke the Richmond game. BSD says, pick anything that happened at the end of the Clemson or Syracuse games, continuing a theme of lamenting Wake's inability to close out a win.

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OK, I guess it's time to address the two elephants in the room. Don't worry, they'll be leaving soon; playing time is hard to find for elephants in living rooms. Merry Christmas, Virginia basketball, Santa brought you coal in the form of two scholarship departures by KT Harrell and James Johnson.

Both of these are surprising and pretty frustrating decisions. Playing time is cited as the reason. In Harrell's case, Sammy Zeglinski and Malcolm Brogdon were starting to eat into his minutes. Harrell's time dwindled from 30+ minutes in each of the first four games to 4 and 7 in the last two, and his shooting this year has been unbelievably bad. Johnson had not played since the Longwood game and was the last man in the rotation, if he left the bench at all. Mike Scott and Assane Sene get most of the big-man minutes, with Akil Mitchell third and Darion Atkins starting to worm his way in.

But please don't take that paragraph as a rationalization; losing these two players is a major detriment. Here again is the list of players getting most of the playing time over Harrell and Johnson: Zeglinski, Brogdon, Scott, Sene, Mitchell. And what do three of these players have in common? They're frickin' seniors. As in, not in the plans next year. When Billy Baron left, it seemed understandable, as he was the first of six players in the same class to leave. If you're getting beat out by every one of your classmates, you might be looking at the same thing for the next four years. Brogdon is a freshman, sure, but not Zeglinski.

My original thought was that losing Harrell would be a much bigger loss, because we've seen what he can do and it's pretty good, when his shot is falling. Johnson was a much more unknown quantity. But his decision is more baffling; the guy is so patient with his development that he asks the coaches for a redshirt year, and then eleven games into his first season after taking the redshirt off, he bolts for lack of playing time? Did he think he'd come out of his redshirt year ready for 20 minutes a game, even with two seniors playing his position? Next year, Johnson would have been one of the primary options in the frontcourt.

Harrell could have at least been a vital depth player, but there's at least a prism through which his decision takes on a level of understandability: if he wants to make a career of basketball, or at least make a living for a few years with his skills, his best chance to do so is as a primary scorer for a mid-major team, if he can't be a primary scorer for a high-major one. But Johnson had as good a chance as anyone on this team to be a starter next year; he, Mitchell, and Atkins were the only returning big men and of the three, Johnson is the only one with the ability to play center. And none so far have shown a real scoring aptitude.

So we'll have to hope Mitchell and/or Atkins develop one - or that Mike Tobey and Evan Nolte (and Nolte is more of a threeish four than a fiveish four) come in readier for the grind than Johnson did. Paul Jesperson's redshirt will come off tonight, and I expect he'll get a lot of look tonight and Friday since we're playing two of the worst teams in the nation. Jesperson is supposed to be a real sharpshooter but his other skills are a mystery right now. Meanwhile, we're going to be digging out of a scholarship hole for quite a little while. Right now we have nine guys on scholarship, and ten next year. In the 2013 recruiting class, which will get filled up hopefully between now and next August or so, there's room for four, but I won't predict they'll all be filled because that would leave room in 2014 for only one other player beside B.J. Stith.

Other possibilities to answer as time goes on: Will Brandan Stith commit for 2013 now? Maybe. Will Bennett look into transfer options? Maybe. With only ten guys on scholarship for next season, it would be ideal to find a graduate student who can play right away next year and fill in some of those depth holes that otherwise we'll be depending on freshmen for.

With now only nine scholarship players, let's hope and pray for good health in the next three or four months. It would be terrible to see injuries combine with attrition to derail what should be a pretty outstanding season.

**************************************************

Two last things.....

-- One, with spring sports less than 60 days away, it's time for news about them to start moving in; one of those news items is that the SEC baseball tournament is expanding by two teams and one day. It used to be eight teams like the ACC's; now it will have ten. Partly this is in response to the upcoming expansion of the conference; the natural question would be, will the ACC follow suit, since we too are expanding? And I doubt it. The difference between the SEC and ACC is that the ACC's bottom teams are off a cliff. You can't make any kind of a good case for including a 9th and 10th team when those teams last year were 11-19 and 7-22 in conference play. Besides, the SEC is adding two baseball teams; we are adding just one (Syracuse has no team), and whereas Texas A&M will strengthen SEC baseball, Pitt will weaken our conference. So don't expect to see the ACC baseball tournament expand. It'd be awfully hard on the pitching arms, anyway.

-- Now for a rant against terrible, terrible journalism. There is an article making the rounds that Clemson will lose $185,000 on their Orange Bowl trip. That's fine and dandy, but in their breakdown of revenues and expenses incurred by Clemson on this trip, the article neglects to mention the following facts:

- The ACC will distribute more than just Orange Bowl money.
- The ACC pays expenses for bowl teams, from the combined bowl money pot, over and above a team's slice of the bowl pie.
- The ACC picks up the tab for unsold seats as long as the school reaches 8,000.
- Which Clemson has.

How it works is like this: The ACC collects all the bowl payout money, which this year adds up to a little over $40 million. It then uses that money to 1) give to bowl-bound teams to cover their expenses and 2) absorb unsold tickets for the schools if they fail to reach their quota but exceed 8,000. Whatever's left over is split 12 ways and handed to the schools.

BCS teams get - hey - $1.7 million for their expenses. Which is awfully similar to the $1.75 million cited by the article. Putting two and two together we come to the conclusion that the article-writer completely failed to mention the rest of the money that Clemson gets. It's obvious what happened: he assumed the ACC expense allowance was the only bowl money there was, and ignored everything else. A little simple math uncovers the deception: he even writes -

What about the $18 million payout the bowl game guarantees the participants? That money goes to the ACC and is equally distributed to member institutions.

OK, so it's equally distributed - so $1.75 million times 12 is $21 million - so that means that $3 million total came from the seven other bowls?

At best this is slipshod bullshit. At worst, if I may be allowed to climb the grassy knoll for a second, the writer knows and doesn't care because he's trying to present the bowls as an evil corporate racket that stands between you and your precious playoff, you poor innocent exploited football fan that only wants a nice bracket like in basketball and are prevented from having such by assholes in suits. I would say that we are reaching - or have reached - the point where us bloggers are doing journalism better than the journalists, except that's kind of insulting to the fans who don't blog because I'm just a guy with opinions, same as anyone. Here's a thread from your basic everyday message board that does it better than the journalists, for petesake. I think the math is a little off, but not much - I calculate that each ACC team will pocket roughly $2.3 million from just the bowl season. Not a bad bit of change.

Oh, and hell - even if it was true that Clemson ended up paying out $185,000 to go to the Orange Bowl, how is that even a bad deal? Teams routinely pay more than twice that for fluffy pancake games like Idaho and Toledo and William & Mary and whatnot. Are you telling me, Mr. Terrible Journalist, that I have to pay $400,000 to bring Idaho into town but only $185,000 to go to the Orange Bowl? Where do I sign up to get exploited like that?

auburnscouting: the defense

2011-12-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

In the final installation in our weekly series looking at UVA's Peach Bowl opponent, we'll check out the somewhat-maligned Auburn Tiger defense. It wasn't up to SEC standards; Auburn finished in the bottom half of the country in all major categories, and the result was that DC Ted Roof "left" to take the same position at Central Florida.

Auburn's defensive scheme is not complicated. Gene Chizik's roots are on the defense - he was a DC at four prior stops (Auburn included) before taking the head job at Iowa State, and he'll play that role during the bowl game as well. Chizik and Roof run a very basic 4-3 defense that's not especially different from the one run here at UVA. They spend a lot of time in Cover 2 with two deep safeties and the corners playing close to the line of scrimmage. So there isn't much that an experienced offensive coordinator hasn't seen before; Auburn depends on being able to recruit faster, better players and letting them make plays.

One media report suggests Roof was let go because Auburn has had trouble against the pass even while being stout against the run; I don't know about past years but the truth in 2011 was that more opponents than not outgained their per-game average on the ground, and the reverse was true through the air.

This defense has a few playmakers, but nobody quite like Nick Fairley, who's off to the pros. It's a very young defense. There are no upperclass starters on the defensive line and only one in the secondary. Nickel corner Jermaine Whitehead and starting DT Gabe Wright are both true freshmen; starting cornerback Jonathan Mincy is a redshirt freshman. They start five sophomores, too. The only veteran unit is the linebackers.

Probably the best player is DE Corey Lemonier, who has 9.5 sacks and 15 QB hurries, as well as 13 TFL, better numbers in all cases than anyone on UVA can offer. He's also forced five fumbles. Lemonier is absolutely the real deal. But the rest of the defensive line is so-so at best; a lot of the playmaking is done by the linebackers. OLB Daren Bates is an excellent, rangy player who has 96 tackles, and MLB Eltoro Freeman is solid too.

At cornerback is where Auburn's biggest issues lie. T'Sharvan Bell was the best they had, with two picks and seven breakups, but he wrecked his knee in the Georgia game; that's partly why there are so many freshmen in the secondary. Out of Auburn's 10 picks this year, only one came from a non-Bell cornerback, so look for safeties Neiko Thorpe and Demetruce McNeal to be the secondary's biggest playmakers. They are the second- and third-leading tacklers on the team, respectively; probably not a great sign overall for the defense, but Thorpe in particular is a player worth watching. He's one of just two senior starters on this defense (Freeman is the other.)

Statistically speaking, there's not much that jumps out. This isn't really a good defense, but it's not a terrible one. Individually, Lemonier is the only one with eye-popping stats, although Thorpe and Bates make their mark pretty well, too. They've had some really good days; wins over South Carolina and Florida were defensively dominant. But Clemson, Mississippi State, and Georgia gashed the shit out of them. Those five teams cover a pretty wide range of talent; these performances are the kind of inconsistency that shouldn't come as any surprise with so many underclassman starters.

Overall though, the results weren't good. As mentioned, the Tigers were in the bottom half of the country in everything, and second-from-last in the SEC against both the pass and the run. Only 2-10 Mississippi was worse. And even the Somalia States of their schedule moved the ball pretty well. Samford and FAU each managed over 300 yards. (We should be hoping for more than that, but this is 1-11 Florida Atlantic we're talking about.)

UVA should be well able to pick up yardage. In terms of YPC-allowed, the most similar run defenses we've faced are GT and Maryland. (Auburn allows 4.66 per carry and is 88th in the country; GT and Md. allow 4.53 and 4.68, respectively.) In both those games, UVA picked up over 200 yards on the ground and controlled the tempo this way. It's possible Auburn could jump all over the Hoos and we could have just a terrible game on offense; their defense is a little bit like playing Russian roulette. You might get your face blown off like South Carolina, but chances are you'll spin the chamber and come out OK.

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A couple items to clean up the stuff I haven't addressed yet, before we go on break here:

-- In this case, stuff I've been sitting on for a long time and generally forgetting about, from lacrosse: the Nick O'Reilly suspension. Which is for the whole year. O'Reilly, you might remember, played a starring role in the NCAAs last year, especially in the championship against Maryland where he had four assists. He might well have been John Haldy's replacement on the first offensive midfield this year. So it's a little bit of a test of our depth; with Colin Briggs and Rob Emery more or less having two spots locked up on the first unit, Mark Cockerton is the next option. Coupled with the Connor English transfer, it leaves us with a very formidable top six on offense - maybe the best in the country - but not much that's proven after that. Matt Kugler is OK but no superstar, and most every other option on either attack or offensive mid has only ever seen garbage time (Pat Harbeson), redshirted (Owen Van Arsdale) or is an incoming freshman (Carl Walrath, etc.)

-- More spring sports: we're getting more baseball on TV! ESPNUVA is expanding its baseball coverage - finally, the SEC isn't the only regular season college ball on TV - and UVA is on three times this season, more than any other ACC team except FSU, which also has three dates. (In fact, only one of the baseball broadcasts doesn't feature either FSU or UVA.) The downside is that these games are all on Monday - meaning three of our weekend series are moved from Fri-Sun to Sat-Mon. It's weird, but it's a smallish price to pay for getting watch the UVA nine in action on national TV. Our Monday games against FSU, Wake, and Miami are gonna be on the tube. Excellent, excellent news. (This is one of the more palatable byproducts of the conference arms race - the games are part of the ACC's deal with ESPN.) The national exposure is huge, as is the obvious implication that Virginia is one of the marquee teams in one of the nation's marquee conferences.

-- Let us never schedule Seattle again in basketball. That is all.

-- Offensive tackle might have been a major depth issue with next year's football team. But Oday Aboushi has made it clear he's coming back, and Morgan Moses very likely will as well, so we should be in great shape. We'll have to replace most of the interior, but the pass protection ought to be excellent.

-- I know that every offseason, you hear of football players doing knuckleheaded-ass things, but the kicker is usually squeaky clean. But the home-invasion story out of Blacksburg that resulted in VT kicker Cody Journell's suspension is a pretty epic one, as these stories go. If you're gonna get charged with home invasion, "they stole our weed" is a way funnier motive than "they were calling us names." The fact that the home-invadees (one of which happens to be VT's star hoopster Dorenzo Hudson) chased down and beat hell out of Journell's chucklehead buddies is even better. I'm not even mad that Hudson didn't get charged with assault. Apparently the chucklehead buddies tried to get the police to do so, but the local constabulary usually has little interest in sympathy for people who wave pellet guns at people in order to break into their house.

