game preview: Belmont

Date/Time: Friday, March 20; 3:10

TV: truTV

Record against the Bruins: 1-0

Last meeting: UVA 94, Belmont 74; 12/28/99, Charlottesville

Last game: UNC 71, UVA 67 (3/13); Belmont 88, Murray St. 87 (3/7)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 58.2 (#349)
Belmont: 67.0 (#68)

Offense:
UVA: 112.2 (#25)
Belmont: 107.9 (#63)

Defense:
UVA: 85.5 (#1)
Belmont: 106.3 (#251)

Pythag:
UVA: .9580 (#4)
Belmont: .5407 (#146)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: London Perrantes (6.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 4.8 apg)
SG: Malcolm Brogdon (13.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SF: Evan Nolte (3.2 ppg, 1.5 rpg, 0.6 apg)
PF: Darion Atkins (7.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 0.7 apg)
PF: Anthony Gill (11.5 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 0.8 apg)

Belmont:

PG: Reece Chamberlain (8.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 6.1 apg)
SG: Craig Bradshaw (18.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 3.2 apg)
SG: Taylor Barnette (10.7 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 1.3 apg)
PF: Amanze Egekeze (5.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 0.7 apg)
PF: Evan Bradds (14.3 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.3 apg)

Win or go home, you know the drill.  You no doubt also know a bit of the (very recent) history here: that it was former Hoo Taylor Barnette hitting the game-winning shot for Belmont that punched their dance ticket.  (This tourney is loaded with former Hoos.  Will Regan is still suiting up for Buffalo and Paul Jesperson is in with Northern Iowa.)

Memories of last year's first-round game are still fresh; UVA found itself down by as many as nine to 16-seed Coastal Carolina.  Belmont - a small school sitting in Vanderbilt's shadow in Nashville - is the kind of team that could make the Hoos nervous again ... but also the kind that could get completely rolled.

-- UVA on offense

Belmont's not the worst defensive team in the tournament - that honor belongs to Eastern Washington - but it's close.  Their efficiency of 106.3 places them outside the top 250 in the country.  Size has something to do with it, but the OVC isn't exactly loaded with seven-footers, either.  Belmont was even crummy within their own conference.

Belmont let most opponents shoot over 50% from inside the arc, especially if that opponent had a functioning big man.  UVA has three.  This is where the Hoos will have just an incredible, unfair advantage.  Belmont simply doesn't have big men.  Tyler Hadden is 6'10", 240 and Mack Mercer is 6'9", 220, and both play about six minutes a game.  Taking most of the big-man minutes are starters Amanze Egekeze and Evan Bradds; Bradds is 6'7", 205, and Egekeze is only an inch taller and ten pounds heavier.

Tobey, Gill, and Atkins are going to have a field day with this.  Belmont has the choice of using players who are barely OVC-caliber, or using guys who are small enough to get posted up by Evan Nolte.  The Hoos are going to want to feed the post all day long; if they find a hot hand, that guy might score 20.  This is to say nothing of the rebounding advantage UVA will have.

It's not only the bigs; our old friend Barnette, more power to him, but he's going to have to guard one of Brogdon, Nolte, or Anderson, and there's a reason he couldn't get on the court much while competing with them for playing time.  Not to single him out; it's more an illustration of the talent difference here.

Frankly, there's no reason UVA shouldn't be able to score a whole bunch.  The patient approach they have is going to break down this defense.  I'd expect a bunch of double-teams to make up for Belmont's lack of size, but with so many mismatches on the floor, it shouldn't matter.

-- UVA on defense

Here's what makes me nervous.  The huge size advantage UVA has is nullified in a way.  Belmont won't be able to drive much and they'll never be able to post up.  They might find some clever passing angles for an open bucket or two, but mainly, they'll be forced to shoot a lot of threes.  Which is exactly what they want to do.

That's how you beat the Hoos, of course.  Belmont attempted more threes than all but four teams in the country, and the thing about shooting is, an open three is an open three regardless of talent level or conference or whatever.  In other words, just because they're a 15 seed doesn't mean a 40% shooter is gonna be any worse against a 2 seed.

Craig Bradshaw leads the way, shooting 42%.  Barnette, of course, has a very green light, and Nick Smith, despite playing only 15 minutes a game, has the third-most attempts on the team.  But truthfully, just about anyone on the court is fair game to fire away.  Mack Mercer, who barely plays anyway, is the only player to be really complacent about.

I think we'll see the post double employed very little - partly because the ball just won't be in the post much, but partly because it doesn't make sense to leave three-point shooters temporarily open so you can double a guy that Anthony Gill could eat for lunch anyway.