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Christmastime appears to be nigh upon us. I can tell these things. It's a gift. The good news for you is that I'm not traveling anywhere for the first time in a while. Instead of a week off, which I typically end up taking, I'm rolling with four days. I return Tuesday. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Bah Humbug, and all the rest to you and yours.

the FOV guide to the bowl names

2011-12-21T23:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I had plans for today's post, but they've been put on hold for now. So I started drinking scotch while watching the Poinsettia Bowl and this is the result. It's occurred to me that I use a lot of alternate bowl names when I'm referring to them that might not always make sense. This is because I refuse to recognize that any such thing as the "Capital One Bowl" exists. 90% of corporate names on bowls fall into one of two categories:

-- Replaced a perfectly good, worthwhile name (Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Insight Bowl, etc.)
-- Stupid-sounding name applied to a terrible bowl (Beef O' Brady's Bowl, Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl)

(You'll notice I'm actually using the names. For now. Don't get used to it, it's just for reference sake.)

So here is the From Old Virginia guide to what the bowl names should be. First off, I don't care if someone decides to put their name in front of a regular one. Fine, do it; I don't have to worry about it. Those are never getting said anyway except by the people who are required to. So, here are the names I actually like:

- Alamo Bowl
- Cotton Bowl
- Fiesta Bowl
- Gator Bowl
- Holiday Bowl
- Independence Bowl
- Las Vegas Bowl
- Liberty Bowl
- Music City Bowl
- Orange Bowl
- Poinsettia Bowl
- Rose Bowl
- Sugar Bowl
- Sun Bowl

So those are cool. A good name plays on a local feature (Sun, Orange), or uses the holidays (Poinsettia, Holiday), or otherwise rolls off the tongue nicely. Then there are some other names I'm not philosophically opposed to, but I don't care for the sound of:

- New Mexico Bowl
- Hawaii Bowl
- New Orleans Bowl

I think it's lazy to just use the name of your place as the bowl's name. There used to be other offenders here - the Texas Bowl, the Mobile Alabama Bowl, the Seattle Bowl, to name a few. Fort Worth Bowl. It's boring. (Las Vegas Bowl is the exception, because the name "Las Vegas" alone conjures up enough of an image to make it work.) There's got to be something more creative than "New Orleans Bowl." For these, I suggest Trinity Bowl, Aloha Bowl, and Bourbon Bowl (like in The Waterboy) - all have local connections which shouldn't be too hard to figure out. And for different and semi-obvious reasons, none will ever be used. Oh well. I'll stick with the real names on these.

Then there's:

- Pinstripe Bowl
- Armed Forces Bowl
- Military Bowl

They just don't have that right sound. But again, not philosophically opposed to the names, so I figure, might as well use 'em. Big Apple Bowl would sound cool, though.

Now we get to the ones I am philosophically opposed to, and won't likely use. Here's the part that might actually be helpful. Some of the names, I actually don't really hate:

- Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Tell you what, let's just compromise and agree to call this the Potato Bowl. It jibes with the idea of using local produce as the bowl name, and it's really not that different from the Citrus Bowl, which became that when the Florida Citrus Growers Association attached its sponsorship. It sounds a little silly, but it can't be helped that potatoes aren't the awesomest things in history. It sure sounds better than its old name, the Humanitarian Bowl.

Suggested name: Potato Bowl
Name I'll use: Potato Bowl

- Outback Bowl

This used to be the Hall of Fame Bowl, and it still doesn't sound completely horrible. A select few of these corporate names don't. I might slip and use it since it sort of rolls, and it's one of the older names that people are getting used to.

Suggested name: Hall of Fame Bowl
Name I'll use: sometimes Outback, sometimes Hall of Fame

Now we get into the names that are completely stupid. Like, boycott-the-companies-til-they-take-their-name-off-our-traditions stupid.

- Beef O' Brady's Bowl St. Petersburg

OK, in some cases "traditions" might be a stretch. I watched this last night and it was the worst football game in history. Oh, and all the ads for Beef O' Brady's made the food look really unappetizing. The food is supposed to look unrealistically good in the ads, not overcooked. This is one of the newest bowls and it's played in a place that doesn't have a single distinguishing characteristic. So I'm sort of at a loss.

Suggested name: Anything else at all
Name I'll use: St. Pete Bowl

- Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl

Mike Ilitch - the owner of Little Caesar's - has done a zillion great things in my home city, but I'm still not using his company's name on the bowl. This was the Motor City Bowl and it ought to have stayed that way.

Suggested name: Motor City Bowl
Name I'll use: Motor City Bowl or Pizza Bowl

- Belk Bowl

Weirdly, I never hated the name "Continental Tire Bowl." It does kind of have that roll to it and it's easy to shorten. The bowl organizers called it the "Queen City Bowl" while they waited for a suitable sponsor, which also sounds just fine to me.

Suggested name: Queen City Bowl or Carolina Bowl
Name I'll use: Tire Bowl

- Champs Sports Bowl

This poor bowl has almost always been stuck with a corporate name - Blockbuster Bowl, Carquest Bowl, you name it. However, for a couple glorious years it had the Tangerine Bowl moniker, which was perfect. Bring it back, I say - it's a name with a long history.

Suggested name: Tangerine Bowl
Name I'll use: Tangerine Bowl or CS Bowl

- Insight Bowl

At least it doesn't have ".com" on it, still. It used to be the Copper Bowl, but whoever the fuck "Insight" is, they've actually had the sponsorship on it longer than it was ever the Copper Bowl. Still - that was a great name.

Suggest name: Copper Bowl
Name I'll use: Copper Bowl

- Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas

Man, this is a company that just needs to go the hell away. I get why the "of Texas" - the grease monkeys need to make sure people don't confuse it with the one in Charlotte that they used to sponsor. It still sounds retarded. They went to "Texas Bowl" for a while, and I'm not sure why they couldn't at least have gone with Lone Star Bowl or something. The game is in Houston, which used to host the excellent Bluebonnet Bowl; I suggest we make it happen.

Suggested name: Bluebonnet Bowl
Name I'll use: Texas Bowl

- Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl

Emerald Bowl was the former name of this one, which was a good enough name you could even forget it was actually corporate. "Kraft Bowl" would only have sucked 90% - "Macaroni Bowl" would've been too easy, I suppose. Anyway, Kraft decided their name alone wasn't good enough and decided to PC it up. For that, we're taking "fight" out of the name.

Suggested name: Golden Gate Bowl
Name I'll use: Hunger Bowl

- Chick-Fil-A Bowl

Ah, here we are. You know what this is supposed to be.

Suggested name: Peach Bowl
Name I'll use: Peach Bowl

- TicketCity Bowl

According to Wikipedia, "The game was called the Dallas Football Classic until TicketCity, an online reseller of sports and entertainment tickets, agreed to be the title sponsor." It is a rule that any sporting event that calls itself the Something Classic is anything but classic. It is always brand-new. The use of the word "classic" is the most transparent attempt ever to sound better than you really are, because things that are classic don't have to say it. I don't even know what to call it, maybe we should borrow that "Lone Star Bowl" name or something.

Suggested name: Whatever
Name I'll use: Ticket Bowl

- Capital One Bowl

Capital One annoys the shit out of me for trying to sponsor everything that college sports ever touch. Seriously, the Capital One Cup? Eff off. Without the name "Citrus Bowl" we'd never have had fantastic zingers from Steve Spurrier like "you can't spell Citrus without UT." So we're keeping that name, because it's a good one.

Suggested name: Citrus Bowl
Name I'll use: Citrus Bowl

- BBVA Compass Bowl

Fun protip: BBVA stands for Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, a Spanish bank. When I think college football, I think "Bilbao, Spain," don't you? This is one of several efforts to make a bowl game work in Birmingham, Alabama, which mostly all fail because of trying to put a bowl game in Birmingham, Alabama. Always these games are at Legion Field, so "Legion Bowl" would work fine for me.

Suggested name: Legion Bowl
Name I'll use: Compass Bowl, I suppose, but because of general crappiness of bowl it'll probably always require further clarification even if I actually called it by its full Spain-inspired name.

- GoDaddy.com Bowl

What have we told you about .com? Not only that, but GoDaddy every year has the worst Super Bowl ads history has ever seen, in that they assume that both grown men and college guys have never seen a pair of tits before and act like 12-year-olds in possession of their very first Playboy upon seeing a not-even-revealing picture of Danica Patrick. This name is so bad it makes me wish we had "GMAC Bowl" back.

Suggested name: Nothing, because it probably just needs to disappear. Who travels to Mobile?
Name I'll use: Danica Bowl. Might as well. If I ever bother referring to it.

the recruit: Mario Nixon

2011-12-20T22:07:00.000-05:00

Name: Mario Nixon
Position: WR/DB
Hometown: Norfolk
School: Norfolk Christian
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 215

24/7: 83; three stars; #132 WR; VA #25
ESPN: 75; three stars; #55 TE; VA #30; #150 Atlantic Region
Rivals: 5.6; three stars; #97 WR; VA #17
Scout: three stars; #94 WR

Other offers: Virginia Tech, NC State, Vanderbilt, Navy

This is why people follow recruiting. It's like a little soap opera sometimes, only, one that's testosteronically acceptable. Nixon committed to Virginia Tech in May, not long after two of his teammates (Wil Wahee and Kwontie Moore) committed to UVA. My theory at the time, which I still think was reasonable, was that Nixon knew ahead of time his buddies were likely to go to UVA; he wanted to play with them, but once they made their commitments and he knew for sure they would go to UVA, and still he preferred VT, that's when he decided to take his plunge as well.

His teammates were having none of this, though. Courtnye Wynn committed to UVA later in the summer, and Nixon's three teammates put on the full-court press. Nixon even showed up at one of UVA's fall camp practices, which really set the rumor mill on fire. Not long after that, he flipped his commitment, causing Hokie fans to either to claim they didn't need him, or had pulled his offer (as was purportedly also the case with Dominique Terrell, you know, whatever), or snark about broken promises (this latter of which conveniently forgets about Darius Redman.)

So that was fun, stealing recruits from Tech and all. With Nixon on board, UVA ended up with the Norfolk Christian grand slam. Kwontie Moore is the star; Nixon and Wynn come in a little behind. In Nixon's case, the recruiting services are astoundingly in agreement. Three stars each, a very similar rating, and all drop him into about the same ranking slot for both his position and his state. This isn't usually coincidence, so Nixon's potential is pretty well-established.

Nixon is one of a number of recruits in the class who comes in as an athlete-type without a set position; at his height, he's an unlikely cornerback, so wide receiver or safety are the likely landing spots. ESPN seems to think he can develop into a tight end, which is a natural thing to think about a guy who's already 6'4-6'5" and at least 210 pounds. Myself, I'm not sure about this; in my rather amateurish opinion, I don't see Nixon adding the necessary poundage for tight end. He's too tall and not really athletic enough for that height for cornerback, and ESPN's evaluation implies he doesn't have the speed for safety. So I think he'll end up as a possession receiver. In this he has the chance to excel, particularly if ESPN is correct about route-running being a strength of his. His height makes him a natural.

Nixon probably gets a redshirt year to - at the very least - sort out his position. Wherever he ends up there's too much competition to say he's likely to stand out from the crowd enough to get any playing time as a freshman, though he's a possible candidate for coverage teams. He's the tallest wide-receiver-type in this class, though, and of the current receivers, only Matt Snyder and Bobby Smith are taller. So Nixon, assuming he's a WR, will stand out from the crowd a bit. Nixon could be a more-athletic Snyder; obviously he needs just a world of polishing and practice before he's at that level, but I think you have to love the idea of Nixon as a guy with potential to move the chains and make catches over the middle.

season preview: Georgia Tech

2011-12-20T00:05:00.000-05:00

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Media prediction: 10th

Last season:

Record: 13-18 (5-11) - ACC 11th seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 89th of 345

Returning scoring: 51.6%
Returning assists: 41.2%
Returning rebounding: 55.2%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: F Iman Shumpert
3rd team: none
HM: none
Rookie: none
Defensive: F Iman Shumpert

(italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Mfon Udofia (Jr.)
SG: Glen Rice, Jr. (Jr.)
G: Brandon Reed (So.)
F: Kammeon Holsey (So.)
C: Daniel Miller (So.)

Bench:

G Jason Morris (So.)
G Nick Foreman (Sr.)
F Julian Royal (Fr.)
C Nate Hicks (So.)

Coach: Brian Gregory (1st season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Boston College, Clemson, Maryland, NC State, Wake Forest
Once: Duke, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech

Paul Hewitt spent so long on the hot seat at Georgia Tech that it was paradoxically a surprise that he was ever fired; I think I just got to the point where I assumed he never would be. Or maybe it was more like Kim Jong-Il. You knew that old bastard would die eventually; it's still surprising when he does. (Current events, boys and girls. That's how SNL always stays so timelessly hilarious, amirite?)

Like a lot of the ACC, Georgia Tech has already had some ugly games, but as the Jackets are only 12 games into the Brian Gregory era, the early returns actually seem encouraging. GT had to replace do-everything forward Iman Shumpert, who ended up in the NBA draft just shy of being a lottery pick. Shumpert kept the Jackets from being completely horrible last year. This year the difference is Gregory.

Last year, GT was a completely horrible three-point shooting team and they've gotten worse this year. Glen Rice, Jr. doesn't seem to have the touch his dad had for Michigan; his freshman year was pretty good in limited time, but once he became a go-to shooter he's been shooting at barely a 30% clip. But he's hitting on better than 50% of his two-pointers, a number usually only seen from a big frontcourt guy. Nobody else shoots threes either; Tech's offense is inefficient but at least balanced. Any of the five starters, plus Jason Morris who has also started half of Tech's games, can put the ball in the hoop. It's never a bad thing to have a big scoring center, which in GT's case is Daniel Miller. Miller is a load; a 6'11" middleman who averages 9.3 points, 7.6 boards, and 3 blocks. He and Rice are GT's two irreplaceable players.

Also a solid scorer is Kammeon Holsey, who's hitting a crazy .681 shooting percentage; Holsey also has a bit of a turnover issue, however. On the traditional stat sheet, point guard Mfon Udofia looks like Holsey's equal in the scoring department, but the truth is Udofia is barely ACC-level. He needs a lot of shots to get those 10.9 PPG (only Rice takes more shots per game), he is a truly horrible three-point shooter, and his A/T ratio is below one. Point guard play is the biggest weakness the Jackets have.

The second-biggest is lack of depth. The aforementioned six primary scorers are also basically the only scorers. Nobody else has more than 2.6 PPG. That's Nick Foreman's average, and it's likely he's somewhat underused as the only senior who's really in the rotation. Everyone else is pretty much just eating minutes. When Daniel Miller is out of the game, GT turns to Nate Hicks, but he's 6'10" and only 218 pounds.

Still, for all their flaws, GT has been competitive this year. They defend and rebound quite well; one of the better rebounding teams in the nation, and Miller alone puts them into the top ten nationwide in blocked-shot percentage. There have been ugly losses - Tulane and a blowout by Northwestern come to mind. But the Jackets also upset VCU. Playing up-and-down ball is a hallmark of newly-minted coaching regimes, of course, but the earlier you're up-and-down (instead of just plain ol' down) the earlier you're up. Miller is a weapon that every ACC team will have to account for, and though at their very best they're a middling team in a down ACC, their record could surprise. GT has by far the most ridiculously easy schedule in the conference, hitting UNC, Duke, FSU, UVA, and VT just once each. They could find six wins from just playing BC, Maryland, and Wake twice each, which would be a one-game improvement over last year. Getting to 8-8 against this slate is insanely doable, which could get the Jackets to the NIT at least a year ahead of schedule.

***************************************************

So last night's game was bizarre if only because the announcers couldn't tell the difference between Davy Jones and John Paul Jones, nor between Malcolm Brogdon and Doug Browman. That was the game, though; the aftermath became certainly one of the more interesting stories to date in the college hoops year when someone decided to hack the Oregon official website and insert a few quotes of his own into Ducks' coach Dana Altman's postgame remarks. Here is a screenshot of the phony quotes.

All I can say is: am very disappoint. You use your nefarious hacking skills to break into the official website and the best you got is "the spaghetti was overcooked" and a very mildly disparaging remark about Mike Scott?? OK, maybe you're hoping they won't notice, but guess what, they will regardless of what you put down. That was your big chance to put "my tiny little nipples went to France" like Jim Carrey on Steve Carell, or "UVA wears women's panties" or "Fuck this I quit" or a litany of Hungarian swear words or the Gettysburg Address or ANY FLIPPING THING AT ALL and that's the best you can do? Either the weed in Eugene is of very low quality this year or CS majors at Oregon have the sense of humor of an earthworm. What a waste. Here's a PSA - anyone who's thinking of hacking a website to put up some phony coach quotes, call me, OK? Before you start making the Napoleon Dynamite animated series look like George Carlin by comparison?

Anyway, this could be a solid win when all's said and done. Oregon's no great shakes, but the Pac-12 is teetering on the edge of mid-majordom thanks to the addition of two shitty basketball teams, and the Ducks have a chance to have a decent-looking win-loss record. A road win is always a good thing. The win propelled UVA into the #24 ranking in the AP poll - very cool if totally meaningless - and to the 19th ranking in the nation in the KenPom numbers. Exciting stuff. The Hoos visit Cameron on January 12, and the in-between looks like this:

- Revenge match against Seattle
- Two of the worst-ass teams in the country (334th and 343rd of 345, KenPomwise)
- Another road test against LSU
- The ACC opener against Miami

It's highly possible we see the OOC schedule end at 13-1, and perhaps even get to 14-1 in preparation for the Duke game. That would likely get us into the top 20 in both rankings and very possibly put Dick Vitale in the house. Let's face it: every announcer slobs the knob when they're calling a Duke game, so it might as well be the one that tells the nation this is the game they should care about most on that evening.

auburnscouting: the offense

2011-12-17T00:28:00.000-05:00

So this, obviously, got a lot less scary when Auburn suspended its leading rusher. It also got a little bit more X-factor-ey, as we will see. What we do know: Gus Malzahn will stick around to coach Auburn in the bowl game. When it's only Arkansas State you're going to, you can do that. So we should expect to see all the Malzahney stuff that he's known for.

the basics

Auburn's offense under Malzahn is a no-huddle, hurry-up style. The formation is called, then the play, and the formations are many. The defense is given little to no time to substitute or set, and it's this principle that Auburn tries hardest to exploit, rather than running outlandish plays. That's especially true this year, as there was no Cam Newton behind center. Things got simplified some, with 80-90% of the plays being run by a pocket passer.

Still, that's not to say it won't be different. Auburn's base set is a three-receiver set with a tailback and an H-back. The starters:

QB: Clint Moseley (So.)
RB: Onterio McCalebb (Jr.)
HB: Philip Lutzenkirchen (Jr.)
WR: Emory Blake (Jr.)
WR: Quindarius Carr (Sr.)
WR: Travante Stallworth (Jr.)
LT: A.J. Greene (Sr.)
LG: Chad Slade (rFr.)
C: Reese Dismukes (Fr.)
RG: John Sullen (Jr.)
RT: Brandon Mosley (Sr.)

The H-back is a hybrid fullback and tight end, sometimes lining up on the line and sometimes in the backfield. Three wide receivers is par for the course and Auburn runs most of their plays that way, but even though tempo and not scheme is the mainest focus, they're not above coming out in crazy formations.

the scheme

Crazy formations....like this:

This is one of those space-age things that spread coordinators these days come up with. Because teams often play a very basic vanilla set against the hurry-up (lacking the time to send in anything fancier) this kind of formation opens up some wild possibilities. Auburn would throw downfield on this play with the receiver just failing to haul it in, but check the flat as Moseley releases:

Holy blown coverages, Batman. I think that's McCalebb out there, and trust me when I say whoever it is would have run for a touchdown if Moseley had looked in his direction. The whole Samford defense swung to the short side of the field as McCalebb took off on a delayed route, having nobody to block.

However now, this is a more conventional look that is much more common:

Here you have three wide receivers with four routes, as the H-back is on the line. (Bottom of the offensive line, just inside the 40.) He's not covered by a receiver, so he might either block or go out for a pass; in this play he will do the latter, but the throw will be to the slot receiver on an out route for the first down. This is what passes for vanilla in the spread. (It also receives the FOV seal of approval, because one of my biggest pet peeves in the entire galaxy is running plays like toss sweeps and out routes to the short side of the field. Here Auburn forces Samford to defend a much larger patch of grass.)

The H-back is a major key to this offense. Lutzenkirchen has 24 catches, which is second-most on the team (McCalebb and Blake are tied for the lead, meaning Lutzenkirchen has more catches than all but one of the receivers.) His presence forces linebackers to make a choice; play the slot receiver, or play the H-back? On the very next play after the crazy-formation one above, Lutzenkirchen would score on a 3rd and 10 when Samford's defense chose poorly.

There are two things you will see almost none of. Maybe none at all. The quarterback directly under center, and pre-snap motion. It's called a shotgun spread for a reason, OK, and pre-snap motion is largely eschewed because it defeats the purpose of going up-tempo. The shotgun is basically 100% of the time; pre-snap motion does occur, but it's never things like the lazy jog back and forth across the formation to allow the quarterback to read the defense. If you do see someone in motion before the snap it'll typically look like this:

A basic shotgun-spread run, where Tre Mason is moving toward the quarterback (he's the one above the wide-side receiver booking it toward the short side) in order to be at the quarterback just after the snap so as to speed up the handoff. Very standard.

This is not something that's especially unique in college football these days. However, the ACC doesn't have much of it. The main thing UVA will have to deal with is the up-tempo style, and finding ways to disguise and change up the defenses despite the lack of time to do it in. If the offense substitutes, they're required to allow the defense to as well, but it's still something that has to be done in a rhythm and on one's toes. Similar to playing Georgia Tech, it requires assignment football. Unless a blitz or something is dialed up, the defense can't allow itself to be bamboozled by formations. Auburn likes to go with a lot of different formations and a variety of plays - they'll throw deep and then run an old-school option the very next play - but the running back is still the running back.

the personnel

The first thing to note is the quarterbacks. Auburn runs essentially the quarterback platoon that UVA fans actually wanted to see; Clint Moseley is the starter, and freshman Kiehl Frazier will run in for a play, then run out.

Frazier isn't much of a thrower, and he's only attempted 12 passes and completed five of them, and two more to opposing defenses. He carries an unbelievable 32.1 passer rating. It's not like we shouldn't expect Auburn to do some different things, especially since Malzahn isn't exactly at risk of being fired for his performance here and is kind of playing with house money. But Frazier throwing the ball isn't really our concern.

What he'll come in the game to do is largely run the zone read. The zone read is becoming a staple of loads of offenses, even non-spread ones. The basic idea is that the QB reads the defensive end, hands off if the end crashes inside, and keeps if the DE hesitates outward to play the handoff. (There's, like, way more to it than that, as it's not like "the zone read" is even a single play any more. Defenses have ways of defending it besides just telling the DE to go one way or the other, and offenses are likewise adapting. But that is the main idea.) Anyway, Frazier comes in largely for that purpose. With Frazier in, UVA would be well-advised to stack the box and take our chances with our cornerbacks one-on-one on the Auburn receivers.

Moseley is less of a running threat than Frazier is a passing threat. You get the idea that the Malzahn offense would much prefer to have a running quarterback in there - you know, Cam Newton and all - but Moseley is their best best for moving the ball through the air. He's a little bit of a better passer than Barrett Trotter. Moseley has a good strong arm, but is still rather limited in his ability to move past the first read on the play. In this latter respect he's a typical college sophomore quarterback.

How Auburn will use their running backs is a bit of a mystery. McCalebb is a pass-catching back; Dyer never was, with only two receptions on the season. Dyer and McCalebb split the carries about 2.5-to-1, but it'd be oversimplification to suggest that McCalebb and Mason will do the same. They might, but it's tough to bank on it. McCalebb will no doubt get heavy use, but it may well be that the carries in the bowl game are split more evenly between them so that McCalebb is fresh; he's not only a pass-catching threat, but he returns kicks, too.

Auburn's receptions chart looks a lot like Al Groh's used to, with wide receivers on it only sparingly. Emory Blake is the biggest threat, and he's a solid, all-around player. Chase Minnifield will likely draw that assignment. After that....there isn't a lot. Blake has only 30 catches but 505 yards; the receiver with the next-most catches is Trovon Reed, who averages just 7.8 yards a catch. Auburn is unlikely to be able to stretch the field with its receivers; Blake and Lutzenkirchen are the folks that the UVA defense should keep its eye on the most. It might be said that the presence of all these receivers on the field is just to keep the defense spread out and force them to play the run honest. (You know, I wonder if that's why they call it a "spread" offense? Hmmm.)

UVA has had good fortune on the offensive line; we have been able to start the same five players at the same five positions all season. That can't be overstated as a factor in our success. Auburn hasn't had the same luck; the only player to start every game at the same position is center Reese Dismukes. Dismukes is a true freshman but a good one; one of the top freshmen in the SEC. But despite the quality of the run game, the line is shaky in pass-protection; they've allowed 2.5 sacks per game, and that's not just a function of playing against SEC-speeeeeeeeed at defensive end. Samford and Utah State each collected two, and Florida Atlantic got three.

the stats

To break it down to its simplest level, Auburn is a very good running team and a non-frightening passing one. Auburn's total and SEC-only rushing stats are almost exactly the same, which should give you a little ammo the next time someone tries to spring it on you that Auburn's SEC status gives them the benefit of always playing better competition than we did.

Passing-wise, though, Auburn managed just 126 yards a game in SEC play and 153 overall. This is largely a function of preferring to run. Only ten teams in the country attempted fewer passes than Auburn. Three of them are GT, Army, and Navy, the triple-option old-schoolers. One is Ohio State, which if you ever saw them try and pass the ball you'd know why they never pass. One is Michigan, which if you ever saw them run the ball you'd know why they never pass. Auburn is in the middle between those last two; not a passing incompetent, and not a running powerhouse, but good enough at the latter and bad enough at the former that they'd really rather keep it on the ground.

I have no idea how the absence of Dyer changes that dynamic, though. Do they pass more without their 1,200-yard beastback? My guess is no. Teams are what they are; I think it would simply be playing into UVA's hands to suddenly start heaving it all over the place. Moseley isn't so accurate that that would definitely be a winning proposition. What we might get is a little more of the pass-game-as-run-game sort of play that OC's will deploy; swing passes, bubble screens, and the like.