With a ton of shooters all bombing away, it's too much to think they'll all go cold all at once.  Some of these are going to drop.  You just figure that the defenders need to be able to close out; fortunately, with no real post threat, there isn't much need to collapse too far in the first place.  Belmont is going to shoot like 20 threes regardless of what the defense does; if most of them are contested, UVA should be able to keep the Bruins at arms' length.

-- Outlook

Belmont has half the traditional formula for a big upset.  They shoot threes - lots of them, and well.  So often, though, the scrappy underdog also has a legit big man who seems like he's everywhere.  No doubt the Bruin bigs are going to scrap, but they're likely doomed to being dominated in all aspects of the game.  I think Belmont keeps it closer than we'd like, shooting well enough to not let the game get out of hand.  But they're not going to play enough defense, either.

Final score: UVA 79, Belmont 66

weekend review

OK so it's more of a weekly review but regardless.

-- Folks must be feeling good about our ability to reinstate fired employees, because a group of people are expressing their discontent over Mark Bernardino's resignation.  Or firing or whatever it might have been.  There was definitely a certain abruptness to that.  I doubt there was anything too fishy because reporters always nose around these things and there doesn't seem to have been anything much that showed up beyond what you're seeing.  OK, it probably wasn't totally Bernardino's idea to quit either - at least not without something that might've triggered it - but on the rage-scale it ends up a few notches below the whole Sullivan Affair too.

-- This particular group didn't get the moratorium they wanted (which is not terribly surprising) because UVA was not slow in hiring a replacement.  If we have to set aside one of UVA's most successful coaches in any sport, I think the profile of his replacement is just what you'd look for.  Augie Busch has the bloodlines (his dad once ran the national team, which is only the most successful swimming organization in the whole world), worked at one of the NCAA's elite programs (Arizona) for a long time, and has head coaching experience which proves he's not a screw-up once handed the reins.  Swimming is even more completely about recruiting than most sports, since coaches are deprived of the chance to invent schemes, and Busch was UA's recruiting coordinator.  I'll take it.

-- More than 420 basketball players have transferred this offseason.  I say this mainly to point out that that makes it not totally off the wall that UVA has had two now, with Taylor Barnette being the second.  It's still a little annoying that a little under 10% of basketball players transfer every year.  Player goes to team, realizes he's not going to play 25 minutes a night, transfers.  We're getting to the point where the NCAA really ought to create some incentives for staying all four years at one school.  (Yes, I know, a UVA degree ought to be enough of one.)  Arguments are always made against making it harder because shouldn't kids have the right to play where they want, what about hardships, etc. etc.  Fine.  Then figure out a way to reward loyalty.

From a depth chart perspective, it might've been nice to create a little instant heat off the bench the way Barnette was able to do at times, but there are certainly more than a few guys who should be able to hit that shot.  And it relieves some of the crazy scholarship crunch in that class.  Tony has room for three guys in 2014 (to go along with B.J. Stith) if he likes, and he probably will if he can swing it.

-- John LaPrise is doing really well in summer ball.  (His Northwoods League is probably about second on the hierarchy of summer ball leagues, behind Cape Cod and even with New England.)  Possible front-runner next year for the vacated 2B job left open by Reed Gragnani.

-- Hokie running back Michael Holmes was kicked out of Virginia Tech - by a student-run disciplinary council.  Frank Beamer must be pissed that his usual policy of never punishing misdemeanors (after first having Jimmy Turk make sure no felony charge ever touches his players) was undercut by students who don't want to be represented by a guy who beat someone else up to the tune of $13,000 of damages.  If you hear Hokies complaining about this, it's probably because they're used to seeing guys with much worse behavior kept on the team without any student council being involved.  The really amusing part of that article was this line, though: "It would be refreshing if other colleges and universities looked at what took place in Blacksburg and said, 'This is what we need to do.'"  Funny, I can't think of any other schools in the state of Virginia where students get a hand in deciding who their classmates will be, can you?

Recruiting board update coming tomorrow.

hoops look back, part 1

Even though UVA didn't make the big tournament this year, nor get to the ACC tourney semifinals, I would argue this: any season in which expectations are exceeded is a success.  And the Hoos did exactly that.  Picked seventh in the ACC in the preseason and given a projected record of 19-12, 9-9 by Ken Pomeroy, UVA surpassed both with a four seed in the ACC tournament and a 21-9 record.  It still only resulted in an NIT bid, but I don't hate that.  When you've gotten to where the NIT is your floor instead of your ceiling, your program is in the right place.  Some might say you shouldn't ever be happy with the NIT, but even Kentucky can't claim to be immune to NIT-dom.