The other thing from a cursory review of the stats to see what jumps out is: third-down conversions. Auburn is bad at them; only a 35.6% success rate. Perhaps because they are not a good passing team? Perhaps.

*********************************************

So, what are the takeaways?

-- Up-tempo offense with multiple formations and a willingness to run a wide variety of plays.

-- But the space-age stuff comes before the snap, via tempo and formation; variety of plays, yes, but not ones that are new to the football world.

-- Kiehl Frazier is a runner, not a passer; Clint Moseley is a passer, not a runner.

-- No Michael Dyer, which will have an unpredictable effect on the playcalling, even as it takes away Auburn's biggest howitzer.

-- Moseley has a strong arm, but can be gotten to; he rarely progresses beyond his first or second read and does not move well.

-- Auburn wants to run. They do not want to pass. They will run sweeps, counters, draws, even reverses, zone reads when Frazier is in the game, and pass only to keep the run defense honest.

There's an element of Georgia Tech in this. UVA will have success if the cornerbacks can stick with their receivers one-on-one. The difference is that with all the extra receivers Auburn uses, it can't be just Chase Minnifield and Corey Mosley in pass coverage and nine guys playing the run, like how we defended GT. Auburn will have success if they can isolate the H-back Lutzenkirchen in a desirable matchup, as well as McCalebb who is used in a similar way to Perry Jones. But UVA will do well if they can be disciplined and play correct assignment football, and I think our veteran defensive line will also have an edge against Auburn's fluid O-line.

*******************************************************

There is one thing you might be interested in knowing, and that is that the lacrosse schedule is out. It is boring. It is literally last year's schedule with all the locations flipped. OK, a couple exceptions; we're probably not ever going to travel to VMI (cupcake) or Vermont (weather) and the Penn game is in Denver. I know that about half the schedule is spoken for with games we will never not play (Hopkins and Cornell and the like), and that some are sort of becoming semi-traditions of their own (like opening up against Drexel for the 11th year in a row) but maybe we could swap a few of these others out every now and again. Right now there's basically one game on the schedule - Ohio State - that looks likely to be different next year. Maybe Penn as well. It wouldn't really bother me, for example, not to see any Stony Brook on there for a while. Ulterior motive disclosed: now that there are two D-I teams in the state of Michigan I wanna see some action up here.

season preview: Florida State

2011-12-15T22:58:00.000-05:00

Florida State Seminoles

Media prediction: 3rd

Last season:

Record: 23-11 (11-5) - ACC 3rd seed
Postseason: NCAA Sweet 16
KenPom: 31st of 345

Returning scoring: 63.2%
Returning rebounding: 58.6%
Returning assists: 57.4%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: F Chris Singleton
HM: none
Rookie: none
Defensive: F Chris Singleton

(italics indicate departed player)

Starting lineup:

PG: Luke Loucks (Sr.)
SG: Michael Snaer (Jr.)
SF: Okaro White (So.)
PF: Bernard James (Sr.)
C: Xavier Gibson (Sr.)

Bench:

G Deividas Dulkys (Sr.)
PG Jeff Peterson (Sr.)
F Terrence Shannon (Jr.)
C Jon Kreft (Sr.)
G Terry Whisnant (Fr.)

Coach: Leonard Hamilton (9th season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Clemson, Duke, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Once: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest

We should really be liking the whole idea of Florida State right now. They're living proof that you can have a semi-adequate offense but if you pair it with a nasty, suffocating defense, you too can be a Sweet 16 team.

FSU has officially gained a nationwide reputation for lockdown defense, and that is not an overrated rep. Last year they were KenPom's #1 defensive team with an 86.2 rating; this year that rating is down to 83.7, which is, like, ridiculous. (It'll come up some during the ACC season, but still.)

FSU's thing is that they have a guy playing power forward who'd play center on every other team, and then an actual center as well. The former is Bernard James, who's done a heckuva job evolving his game from novelty (as a former NCO in the Air Force) to actual threat. It won't surprise you to learn that at 6'10", James blocks a ton of shots. Xavier Gibson gets the starts at center, and he's 6'11", and between them they're blocking 4.1 shots a game this season. James by himself has 2.5 BPG, which is....a lot.

Blocks and steals, the secret to success. Nearly every guard chips in at least 1 steal per game, and sixth man Deividas Dulkys is going strong at 2.2. FSU averages nine steals and seven blocks per game, which nobody in the conference can touch. All those blocks lead to an opponent's effective FG% (so far) of just 39%. The only strange thing is that you'd think a team that tall and that active would also be good rebounders, and they are on the offensive end, but not defensively. Good numbers for defensive rebounding are the ones above 70% - that is, you get 70% or better of available defensive rebounds - and right now FSU checks in at 65.5%, which is well below average.

(Oh by the way - do you know who the best defensive rebounding team in the country is right now? It's your own Virginia Cavaliers at 78.6%. This is a really sneaky thing to do to people. At some point this season, there will be an opponent blogger who looks at the big numbers on the ESPN profile that show UVA as the 264th-best rebounding team in the country and they will assume that we're an easy mark and ought to be easily outrebounded. Then we'll beat their team by 15 and they'll criticize their team's lack of effort on the glass. This is why your basketball stats should generally be tempo-free, especially rebounds. Obviously when there are so few possessions in a game, there will be fewer total rebounds.)

But I digress. Florida State. Now, they have that great defense, but the scoring - tthhbbbpppttt. They actually do miss Chris Singleton in this department. FSU's offensive efficiency has gotten quite a bit worse since last year. Point guards Luke Loucks and Jeff Peterson are strictly enablers who don't pose a major scoring threat; Peterson is a grad-student transfer from Arkansas (and Iowa earlier) and he's okay at taking care of the ball and all that but he's only shooting .378 from the field, which ain't good. Loucks may have found a shot this year, as he's hitting on .453, but for most of his career he's been a long way belong the .400 mark. Most of the scoring load falls on shooting guard Michael Snaer, and he's not very efficient, only shooting .402 himself. Truthfully, though FSU likes to play a little bit up-tempo, a lot of their offense comes from putbacks or from simply working the ball inside and letting their considerable size advantage go to work. Dulkys is the only legitimate threat from outside. And they'll never be a good offense until they take care of their turnover issue. It's something I brought up in last year's preview of this team - at which time they were turning the ball over on almost 25% of their possessions - and it's only gotten worse as this year they're up to an even 27%. (In this regard, no higher than about 19% qualifies as "pretty good" and 27% puts you in the nation's bottom ten. So it's definitely a thing.)

Still - that defense. There's a reason Tony Bennett preaches it. Because it makes you a good team and keeps you in every game, which is where FSU will be. This is a senior-laden, experienced bunch, too. They might be looking at a drop-off next year what with so many graduating, but they'll be tough to get to this year. FSU is 7-3 this year, but all three losses are to tournament teams and won't necessarily be held against them come seeding time. Not even the Harvard one. It'll hurt that they don't have a marquee nonconference win and won't get one unless they beat Florida, but they should do well against one of the tougher ACC schedules out there (Duke, UVA, VT twice, and BC, GT, Wake just once) and earn another tournament bid.

************************************************

So no post yesterday, and I'm vewy sowwy about that, but it's finals time you see. If the basketball team gets 12 days off between games, I'm allowed one night to take my last final of the semester too. A couple things from while I was out:

-- Auburn will be heading to Atlanta minus both coordinators now, with Ted Roof having been fired like last week, and now Gus Malzahn going to Arkansas State to replace Hugh Freeze, who left for Mississippi. (It makes you wonder why Ole Miss didn't just cut out the middleman and hire Malzahn.) So no coordinators and no Michael Dyer - the Tigers will be awfully shorthanded. Obviously it's not like the Auburn offense is just gonna shut down, but I think the #1 effect here is that there won't be a ton of crazy wrinkles in either offense or defense. Gene Chizik is taking over DC duties for the bowl, no doubt Auburn has a second-in-command to take care of the offense, but going in without their field marshals and one major piece of artillery can only spell good signs for the Hoos.

-- It was kind of a no-brainer, but now it's official: the ACC will go to an 18-game hoops schedule next year. Is this a way of unofficially announcing that Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be joining up that quickly? I doubt it - I think the most likely reason for making the move now, as opposed to waiting for the newcomers, is so that teams can nail down the scheduling logistics now and get comfortable with two fewer openings for OOC games. 18 is no great revolution; the Big Ten has been doing it for years and with only 11 teams at that. It should be fun next year with seven teams on the schedule twice, the closest we've been (and the closest we'll ever get) to the double-round-robin since it went away.

Anyway, with 14 teams in the conference this almost had to happen, otherwise we'd only get to play three teams twice and everyone else once. That would suck. If we add two more teams that'll happen anyway, but oh well.

-- There've been so many all-America nominations for our Hoos (and not just in football) that I haven't even mentioned them, so routine has it become. (That sounds horrible, in a way. I should be happier about this stuff.) Chase Minnifield, Demetrious Nicholson, and Austin Pasztor all have various nods from various sources; Minnifield has shown up everywhere. Pitcher Branden Kline (only a couple months til baseball season!) is a first-teamer in the preseason per the NCBWA. But maybe the coolest one is Morgan Brian of the ladies' euro-football team being named Freshman of the Year by Soccer America. I think we're quickly gathering up some strong contenders for this blog's Cavalier of the Year award next summer.

sportscenter top ten

2011-12-13T21:09:00.000-05:00

It's time to count down the top ten plays. Of the season. I wish I could do it all Sportscenter-style with highlights and witty commentary, but I don't even have the highlights yet and some of them, I never did. So you'll just have to see it in your mind's eye.

These are the ten plays from 2011 that I thought were most influential on the season and in getting us to the Peach Bowl. Keep in mind - there are literally over a thousand to choose from. So you are highly encouraged to come up with some of your own if these don't satisfy, or you think there's an omission. A lot of this comes from a quick-and-dirty memory search of my own gray matter - I figured if a play still resonates in December, it was probably that important. Oh, and they all had good outcomes, or at least, non-bad ones. So that one time we got totally sacked and threw an interception and fumbled and the other team scored twice on the same play and plus we got a 15-yard penalty for general principles, that didn't make the cut.

So here are this season's ten best:

#10

-- Idaho's overtime two-point conversion attempt falls incomplete.

Lost in the final score, a narrow, 21-20 win for UVA, was that the Hoos basically dominated this game. I'm not kidding. We racked up almost 500 total yards, held Brian Reader to 17-of-41 passing, and Mike Rocco was efficient and took care of the ball. But fumbles, missed field goals, and a blocked punt that was taken back for a touchdown almost turned the game into a disaster. Idaho scored on their first possession of OT, and like all upstart WAC-snacks who smell a win, went for the all-or-nothing proposition. But the UVA defense forced Reader from the pocket and then knocked down his pass attempt to preserve the win. A true team effort. I almost feel like this one should be higher - we definitely don't go to the Peach Bowl at 7-5 with that loss to Idaho, and who knows what the psyche of the team might have otherwise been like? The score masked a much better game than appearances would have it, but fortunately, it was only a veil rather than an ugly black cloud.

#9

-- Mike Rocco passes to Tim Smith for 34 yards in Tallahassee

In front of a sold-out and hostile Seminole crowd - it is never any different in Tallahassee - UVA had played an outstanding game on defense but only had a 13-7 deficit to show for it. The offense had been largely motionless, other than a second-quarter drive capped by a gorgeous Rocco-to-Jones TD toss. With 1:53 to go, the Hoos needed another comeback drive and a touchdown, or the game would simply go down as a moral-victory-but-there's-no-such-thing.

UVA started at their own 25, but the speed in which Rocco marched the team downfield was stunning. On 2nd-and-1 on the second play of the drive, he found Tim Smith open downfield for a 34-yard pickup, the longest Rocco pass play of the night. That hushed the crowd and changed the dynamic of the drive - UVA still had a minute and a half to score and now had the ball on the Florida State 32. The rest was too easy; Kevin Parks would punch it in three plays later with entirely too much time on the clock, giving UVA a 14-13 lead and setting up one of the wildest finishes to any college football game in recent memory.

#8

-- Chase Minnifield pick-six

Against Duke, UVA was having a very chippy game; it was turning out nastier than anyone had expected, and the score was (controversially) tied, 14-14, at halftime, and Duke would receive the second-half kick. On the fourth play of the half's opening drive, however, Cam Johnson cam roaring around the edge, abusing Duke's Takoby Cofield for the umpteenth time that day, and forced Sean Renfree into a poor read and a hurried pass. It was too far ahead of the receiver, and it settled easily into Minnifield's hands, who ran untouched into the end zone to give UVA a 21-14 lead.

Duke would soon tie it up, aided by an out-of-bounds kickoff and a 51-yard pass to the red zone, but the pick-six energized the Hoos, and when the offense finally got a hold of the ball, they would answer the Duke TD with one of their own for a lead they'd never relinquish.

#7

-- Rodney McLeod picks off Danny O'Brien

Playing for bowl eligibility in College Park, UVA had just scored a 3rd-quarter touchdown to take a 21-13 lead, after trailing in the second quarter. Maryland was trying to respond, and they began their drive with a 39-yard pass play to set themselves up in Virginia territory. But on second down following that, Rodney McLeod picked off Danny O'Brien to end the threat.

There is often a turning point in a football game, or rather, in this case, a screw-it point. Maryland's season was already in the toilet, and in fact, they were smack in the middle of a season-ending eight-game losing streak. UVA scored relatively easily after McLeod's interception, and the game's only other tally was a score-padding field goal early in the fourth. Psychologically, the Terps were done after McLeod's pick, his first of three, and UVA would have that coveted sixth win for bowl eligibility.

#6

-- Matt Conrath destroys the handoff

It was a dead heat, for me, between this and Conrath's field-goal block that came a few plays later. I chose this one because it's the single awesomest thing a defensive lineman can do: tackle the quarterback as he's handing the ball off, or even before. Nobody expects it. Nobody coaches with that in mind. Even with a field goal block, teams are trained up on 1) how to avoid it in the first place and 2) what to do if they occur. It's a waste of practice time to say, OK guys, here's what you must do if the quarterback fails to execute the handoff because there's a bad man in the backfield.

Yet that is precisely what happened against Duke. The setup: It's a scoreless game, and it's Duke, and much to everyone's chagrin, Duke is only one of two teams that have beaten us all three of the previous losing seasons. I mean, you hate that VT does it but they're really good. Duke is Duke. So it chafes that Duke has been on our case. UNC, Maryland, Miami, GT - we've beaten them at least once, but not Duke. So here we are in a scoreless game, the defense has just made a big third-down stop, and Duke punts - and our returner makes a really nutty, boneheaded decision, muffs the punt, and hands Duke the ball in awesome field position. And they start moving the ball.

Then, on first down, Matt Conrath makes a mess. He completely disregards his blocker and roars into the backfield, slamming into Sean Renfree as he tries to execute a basic handoff. Renfree fumbles, Duke recovers - but 2nd and 15 is too much to overcome, and Duke tries a field goal. Which Conrath also destroys.

The UVA offense then marched smartly down the field, and instead of Duke taking a 7-0 lead, it's UVA with the opening salvo. Instead of "here we go again" it's "get off my lawn." The entire sequence, by the way, convinced the Duke coaches that it was Conrath, not Cam Johnson, who needed to be double-teamed, and Johnson spent the rest of the day proving that yes, he needed to be double-teamed too.

#5

-- Perry Jones and the slant-six

Against Miami on Thursday night, UVA was trying to get out of a rut. In an attempt to salvage the season, Mike London had announced that the QB platoon was no more, and the results thus far into the game had been very positive. But Miami had just turned a short pass to Tommy Streeter into a 51-yard touchdown, and was threatening to move into the lead, with the score 20-14, UVA. On the subsequent drive, Virginia faced a critical third down deep in its territory, and the Miami crowd was sensing punt. So was the Miami defense; and not only that, they were sensing run. Miami loaded the box to stop what it thought would be a handoff.

But UVA had no intention of running. UVA's pre-snap motion telegraphed the defense to Rocco, and with a linebacker - Miami's James Gaines - trying to cover Perry Jones in the slot, the read was easy. Rocco threw the slant on a dart, and the target found bullseye - a beautiful throw. Gaines gambled on the knockdown and lost, and with no safety help over the top, Jones was free to sprint the final 75 yards to the end zone. UVA scored on the 2PC to earn a 28-14 lead, and every one of those points later came in handy....

#4

-- Laroy Reynolds on fourth and ballgame

Course, that touchdown was looking awfully fragile by this time. Miami sliced the deficit in half on the ensuing drive, and a three-and-out drive that started on our own eight-yard-line resulted in fantastic field position for the Canes. They started just the other side of the 50, and churned their way to the UVA 15, eating up time as they went. I'm pretty sure 90% of the UVA fanbase was dreading the very idea of overtime; you hate to go when it's you that's blown the lead.

The defense put Miami in its second fourth-down of the drive at the 15-yard-line, and with about two minutes to go, it was basically fourth-and-ballgame. With two minutes and change left in the game, it was obvious that if Miami failed to convert, even if they got the ball back they'd have precious little time and no timeouts to work with. If they did convert, they'd be just 13 yards or less from the end zone and able to work at whatever leisurely pace they desired.

Miami called a second straight handoff to Mike James, pulling their right guard and intending to power-run off-tackle to pick up the first. But Laroy Reynolds was either blitzing that very spot, or read the play quick enough to look like it. He blew past the tight end assigned to block him and smothered James in the backfield with a perfect tackle. Miami did indeed get another chance at the ball after UVA picked up only one first down, but Reynolds's play put all the pressure back on the Canes, and essentially preserved the win for UVA. It would be the first win of a season-making four-game win streak.

#3

-- FSU's Bert Reed doesn't quite haul it in

I'm not going to cheat and call a whole series of plays one for the purposes of this list. Otherwise the whole FSU drive could go here. In picking the catch that wasn't, the most disservice is done to Bill Schautz and Drequan Hoskey, whose picture-perfect, textbook defense was responsible for two pass breakups.

But in the wildest finish of the season, how can we pick any other play but the one we stared at for ten minutes? The circumstances of the play put everyone on opposite sides of sanity; UVA coaches were insisting that the Florida State receiver had made a perfectly good catch, and FSU wanted the catch by their own player overturned and ruled incomplete. The entire drive had been a Chinese fire drill from the start and generally an example of poor clock-management by the FSU sideline. Left with no timeouts, and on the edge of field goal range, the Seminole coaches called for a sideline pass. A quick strike that would see the receiver catch the ball, gain a couple of cheap yards, and his momentum carry him out of bounds, stopping the clock and allowing kicked Dustin Hopkins plenty of time to set up his game-winning field goal.

Bert Reed was the target, and unfortunately for the Noles, Reed wasn't close enough to the sideline. He dove for the ball with Laroy Reynolds providing quality coverage, and appeared - to the side judge anyway - to have successfully hauled it in. Inbounds. The clock ticked on, and expired before FSU could get their FG unit on. Except - an excruciatingly long review concluded Reed didn't have control of the ball, and called the play incomplete.

The later events - an obscure penalty call on Virginia and a wide-left kick anyway - only served to add to the absurdery that was the final minute-and-six of that game. But it's the overturned completion, with UVA's coaches herding their players back to the sideline and insisting it was a good catch by the other team, and the three thousand replays over four hours (in football-fan time) before any decision was made, is what really leaves the most indelible imprint.

#2

-- Cam Johnson eats Edward Wright-Baker for dinner

As results go, beating eventual 1-11 Indiana by three doesn't rank too well. But simply earning that win gave UVA several firsts - first road win for Mike London, first 2-0 start in however long - and had UVA not beaten the Hoosiers after starting the game so strongly, this, like Idaho also, could have been a psyche-killer.

UVA had had a 23-3 lead and then blown the whole thing and then some, finding itself down 31-23 in front of a suddenly delighted Hoosier crowd. But Mike Rocco had put together a drive that still ranks as one of the season's finest, and capped it with a 2PC to tie the game at 31 - still, 96 seconds remained, and Indiana had driven the ball well enough in the second half that the crowd was plenty confident that they could work their way to field-goal range and seal it up. Wright-Baker would eventually be replaced later in the season as IU's starting QB, but on this day he was a thorn, and in the second half had discovered how to make plays with his legs. This latter skill was killing the Hoos.

Cam Johnson, therefore, decided he wouldn't get the chance. Johnson roared past the left tackle and pounced on the unsuspecting Wright-Baker. The sack was one thing - it would've forced Indiana to punt and given UVA a shot at winning. But Johnson didn't only sack Wright-Baker, he ripped the ball free, and didn't even allow it the courtesy of bouncing on the ground. Johnson landed on the IU 14-yard-line, ball in hand, with the referee emphatically gesturing the change of possession. It was too fast for normal human eyes to register - first there was a beast in the backfield, and then it was UVA's ball. Just like that. Rarely does one single individual play directly lead to a win if it's not accompanied by the clock expiring, but this was the perfect example of such an individual effort.

#1

-- Chase Minnifield hauls ass

This one goes here for sheer hustle. Kids, this is why you hustle. It matters. It really does.

The setup: Bert Reed has just caught a pass from E.J. Manuel that traveled 15-ish yards in the air, and he's busting his butt to travel the rest of them between catch and end zone. He's beaten his coverage, broken one tackle, and nobody is near him. End zone is in sight, and Florida State will take a 17-7 lead. That's not much, but in the context of a defensive struggle, yes it is. It's like when a pitchers' duel is 1-0 and then suddenly it's 3-0. It feels like game over.

Chase Minnifield is a hair faster than Bert Reed, though, and he was having none of this. Minnifield sprinted for dear life after Reed, and caught up to him I mean literally just in time. Any fraction of a second later and it wouldn't have mattered, but Minnifield was able to trip Reed up, and he came to earth at the 1-yard line.

Three plays later, FSU was two yards further back and kicking a field goal to stretch the lead to 13-7. At the time, it felt like small consolation. But the final score of the biggest win of London's UVA career was, as you'll recall, 14-13. Turns out Chase Minnifield's hustle was the difference between winning and losing after all.

bowl rankings

2011-12-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

Specifically, today it's all about the 17 bowls that UVA has gone to in the past. We have a rich tradition of going to bowls named for car parts stores and the now-defunct MPC Computers. UVA has been to 17 bowl games, and 11 distinct ones; four New Year's Day bowls; eight different states (Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Hawaii, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Idaho.)  Three games have been played against future conference rivals. Three have been played against Georgia. From bottom to top, here are the seventeen bowl games UVA has partaken of. In this ranking, consideration has been given to opponent, bowl prestige, and of course, outcome. Oh, and I still don't use corporate names, except when it amuses me to do so. So there might be a little confusion, but as usual, you're smart people and I think you'll figure it out.

#17 - 1999 MicronPC.com Bowl - Illinois 63, Virginia 21

Sponsored by a now-dead computer company. Wait, no. Sponsored by the now-dead computer company's website. Even the technology company that exists almost entirely online and sponsors what used to be known as the Copper Bowl had the good sense to take ".com" off the bowl name, because everybody mocks the idea. MicronPC was owned by a company that still exists, spun off and sold (and went on to become MPC Computers and sponsored the bowl in Boise), and died in bankruptcy court a few years ago. So now we have two separate names of a defunct computer company sitting proudly on our stadium. Woo corporate assholery. For those trying to keep score, this game was played in Miami, and it was our third trip to this bowl, but it is now the one played in Orlando that isn't the Citrus Bowl.

Even worse, we got our asses kicked. By freaking Illinois. Coached at the time by Ron Turner, who sandwiched this season in between a 5-6 one and a 3-8 one, and would eventually be fired for having his last two seasons be 1-11 and 3-8. UVA was down 42-7 at halftime, so it wasn't fun. And at the time, I was in a holding pattern with UVA because I'd been turned down for early decision and was put in with the regular crowd, and would have to wait another three months to find out the good news. So I didn't hardly even know what to think about this. Bummer, yes, but you don't want to get too into it til you know for sure, you know?

#16 - 2000 Oahu Bowl - Georgia 37, Virginia 14

This wasn't competitive either. And it was a lousy way to send off both George Welsh, and poor injury-riddled Dan Ellis, who was just back from injury and got hurt again. Thus was born the really lame quarterback play-until-you-suck platoon that lasted all through 2001, as both Bryson Spinner and Matt Schaub played in relief of Ellis.

Plus, the Oahu Bowl (which at the time was essentially the little brother to the Aloha Bowl) was in its final incarnation, and would become the Seattle Bowl the following year and play its last game ever the year after that. It was pretty minor stuff.

#15 - 2004 Humanitarian Bowl - Fresno State 37, Virginia 34

This was just plain depressing. UVA started the season 5-0 and ranked #6 before finishing 3-3. Then, the school declined a CS Bowl bid because it took place during final exams. Georgia Tech would end up in Florida. That wound us up in snowy Boise on the blue turf, against feisty Fresno State, and the game was all ours and then it wasn't, with an OT loss on Fresno's first play. And for those of us watching on TV, we got to listen to the dulcet tones of Pam Ward.

Oh, and that CS Bowl that Georgia Tech got into because of our academic standards? They won it 51-14.

#14 - 1991 Gator Bowl - Oklahoma 48, Virginia 14

Great bowl game. (The Gator Bowl held quite a bit more cachet than it does today.) Great opponent. Miserable-assed outcome. Even with ACC Player of the Year Matt Blundin, UVA was down 34-0 before they knew what hit 'em. This was even less competitive than the Illinois game that would come eight years later - at least that one was tied at 7 at one point. And yet it's still better than losing to Fresno State in Boise with Pam Ward calling the game.

#13 - 1994 Car Parts Bowl ('93 season) - Boston College 31, Virginia 13

This was a pretty good game for two quarters. UVA was up 13-10 at one point - and then never scored again.  Until the 2007 season, this was the last time UVA ever played on New Year's Day.

#12 - 1996 Car Parts Bowl - Miami 31, Virginia 21

Now we're getting to the part where losing doesn't suck 110%. UVA spent most of this game behind, but you couldn't fault the defense; Miami's offense only managed 17 points in this one. The rest was the Canes' Tremain Mack, who scored a pair of defensive touchdowns to propel Miami to the victory. The Hoos had to play catch-up all day, but at least gave themselves a shot to win.