Not forgetting this, either: The Hoos swept both VT and Maryland and beat all three Triangle teams.  I'm OK with a season where that happens.

The preseason preview was split into two parts with a bit for each player, so let's mirror that approach today and have a chat about how everyone's year went.

#1 - Jontel Evans

As the team's only scholarship senior, Evans came in with a pretty well-established reputation.  This year - on offense particularly - he took just about every piece of that reputation to its extreme.  Known as a dicey free-throw shooter who refused to take three-pointers, but who ran the offense better than any other PG on the team and could get to the rim (albeit with sometimes questionable finishing abilities due to an insistence on finishing what he started regardless of the obstacle), Bub took those peaks and valleys and enhanced them all.  The bad: Opponents played five feet off of him.  If Ole Miss's Marshall Henderson had the greenest light ever (as per LeBron), Jontel had the reddest one.  He took two threes all year, both desperation heaves at the end of a shot clock, or actually in the case of the one that went in, the end of a half.  From halfcourt.  It was reminiscent of his end-of-half shot against Miami a couple years ago that must have brushed a rafter in the gym, so high did it go.  The fact that this year's crazyheave actually went in is one of the Jonteliest things to ever happen.

The other bad is that he was a touch turnover-prone, and his free throw shooting was appalling.  But his defense was just as we've come to expect.  It didn't improve over last year, but then, it didn't have much room to, and the difference between Evans and the other point guards was clear whenever he was off the court.  And he definitely had a senior's feel for the offense.  His season-high assist total was eight, which he hit three times, and had five games of seven assists as well.  Solid stuff for the pace we play.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: We of course wish him well wherever his basketball career takes him.  Evans is a likely candidate to carve out an overseas career, at least for a little while.  The race to take his place will be interesting to watch.  It'll be nice to have a PG whose shot opponents respect, but there'll be times Evans will be missed as well.

#2 - Paul Jesperson

Jesperson's leap from '11-'12 to '12-'13 was cosmic, partly because his freshman season saw him more or less unready for the college game.  So it was a terrific thing to see him become a useful player instead of "that guy who was supposed to redshirt and now we know why."

Jesperson started 33 games this year and was a fixture in the starting lineup despite being one-dimensional at times on offense.  You know how Tony Bennett loves defense, and Jesperson put forth quite a bit of effort there.  His long, 6'6" frame was useful for harassing opposing shooting guards, and his positioning does a good job of making up for the deficit of athleticism he faces as compared to most other shooting guards.  The NC State game - the regular season one - was the best exhibit of this.  Jesperson didn't score in that game, but he chased Scott Wood around every screen and turned a 44% three-point shooter into a waste of shots.

Jesperson's own three started off the season on a torrid pace, but that slowed down as the season went on.  His shot got flat and would leave him for entire games at a time.  He only shot 35% from three after ACC play began, though his 4-for-4 showing at Maryland was more than appreciated.  Every so often, too, he'd flash the ability to make a move at the rim you'd forgotten that he had.  Overall, though, when Jesperson's shot wasn't falling he wasn't much use on offense.  When it was, UVA was a scary dangerous team.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: Assuming Malcolm Brogdon is back in the rotation next year, it's Jesperson's minutes that seem most likely to suffer.  If and when he does come back, it's hard to see Jesperson starting 30+ games and getting 26 minutes per.  He could lose as many as 10 minutes from that.  But he can also stave off the slide if he fixes his shot and proves irreplaceable on defense.  As Will Sherrill proved, Tony rewards guys who know where they're supposed to be on the court, and Jesperson does.

#4 - Taylor Barnette

Of all the preseason predictions I made, Barnette's was probably the most accurate.  In sum, it went something like: Emergency point guard that we'd rather not have to use and fringe rotation guy.  Which is exactly what happened.

It turns out Barnette isn't a great point guard, really.  Teven Jones was better at running the offense, and Barnette's defense ranged from adequate to major liability.  The Boston College game that we lost, BC made a big game-changing run with Barnette in the game that ended as soon as Barnette was pulled.

But.  Barnette did have game-changing ability in a good way.  Three times, Barnette hit three three-balls in a game, and our average margin of victory in those games was 28.  That would be the home games against Clemson and GT and the NIT game against St. John's.  He basically was the spark that turned close-ish games into blowouts.  He sat out nine games entirely and in many others he got the Tristan Spurlock mid-first-half cameo and nothing else, but you can't say he didn't have a role.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: More of the same, probably.  London Perrantes and Devon Hall should provide some tough competition, particularly Perrantes as he'd be a candidate to play some off-ball guard too.  And of course, Brogdon will also be in the mix.  So Barnette will have to scrap for minutes.  But as long as he can be counted on to respond when Tony says "get in there and hit some threes" there'll be a space, even if it's a small one.