#11 - 2008 Gator Bowl - Texas Tech 31, Virginia 28

A heartbreaker no matter how you slice it. UVA forced not one, but two safeties against the high-powered Texas Tech air assault, led by Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree, and held a 28-14 fourth-quarter lead. Mikell Simpson had a 96-yard touchdown run, which at the time was an NCAA bowl record and is still the 2nd-longest bowl-game run in history. But UVA found itself unable to escape being pinned deep in its own territory late in the fourth quarter, with starting QB Jameel Sewell out with injury and true freshman Peter Lalich running the show. Lalich fumbled to set up the tying touchdown, and TT would hit the game-winning field goal on their next drive.

#10 - 1990 Citrus Bowl ('89 season) - Illinois 31, Virginia 21

The kind of game you don't totally hate the world for losing. Someone had to. Two star quarterbacks - UVA's Shawn Moore and Illinois's Jeff George - clashed on New Year's Day in UVA's reward for sharing the ACC championship. UVA recovered three Illinois fumbles but had to try and dig out of a 24-7 third-quarter deficit and wasn't able to. George would later be the1st overall pick in that year's NFL Draft.

#9 - 1991 Sugar Bowl ('90 season) - Tennessee 23, Virginia 22

New Year's Day. Sugar Bowl. Tennessee, back when it was cool to be Tennessee. This was possibly UVA's most prime-timey of all prime-time matchups, and it followed a season in which UVA had earned, for three weeks, the #1 ranking in the country. UVA controlled the first three quarters, but didn't take full advantage and only led 16-3 going into the fourth, where the Volunteer offense came alive and rattled off three touchdowns. The Hoos got the ball back with 31 seconds needing only to get to field goal range, only about 38 yards away, but Matt Blundin was intercepted to seal the win for Tennessee.

#8 - 1998 Peach Bowl - Georgia 35, Virginia 33

Between this and the Sugar Bowl it was a very, very close one to earn the title of "best loss" in the bowl department. The Sugar is the Sugar, so there's that, but the history between these two teams, in the same stadium, tips it this direction. Georgia earned its revenge from two years prior when UVA beat the Bulldogs in Atlanta, storming back from a 21-0 halftime deficit to take a 35-27 lead late in the game. UVA scored what would have been the game-tying touchdown had the 2PC been successful, and recovered the ensuing onside kick, too. But a field goal attempt as time ran out sailed wide. Kicking woes essentially cost UVA the game, as the 2PC would've been unnecessary had another extra point not failed in the third quarter.

#7 - 1994 Independence Bowl - Virginia 20, TCU 10

The Weedeater Bowl! The Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl - the poster child for shitty corporate bowl names. The name so stupid it became legend. I didn't need an inner 12-year-old to giggle about this silliness because I was 12, and even then I knew this was record-setting stupidity. And UVA was one of the privileged few to win the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl.

The worst win is better than the best loss, and this was the worst win. Played in a nasty rain, the game was a mud bowl with nothing especially distinguishing about the performance other than a nice defensive showing that held the Horny Frogs to 65 passing yards.

#6 - 1987 All-American Bowl - Virginia 22, Brigham Young 16

In UVA's second bowl appearance ever, it faced a formidable offense in the BYU Cougars. UVA turned the game into a run-fest in order to keep the high-powered BYU offense sidelined, and the game plan worked to perfection. A pair of fourth-down stands, one on fourth-and-goal from the two, cemented the win. A solid game, but the venue (Birmingham, Alabama) and a short-lived bowl game push it down the list a little.

#5 - 2005 Music City Bowl - Virginia 34, Minnesota 31

For just the second time in its history, UVA made its fourth consecutive bowl appearance, and it turned out to be one of the comebackier games in school history. UVA trailed 14-0 and 21-7 to start, but worked its way back and tied the game at 31 in the fourth.  Then, pinned on the three-yard line after a Minnesota punt forced by a quality defensive stand, Marques Hagans drove the Hoos down the field for what would be the game-winning field goal.

#4 - 2003 Tire Bowl - Virginia 23, Pittsburgh 16

The main story going into the game was that Pitt's Larry Fitzgerald had scored at least one touchdown in every game he'd played that season, and the story going out of it was that he didn't. Virginia's defense came up with a great plan to stop Fitzgerald, forcing Pitt QB Rod Rutherford to throw elsewhere all day. But what gives this game the tiebreak over the two somewhat similar games previously listed was the goal-line stand. With the game still scoreless, UVA's defense came up with four consecutive stops on its own one-yard line, and four plays later, Matt Schaub found (fittingly) Heath Miller for a 52-yard touchdown that broke the school passing record for TDs. That gave UVA a 7-0 lead, and the Hoos would never trail in a game that never seemed as close as the seven-point final margin.

#3 - 1984 Peach Bowl - Virginia 27, Purdue 24

We have to give UVA's first-ever bowl game some love, so here it is in the top three. One, did I mention it was the Hoos' first bowl game ever? Second, it gives me braggin' rights to this very day because my brother is a Purdue grad and the Hoos have not played the Boilers since. Even though I was two when this game was played and he was a tiny newborn. And I didn't actually become a UVA fan until sixteen years later. Don't care. Woot woot. Third, it was a pretty darn good game.

UVA was down 24-14 at the half, but George Welsh must have said something fiery at halftime because the Hoos owned the rest of the game. Purdue didn't score, and UVA racked up almost 200 rushing yards in the second half alone. It was a pretty good quarterback battle, too, with two future NFL starters going at it in the Hoos' Majic Man, Don Majkowski, and Purdue's Jim Everett, futurely of the Rams and Saints.

#2 - 2002 Tire Bowl - Virginia 48, West Virginia 22

It was the Era of Good Feelings for Al Groh. Optimism was high.... and UVA was snubbed. Hoo fans were somewhat miffed that UVA slid down the bowl pecking order despite finishing with a 6-2 conference record, good for second place (and cackling with glee that 4-4 Clemson, one of the teams picked over UVA, was cornholed by 40 points.) Partly because of this season, the ACC would later institute the rule that forbids bowls from selecting a team with two fewer conference wins than a still-available one.

But we still had to go to Charlotte to play in a brand-new bowl, in front of a sold-out and highly partisan crowd cheering its mountainous lungs out for West Virginia. So naturally, it was a slaughter. Freshman running back Wali Lundy ripped off four touchdowns, the Pep Band was forever banned from the bowl for tellin' it like it is about West Virginia, and UVA left with a 26-point win. Good times.

#1 - 1995 Peach Bowl - Virginia 34, Georgia 27

Is this game #1 because of how we're going back to the Peach Bowl? No. Maybe? No. UVA never trailed, but did blow a 24-7 lead, to the delight of the hometown crowd, and UGA seemingly had the Hoos on the ropes after tying it up 27-27. The Hoos never had an answer for Georgia's Hines Ward at quarterback (yes, the Steelers' wide receiver), who threw for 413 yards. Timely interceptions and timely stops prevented Ward's incredible playmaking from becoming a killer.

The game ended on a thrilling note, with Georgia scooping and scoring a UVA fumble following a completed pass; UGA earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, kicked off from their 20-yard line, and Demetrius Allen returned it to the house to stake UVA to its eventual winning margin. Highlights here because you love it.

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-- And speaking of the Peach Bowl, it just got a little easier; no doubt you know by now that Auburn suspended Michael Dyer, and he'll miss the game. Dyer is a Kevin Parks-type - smallish but powerfully built, with the ability to wear down a defense. 1,200 yards won't be made up for easily. Auburn will turn to Onterio McCalebb, who is basically good-not-great and can occasionally break one but usually won't, and Tre Mason, who I don't know anything about.

-- The Mountain West is going to formally request a BCS autobid. This opens up some amusing possibilities. If they get it, do they tell C-USA to go pound sand, the merger is off? If they get it, and furthermore the Big Eastish gets the boot as a result, do Boise State and San Diego State feel stupid, really stupid, or galactically stupid? And would that be funny or uproariously funny? So many questions. Bet you the Big Eastish lobbies their asses off against the MWC - if the MWC gets that sweet sweet delicious autobid, it wouldn't surprise if that causes the latest Big Eastish expansion to collapse like the TCU attempt did. Nor would it surprise if it causes Connecticut to start calling John Swofford three times daily.

season preview: Duke

2011-12-11T23:27:00.000-05:00

Duke Blue Devils

Media prediction: 2nd

Last season:

Record: 32-5 (13-3); ACC 2nd seed
Postseason: NCAA Sweet 16
KenPom: 2nd of 345

Returning scoring: 50.5%
Returning rebounding: 58.8%
Returning assists: 44.0%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: G Nolan Smith, F Kyle Singler
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: F Mason Plumlee
Rookie: none
Defensive: G Nolan Smith

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Seth Curry (Jr.)
SG: Austin Rivers (Fr.)
G: Andre Dawkins (Jr.)
F: Ryan Kelly (Jr.)
C: Mason Plumlee (Jr.)

Bench:

F Miles Plumlee (Sr.)
G Tyler Thornton (So.)
G Quinn Cook (Fr.)
F Josh Hairston (Fr.)

Coach: Mike Krzyzewski (31st season)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Florida State, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Once: Boston College, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State, Virginia

"The ACC is down in football because even though it has many good teams, it doesn't have any dominant ones."

"The ACC is down in basketball because even though it still has a couple dominant teams, it doesn't have as many good ones top-to-bottom."

Dear media: This is why you suck.

Anyway, Duke. Because they are Duke, they're still one of the league's dominant teams, and will be as long as the country's best recruits shut off their recruiting the moment they get that offer postmarked from Durham, North Carolina. They may not help the ACC's cause this year as much as usual, though.

Duke has won every one of its matchups this year but one, you see, and in that one they went to Columbus and got their ass beat by Ohio State. Their other results are lackluster relative to Duke expectations. Michigan by 7. MSU by 5. Tennessee by 10. Washington by 6. These are their margins of victory. Of course, we are splitting hairs here. 98% of teams in the country would love these results. Duke is still a Team To Beat.

It starts, I think, at the three-point line. Everyone not named Plumlee has license to shoot them, and they do it very well. Ryan Kelly is a particular matchup nightmare for teams, because he's 6'11" and shoots threes like a guard. Seth Curry is lightning-quick, and it's awfully frustrating how well he can open up shots for himself. And he's 30-for-32 from the free-throw line so far, which is over 93% - outstanding. And like Kyrie Irving last year, Austin Rivers looks like the real deal as only a freshman. (Rivers is also a nonstop talker and rapidly establishing himself as everyone's new favorite Dookie to hate. A lot.)

So not only does Duke have shooters who can hit from everywhere, they've got a plethora of tall center-types, mostly named Plumlee. Mason Plumlee is the star of the group; he's shooting a whopping .645 from the field (and an incredible .381 from the charity stripe, and no I don't have those numbers backwards) and, according to KenPom, has a 29.6 defensive rebounding percentage, meaning he snags 29.6% of the available ones when he's on the floor. That's good for 9th overall, in the country. (Duke has every fucking Plumlee brother, all of whom have trouble fitting in the family minivan, and still the nerve to complain about never getting any good post players.)

So why hasn't Duke beaten everyone by 30? Because eventually, they have to substitute. And this just isn't as deep a Duke team as usual. Outside the starting five, it's very young; the team's only senior is Miles Plumlee, who doesn't really dominate. Mason is far more talented. Tyler Thornton plays 20 minutes a game and hardly ever shoots. It would be interesting to see what happens if any of the starting five get hurt; it would take a lot of points out of the lineup. The line between the starting five and the bench is sharp and clear, and the main rotation only goes seven deep; they're pushing into Seth Greenberg territory here.

Duke also has, interestingly, an A/T ratio below 1 at the moment. This is not because they don't take care of the ball, but rather because a highish percentage of their baskets are unassisted - fewer than 50% of their field goals have an assist attached. Nevertheless, they have the 7th-best offense in the country as KenPom has it - every bit as good as their crosstown rivals in Chapel Hill, who have so far been anointed the ACC's top team.

Duke obviously will be parking themselves in the NCAA tournament, and if they're even as low as a three seed it'd be a surprise. That assumes health, however; they have national title hopes that won't survive a long-duration injury like Irving's broken foot from last year. I think eventually in the tournament they'll find a team that's more than their match, and they'll be prone as well to upsets due to their reliance on the three-ball and lack of depth. But with a starting five as talented as any you can find, so a national championship is always within the realm of possibilities, and any team that beats them can be duly proud of themselves.

auburnscouting: the season

2011-12-10T01:41:00.000-05:00

It was kind of fun trying to decide how to set up the run-up to the Peach Bowl. Never got to cover UVA in a bowl before so I got all tingly. I settled on a three-part series, and this is the first; on Fridays this month we will go over some aspect of the Auburn Tigers. Today, the season; the following weeks, the offense and defense. The game is on a Saturday, so that's perfect: the fourth week, I can do the game preview on Thursday like usual and then get drunk over New Year's.

Link in advance: all blog reactions are taken from the Auburn SB Nation blog, Track 'Em Tigers. There's another Auburn blog out there, but I checked it out and the second-to-latest post is a sneer at our supposed inability to sell tickets. So no linky. Let us see how the football season went down from the Auburn perspective:

(P.S. before we start, because this is an interesting tidbit: UVA will be in orange jerseys for the Peach Bowl. If it seems weird that that would be news, it's the SEC's turn to be the home team, so Auburn will be in blue. No white for anyone. I like it, as long as we're not also in orange pants. Now back to the show.)

-- Game 1: #23 Auburn 42, Utah State 38 (1-0)

The story: It took one half of football to realize that this was gonna be a very different team than last year's national championship version, and a second half of football was necessary to avert disaster. Utah State led Auburn 21-14 at halftime and 38-28 with three and a half minutes left, after a clock-chewing 65-yard touchdown drive that saw the Aggies convert a 4th-and-8 from the Auburn 10, and punch in the touchdown two plays later. But Auburn scored quickly and recovered an onside kick, leading to a game-winning drive to rescue themselves from what would've been a nasty upset. Utah State outgained Auburn 448-364 and 227-78 on the ground, and converted three of three fourth-down attempts.

Gene Chizik said: "Offensively and defensively we're a long way off of being able to win very many games right now."

Blog reaction: "By mid-afternoon Saturday, Auburn people knew what coaches surely have known for weeks: The party is over. All good times must come to an end; but this hangover is likely to require more than a few Tylenols and a long nap. ... On Saturday, Gene Chizik and company came face-to-face with a near death experience."

-- Game 2: Auburn 41, #16 Mississippi State 34 (2-0)

The story: Auburn rediscovered their rushing game, with Mike Dyer tearing the Bulldogs up to the tune of 150 yards and two touchdowns, but for the second week in a row it came right down to the wire. To the very last play, in fact; Mississippi State's Chris Relf looked like he was headed for the end zone and a potential game-winning TD (the Bulldogs would've gone for two) but was upended less than a foot from pay dirt. It was a back-and-forth game with each team recording a pick-six. Quarterback Barrett Trotter, Cam Newton's replacement, had a second straight efficient day throwing the ball.

Gene Chizik said: "Are we a great football team right now? No. Not even close. But the identity of the team is starting to form week by week because they will fight. They will not look at the scoreboard, and that's been one of the trademarks that we've really tried to instill in these guys that we are not looking for the scoreboard until it says 0:00 because everything else in-between does not matter."

Blog reaction: "What fans witnessed on this hot, humid afternoon epitomizes everything there is to love about the game and Auburn football. On a day when Miss State and its fans arrived in swarms for its coronation into the SEC elite, Auburn and its band of no-names picked up its 17^th straight win."

-- Game 3: Clemson 38, #21 Auburn 24 (2-1)

Game story: Tigers vs. Tigers. Early on it looked like Auburn would notch another point for SEC superiority, holding a 14-0 lead at the end of the 1st quarter and 21-7 midway through the 2nd. But it was all Clemson after that; the ACC's Tigers tied it up by halftime, and dominated the second half to strike a blow for the Atlantic Coast. This was the Sammy Watkins debutante party - Auburn had no answer for him whatsoever, and he had his season high in catches and yards with 10 and 155 respectively, on national TV no less.

It was a second terrific game for Mike Dyer, but Barrett Trotter was only 12-for-25 against the Clemson defense. Travante Stallworth led the team in receiving for the second time in three games, but he would disappear after this game, catching just three more passes all season. And on defense, Auburn gave up 624 yards.

Gene Chizik said: "The first quarter is probably the best that we've played. After the end of the second quarter, I felt like we were a very below average football team."

Blog reaction: "It's time for some Auburn people to face reality. This team is not winning nine games. It's not defying the odds on the way to Atlanta.** Intelligent Auburn people know it. For our less intelligent brethren, we need to do a little education. Roof is not stupid and Malzahn is still among the best offensive coordinators in the country. Nothing has changed."

**note - meaning the SECCG, not the bowl game.

-- Game 4: Auburn 30, Florida Atlantic 14 (3-1)

Game story: A lackluster game against a really shitty team (FAU finished 1-11) saw a mildly disgruntled crowd at a not-full Jordan-Hare stadium. Auburn led just 10-6 at the half, could never get its running game on track, and finished with 315 yards of offense - eight more than FAU. Auburn's defense bent (a lot) but didn't break; the score of 14 was achieved with two field goals plus a late touchdown against Auburn's bench. The defense gathered a pick-six in the opening minutes of the second half to gain a little breathing room, and by the beginning of the fourth quarter, the game was mercifully in hand. Receiver Trovon Reed would miss the next month or so with a shoulder injury suffered in this game.

Gene Chizik said: "Gentlemen, what the fuck was that?"

Gene Chizik didn't say that. At least, not to the media. Chizik actually said: "We didn't play like we wanted to play the whole night, but we certainly showed a lot of improvement in my opinion."

Blog reaction: "An Auburn bowl bid seems highly unlikely at this point. On record as a defender of the Auburn coaching staff this season, Saturday was a step backwards. Who cares that the defensive stats were vastly improved. Against arguably the worst offense in college football, the Auburn defense continued to surrender way too many yards and miss easy tackles."

-- Game 5: Auburn 16, #10 South Carolina 13 (4-1)

Game story: Much-maligned thanks to the previous couple weeks, the Auburn defense stepped up to the task and helped Auburn to its best win all season. Barrett Trotter only threw for 112 yards, and Michael Dyer needed a whopping 41 carries to grind out his 141 yards, but the offense came up with a game-winning drive in the fourth-quarter, and South Carolina's two-minute offense fell short. Auburn picked off Stephen Garcia twice and held him to 9-of-23 passing, and also blocked a PAT. Trotter was also intercepted twice, and South Carolina actually came up with four interceptions overall, two of them coming when the Tigers tried to get fancypants with the play-calling. Probably the biggest thing Auburn did, though, was hold the Gamecocks' all-world running back Marcus Lattimore to 66 yards.

Gene Chizik said: "At the end of the day, you're looking at one of the Heisman Trophy leaders and we said we had to stop him; and that happened tonight."

Blog reaction**: "A little bit of swagger returned Saturday night. It's something that should serve Auburn well going forward. Suddenly a team that was hoping for a bowl bid is now playing for much more."

**At first I clicked on the headline, "A Day To Remember." That seemed like the logical place to find a narrative about a big win. Nope: amusing colonoscopy story. I think I like this blog. Seriously.

-- Game 6: #10 Arkansas 38, #15 Auburn 14 (4-2)

Game story: For the second week in a row, Auburn went on the road to face a #10 team. It didn't go so good this time. Auburn led 14-7 after one quarter and spent the rest of the time getting smoked. Barrett Trotter was a miserable 6-of-19 for 81 yards, and this game was the beginning of the end of his time as a starter. Clint Moseley and freshman Kiehl Frazier were inserted at various points.

The run game was more than effective; Frazier, Dyer, and Onterio McCalebb combined for 47 carries and 257 yards, and Auburn racked up 291 total. But the passing game was horrible, and the defense was bad; the backbreaker was a 92-yard TD run by the Hogs' Joe Adams in the third quarter to put Arkansas up by two touchdowns.

Gene Chizik said: "We did all the things tonight, all the classic things, that lead to losing. We turned the ball over on the road, dropped balls, guys who were wide open and we can't hit them, the ball going through guys' hands."

Blog reaction: "Now Auburn coaches face the inevitable fork in the road. We suspected the time was coming. The question is simple to ask, yet hard to answer. What does Auburn do about its quarterback situation? ... Things are not going to magically change in the coming weeks. Auburn caught a break in beating Miss State and South Carolina - teams that were far less than advertised in the preseason. The same may hold true when Florida comes visiting Saturday night."

-- Game 7: #24 Auburn 17, Florida 6 (5-2)

Game story: Trotter threw a touchdown pass in the first half and Auburn took a 7-6 lead to halftime, but that was one of only two Trotter completions in the entire half. When the Tigers took the field in the second half, the reins had been handed to Clint Moseley. Permanently. Moseley was not exactly awesome, but the offense moved better than it had.

Which isn't saying much, at least as far as this game was concerned. Defenses ruled the day; Auburn held the Gators to 194 total yards, and only got 278 of their own. Half of that came on six plays; Auburn averaged 2.3 yards on the others. The Tigers converted just one of 13 third-down attempts, but the defense played maybe its best game of the year, so it mattered little.

Gene Chizik said: "Dominant. I think that is the only word you could use. Probably 40 or 50 yards of their offense came on the last drive when we knew they had two scores. I couldn't be more proud."

Blog reaction: "There's been nothing pretty about the season except for the results."

-- Game 8: #1 LSU 45, #20 Auburn 10 (5-3)

Game story: Except for a few pass attempts by Kiehl Frazier, the job under center belonged to Clint Moseley; Barrett Trotter was relegated to clipboard duty and in fact has not thrown a pass since the Florida game. It didn't matter here. LSU registered about forty sacks (actually six) in a game that wasn't even as close as the final score - and the final score showed a five-TD loss for the Tigers. The Auburn ones. Man, I'm glad we have a nickname - two, actually - that nobody else has.

Gene Chizik said: "It's really difficult to really assess how [Moseley] did. Six sacks are unacceptable. You don't win any football games by allowing six sacks. That was an anemic job of protecting the quarterback. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do to figure out how to stop the bleeding in that regard."

Blog reaction: "From the start, it was clear that LSU had the better team. Auburn's offensive line looked like a New Orleans levy trying to hold off Katrina. It's hard to imagine a better team in college football this season..."

-- Game 9: #23 Auburn 41, Mississippi 23 (6-3)

Game story: Moseley finally had a chance to get his feet under him, and the results were very positive: four touchdown passes. He was helped by a 177-yard performance from Dyer, too. This was a tie game at halftime, 17-17, and the Auburn defense probably needed a kick in the pants; whatever they got, it worked, because Ole Miss only racked up 38 yards in the third quarter and then threw 20 of them away on sack/IG penalty. Auburn scored 24 straight points in the second half before Ole Miss tacked on a meaningless touchdown as time expired.

Gene Chizik said: "At halftime, we made a lot of great adjustments, adjusting defensively to some of the run game that we needed to get under control that in the first half got away from us a little bit. Coach (Ted) Roof and the defensive staff did a really nice job with that. ... The great thing about our team up to this point is that we haven't lost twice in a row. We have not let one loss beat us twice in a row and for a young football team, I think that speaks highly of them."

Blog reaction: "I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting in a hotel in Atlanta on a cold December day, the news hit me like a case of malaria. Auburn had settled on Iowa State's Gene Chizik as its new coach. It was official: Auburn was circling the drain of college football. On December 13, 2008, I wrote, 'To say this move (hiring Chizik) is shocking is an understatement. For many Auburn fans, this is a worst case scenario. There appears to be little logic in the choice.' I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. ... Gene Chizik continues to be the gift that keeps on giving."

-- Game 10: #15 Georgia 45, #20 Auburn 7 (6-4)

Game story: Coming off a win and a bye week, Auburn had some hopes for this game; the result was their worst of the season. The Bulldogs dominated every facet of the game, racking up 528 yards to Auburn's 195. After Auburn tied it at 7 in the first quarter, Georgia rolled up five touchdowns and a field goal for 38 unanswered points. Not much to say, because the game was just hideous for Auburn fans.

Gene Chizik said: "It was pretty evident what we couldn't do, and that was a lot. ... We didn't cover many people all night, couldn't stop the run and turned the ball over. That's why we got beat 45-7."

Blog reaction: "While basking in the glow of seven wins in nine years over Alabama, the Georgia rivalry has become a horror show for the Auburn football program. With Saturday's humiliating beat down in Athens, Auburn has now lost five of its last six games to its second biggest rival."

-- Game 11: #24 Auburn 35, Samford 16 (7-4)

Game story: It was another bad day for the Auburn defense. Some I-AA teams have the capacity to upset even quality I-A teams; Samford should not be one of them, but there they were in the third quarter, trailing the defending national champions by just 14-13. Perhaps they were simply tired of facing teams named the Bulldogs.

Fortunately for the Tigers, Auburn pulled away late, and disaster was averted. After Samford made it 21-16 with a field goal, a short kickoff and a long runback gave Auburn excellent field position in Samford territory, and they capitalized with a 22-yard TD run by the normally not-mobile Moseley; the game was essentially salted away after that. They were aided by yet another 150+ yard day from Michael Dyer.

Gene Chizik said: " I can make all kinds of excuses about how at times we didn't play well. I can pull them out of the kitchen sink now, but the reality of it is there were times where they played really well and there were times where we didn't."

Blog reaction: (whatever it's Alabama week)

-- Game 12: #2 Alabama 42, #24 Auburn 14

Game story: Last year, Auburn's title hopes looked shot at halftime of the Alabama game; they fixed that problem with a comeback that no doubt will live in semi-immortality in Auburn lore. This year, the Tigers again found themselves down 24-7 at halftime of the Iron Bowl, and an 83-yard kick return for a TD by Onterio McCalebb to start the second half got people wondering if we were in for a sequel.

It wasn't to be. Alabama responded with a field goal, and then two touchdowns in the fourth, to put away the henceforth scoreless Tigers. Auburn couldn't do anything about Heisman candidate running back Trent Richardson, who piled up 203 yards. And Clint Moseley only tallied 62 yards through the air. For the second straight year, the Iron Bowl winner went on to play for the national title, but the script got flipped on Auburn in 2011.

Gene Chizik said: "It's been a lot of ups and downs this season for 12 games, and we've had some really good things occur in our 12 game season, and we've had some disappointments. This is certainly one of the huge disappointments."

Blog reaction: "From the start things never felt right. Not since the lowly days of the Doug Barfield era has a lead up to the Iron Bowl felt so hopeless. As ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit noted on air Saturday morning, there were few believers among the Auburn faithful. Of course, it didn't take Danny Sheridan to tell Auburn fans what was ahead. The reality had set in weeks ago. Alabama's manhandling of Auburn was the most complete beating Auburn has taken at home in a generation."

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So, what lessons have we learned?

Well, Auburn fans, and probably the pundits as well, will point out that Auburn has generally faced a much better level of competition than UVA has. True; there was nothing like LSU or Alabama on our schedule, and the closest we came to a Georgia or an Arkansas was Virginia Tech. Florida State has talent approximating what UGA and Arkansas bring, but probably is not coached as well.

The counter to that is that in the games where Auburn was playing really bad competition, they mostly stunk. They won, but they stunk. Florida Atlantic racked up 20 first downs after getting one the previous week. Ole Miss was tied at halftime. Samford was behind by one in the third quarter. Utah State was up by ten with 3:38 to go. Auburn pulled out wins in all of these, but none can be said to have been inspiring. They also generally got blown out of the water by all that great competition.

In general, they appeared to have all the hallmarks of a very young team. Like duh. They graduated Cam Newton and Nick Fairley and pretty much everyone else that was any good, and started a bunch of young dudes in their places. It showed. Horrible performances at times; and then again, holding the electric Marcus Lattimore (pre-injury) to 66 yards. And a dominant performance against Florida. (Florida's offense sucks this year, but still.)

Auburn spent most of the year ranked, but largely, I think, due to a predisposition by the media to rank SEC teams. (They were never really punished for the parade of ass-beatings they received.) I don't think they deserved to be ranked, and my Blogpoll ballots showed as much. Today, neither Virginia nor Auburn is in the AP top 25, though Virginia has five votes from somewhere.

It was kind of a tumultuous season. Quarterback controversies, the firing of the defensive coordinator, and a general feeling that the offensive coordinator eventually will move on to a head coaching position. (Gus Malzahn did supposedly interview for the UNC job before they hired Larry Fedora.) Auburn never lost consecutive games all year, and after the Arkansas loss in early October, didn't win consecutive games either. Starting with that game, they alternated results. It resulted in a lot of up and down feelings.

To compare with UVA's season, the best win between the two teams is the South Carolina one for Auburn, followed by UVA's win over FSU. Both were on the road. Besides that, Auburn's only wins over winning teams were those over 6-5 Samford and 7-5 Utah State. Auburn beat four bowl-eligible teams and three with winning records; UVA beat three and two, respectively. The Tigers didn't lose any games they shouldn't have. Came close, but didn't. It's sort of an unimpressive 7-5, but you might say the same about UVA's 8-4 if you didn't take the change in QB philosophy into account. By contrast, it's much harder to say if Auburn's QB switch improved matters.

Next week, we'll tackle the Auburn offense. (Geddit? Tackle?) Gus Malzahn is a hurry-up, no-huddle, spread kinda guy, making things interesting for the UVA defense.

the recruit: Greyson Lambert

2011-12-08T18:07:00.000-05:00

Name: Greyson Lambert
Position: QB
Hometown: Jesup, GA
School: Wayne County
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 208

24/7: 91; four stars; #9 pro-style QB; GA #25
ESPN: 78; three stars; #38 QB; GA #53; Southeast #224
Rivals: 5.7; three stars; #23 QB; GA #28
Scout: four stars; #8 QB

Other offers: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Clemson, Miami, NC State, Purdue, Boston College, Mississippi State, Louisville

Admit it: You figured we were shutting down QB recruiting after we got one early. You figured that even without Matt Johns, we probably didn't have a real shot at Greyson Lambert because he had all those offers from way-southern schools, and he's a way-southern kid, and guys with attention from Alabama and Georgia don't pick Virginia. We all figured that.

With Lambert in the fold, and likely to enroll at UVA in January as well, a common phrase during the early part of the season was, "The quarterback of 2012 isn't on Grounds yet." Sometimes that was a comment on the state of quarterback play from the current crop, but (and I say this meaning as little disrespect as possible to Matt Johns) when people said that, they didn't have Matt Johns in mind.

The thing about Alabama offers is that you have to parse them out. Michael Strauss was listed with an Alabama offer, but it wasn't one really. Neither was Lambert's at first. Alabama likes to give out placeholder offers, and Alabama had a couple other, higher-priority choices. (They're Alabama and they think even more highly of themselves than that, so instead of recruiting a bunch of kids hoping they'll get one, they line up priorities and target them one by one. At least at quarterback.) Gunner Kiel was one, but once Kiel committed to Indiana (he has since decommitted) Lambert was squarely in Nick Saban's crosshairs. It's a testament to Mike London's recruiting chops that Lambert can be legitimately said to have picked Virginia over Alabama, and mind you UGA as well.

It was a video that did it, by the way. London wasn't there when Lambert visited, so he recorded a Dear Greyson video, which Lambert was duly impressed with. This is the difference between London and a regular coach. Remember that Eli Harold was considering Florida before his UVA commitment; I don't recall whether or not Harold ever actually made it to Gainesville for a visit, but I do recall that he had to reschedule one when he learned that Will Muschamp wasn't gonna be in town. Most coaches reschedule visits. London decided to roll differently. That's our boy.

For a guy whose visibility is no problem, the scouting services are awfully rangy on Lambert. Scout thinks he's the #8 quarterback in the country. Not just pro-style; overall. ESPN gives him an awfully middling review. To Scout, technique is a minus and arm strength is a plus:

"....his arm strength speaks for itself. His arm and size are his biggest strengths, but he really needs to work on his footwork and mobility."

ESPN's review is the bizarro-Scout:

"....consistent, quick feet.....a good enough athlete to move around and buy time for a second passing chance. ... However, the question with Lambert is does he have a great arm? He lacks great power, zip and ability to drive the ball vertically and into tight spots in our opinion for the next level."

So that's certainly confusing. Lambert's highlights are too choppy and blurry to see for oneself. He definitely has the size, though; at 6'5" and probably pushing 210, maybe 215 by the time next season starts, he's already got prototypical NFL size and projectability in that department. With that size it's little wonder that the scouting reports do consistently suggest good field vision and good skills at reading a defense. Between Scout (rocket-armed granite statue) and ESPN (semi-mobile technique artist) are the two rankings that are probably closer to reality.

Because let's be honest, expectations are almost always a bad thing when it comes to quarterbacks. Everyone is always enamored of the idea of the true freshman who can step in immediately and set every school passing record in four years. Mostly that's an unattainable ideal. The last quarterback to come in with Greyson Lambert's pedigree was Peter Lalich, and he was ready for neither the on-field nor off-field demands of the job when it was handed to him. What you really want is a nice, steady parade of quarterbacks who are game-ready when it's their turn, and give you little to no dropoff from one to the next.

Fortunately for both the present and the future, Mike Rocco put a lot of that "2012 QB isn't here yet" talk to rest this year. Rocco has his weaknesses, but he's a sophomore for crying out loud. If he has to defend his job in spring camp it'll be an injustice and a half. And that's great news for our quarterback progression. If Lambert had to jump in with both feet and be The Man from 2012 on out, I think 2012 would be awfully rough. Lambert is good, but not, like, otherworldly. And QBs can be ruined if they're handed the job too early. Both incoming quarterbacks can be safely redshirted in 2012, and also watch from the sidelines during 2013. And then, as redshirt sophomores in 2014, it's game on. (The wild card being - how will David Watford develop? And what happens in 2013 recruiting?) Matt Johns put up some really gaudy numbers this year and won't give up the QB competition without a fight, but I suspect by 2014 the coaches will have a pretty good idea of who they want to succeed Rocco. Right now I'd put the best odds on Lambert.

season preview: Clemson

2011-12-08T02:04:00.000-05:00

Clemson Tigers

Media prediction: 7th

Last season:

Record: 22-12 (9-7) - ACC 4th seed
Postseason: NCAA tournament 1st round
KenPom: 22nd of 345

Returning scoring: 56.1%
Returning rebounding: 54.5%
Returning assists: 55.2%

2010-11 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: G Demontez Stitt
HM: F Jerai Grant
Rookie:
Defensive: F Jerai Grant

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Starting lineup:

PG: Andre Young (Sr.)
SG: Rod Hall (Fr.)
SF: Tanner Smith (Sr.)
PF: Milton Jennings (Jr.)
C: Devin Booker (Jr.)

Bench:

G T.J. Sapp (Fr.)
F Bryan Narcisse (Sr.)
C Catalin Baciu (Sr.)
F K.J. McDaniels (Fr.)

Coach: Brad Brownell (2nd year)

ACC schedule:

Twice: Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Once: Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, NC State

This is what I was told when I tried to find info on Clemson's recruiting class last year. Rumors of a basketball team in Clemson, South Carolina have apparently been greatly exaggerated.

Jokes and bugs on Rivals aside, Clemson is kind of picking itself up from the floor a little bit after the unexpected departure of Oliver Purnell to DePaul. (There has got to be something we don't know about that whole thing.) The coaching changed caused a little upheaval, and like Boston College only with about one-thousandth the magnitude, Clemson had a good season last year but needs to rebuild a little bit now.

The reason is that their top two scorers graduated and haven't been adequately replaced. Clemson lost one each from the frontcourt and backcourt and guys who are best used as third or fourth options are now being asked to be go-to guys. Andre Young is a weapon and the exception to this statement; Young has really stepped up his shot this year and does an excellent job of taking care of the ball. He's a very efficient offensive player, and it might be in his team's best interest if he got a little more selfish. However, Young is 5'9, 170, and obviously has quicks but no size, and can be posted up.

Clemson does rebound well and plays solid defense; despite a slow, Bennett-esque tempo to their games, both Tanner Smith and Devin Booker average better than 7 boards a game, and each is currently also averaging 9.7 points. With those three plus Milton Jennings, there is a solid frontcourt here.

However, that's only in the starting lineup. Take any one of them out of the game and Clemson has little better than replacement-level talent. Romanian-born Catalin Baciu is a whopping 7-foot-2, but has never been able to translate that into gaudy stats. The other hole in the lineup is at shooting guard; the one place where you ought to be able to find scoring, there is none. Clemson brought in a five-man freshman class this year and they seem to be getting playing time in reverse order of recruiting ratings. Rod Hall stepped into the starting lineup to replace T.J. Sapp; both were the lightly-recruited side of the class and they account for most of the minutes played by freshmen. Neither is an integral part of the offense, though Sapp has shown a three-point touch. Meanwhile, one-time UVA offeree Bernard Sullivan has not cracked the rotation.

So there are some pieces of a good team, most notably Young and a solid if not dominant starting frontcourt. But it's been a rough go so far. Other than Iowa in the Challenge (whom they beat), Clemson has yet to play an opponent outside the state of South Carolina, and they're not acquitting themselves well; they are just 3-3 in those games, with losses to College of Charleston, Coastal Carolina, and the very middling South Carolina. And even though it's only the supposedly easy nonconference schedule so far, Clemson is averaging five fewer PPG than in all of last year. Clemson will be a team that's difficult to score against, but not particularly hard to stop, once teams figure out how to keep Andre Young under wraps. Playing FSU, UVA, and VT twice each could earn them six losses right there, and we haven't even gotten to Duke and UNC yet, so I don't see either a winning ACC season or a tournament berth in the cards for Clemson. I think the most this year has to offer for the Tigers is a CBI invite or a first-round loss in the NIT.

****************************************

Speaking of hooptyball, last night saw the final UVA contest of the preliminary section of the regular season; we now enter the dreaded finals week doldrums. UVA finished up with a very strong homestand, with a win of course over Challenge opponent Michigan and three more of exactly the type you want to have over mid-majors; that is, bench-emptying. And even though they struggled a bit early on, George Mason still looks like a decent bet to end up at or near the top of the CAA - though that may well be a one-bid league this year.

KenPomwise, UVA's performance in the first nine games have moved them as high as the third-best team in the ACC. And sixth-best defense in the country. After the Michigan game, MGoBlog employed the sentence "Tony Bennett is a war crime," which I take as high praise. It is extremely frustrating to watch a suffocating defense at work if you are rooting for the team trying to score on it. This defense caused U-M bloggers to use phrases to describe the U-M offense like "degraded to glorified isolations on far too many plays," "lackluster two point shooting was accompanied by first half turnover woes and little to no production on the offensive glass," "generated basically nothing," and "glarg glarg glarg glarg." I made up none of those. When the other team is reduced to gurgling in frustration - and here is the point we are building to: that is the team that has had the best offensive production against UVA all year! - you are playing some nice defense.

So we got that going for us. I expect it to continue. It is an evil, field-leveling system played by athletes who don't need the field leveled for them, and who are obviously very comfortable and instinctive in it. You can see it running like clockwork every time. Teams like UNC will find ways to score on it, but in general when we lose games this year it'll because the offense got stopped, not because the defense got beat.

After finals break, there is a two-game West Coast swing to Oregon and Seattle. The former should be the toughest remaining test in the OOC, and a win there means UVA likely heads to the ACC schedule with a 13-1 record. Is that good enough for the tournament, assuming business is reasonably well taken care of in the conference? Probably. If the teams we beat cooperate. I'm still going to spend the next three months hoping we don't get Greenberged out.