#5 - Teven Jones

Kind of an interesting story.  I don't have a way to back this up but it felt like Jones never really earned the trust of Tony Bennett over the year.  Whatever he did to get suspended for the first game might've had something to do with it.  Jones ran the offense passably well and occasionally - particularly in the NIT - hit a clutch three-pointer that would stymie an opponent "haha we're taking advantage of your bench" rally.

But his minutes went down the tubes when the calendar turned.  In the nonconference games he played (after returning from suspension and injury) he averaged almost 24 minutes a game.  Evans's return to full strength had a lot to do with this, of course, but Jones's minutes plummeted to 8.4 per game after ACC play began, and that's including his 20 minutes and start against UNC in the ACC opener.  In six games he played less than five minutes, and picked up two DNPs as well.

Whether that's a function of Tony trusting his senior a lot or his freshman only a little, I can't say - it's probably both.  But I don't really have any complaints about the offense with the ball in his hands.  He didn't have Jontel's playmaking instincts and usually played it pretty safe, which brought his assist total down.  But he was a better shooter than Jontel by a mile, both from the field and at the stripe.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: Will probably have to re-earn his job against Perrantes and Hall.  Like I said before: the PG competition will be quite a race.  Easily the top storyline of the offseason.  And I'm not stupid enough to try and handicap it from here and now.

#10 - Mike Tobey

If it weren't for Justin Anderson, Tobey would easily be the guy whose metamorphosis was most exciting over the course of the season.  Early on, he was missing more shots than he had a right to.  And I'm no psychologist, but it looked an awful lot like a case of the nerves.  He looked tight and afraid to screw up, which almost always leads to screwups.  He biffed putbacks and occasionally channeled Assane Sene's turnover hands.

Once he got it figured out, though, the skills for which he was recruited started to really, really blossom.  He showed he could hit shots from most anywhere - including behind the arc.  He likes the twelve-foot baseline jumper.  He shot almost 80% from the line.  Tobey missed five games with mono (and probably was feeling the early effects of it during the GT loss in which he was largely ineffective) but once he got back, the lost time wasn't a great hindrance.  Having a center that can score from all over is a lot of fun, and his KenPom statistical profile was very similar to the freshman seasons of Kosta Koufos (a 2008 one-and-done at Ohio State) and Brook Lopez.

Defensively, his improvement mirrored his offense.  He'll be better when the weight room starts to take effect; right now he's still got a little bit of leftover baby fat from high school.  But he did a nice job overall.  Didn't foul much and blocked his share of shots.  He could stand to improve on his rebounding numbers, but sometimes that's hard with Akil Mitchell grabbing so many; plus, the pack-line isn't conducive to elite rebounding numbers from your center because it encourages the opponent to take long shots.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: Could double his minutes; he averaged 14.  UVA's offense is finally showing signs of being multidimensional, and Tobey's going to be an indispensible part of that.

#11 - Evan Nolte

Opposing coaches really hate it when you put a 6'8" three-point shooter out there.  Nolte has a really nice stroke, and UVA - with Nolte - has the ability to put a massive backcourt on the floor.  It turns out that it's awfully hard to close out on Nolte, which keeps defenders from helping out - or else risks him shooting over the top.  That's not unique to Nolte - most mismatch forwards are the same way, it's why I call them mismatch forwards.  But UVA, with Jesperson and Joe Harris at 6'6", and some big point guards on the way, can really take advantage of Nolte's height and shooting to open up wide swaths of the floor.

Especially against the bench players that Nolte usually goes against.  The weaknesses in his game were apparent as the season rolled on: he's often asked to guard opposing fours, but he's not really a four himself and doesn't have the strength.  Nor does he have the quickness to guard the league's best threes.  Some wings, yes, but not the best ones.  And he doesn't really like to put the ball on the floor and attack.  If Nolte improves his handle, which he's got the capability to do, it would add a dimension to his game that would make him nigh-unstoppable by anyone's second string.  But as a starter, I don't yet see it.  There's a reason he was switched back to the bench in favor of Justin Anderson when Darion Atkins had to be shelved.

Absurdly early outlook for next year: I actually see Nolte as one of the players at the most risk to lose minutes.  Anthony Gill and a healthy Atkins will make sure Nolte never has to guard any power forwards, which is a good thing for the overall mix.  And Anderson already started eating into Nolte's time at the three.  Nolte's minutes got less productive toward the season's end, and he's got to reverse that trend.  He could be a 20-minutes-a-game kind of guy with the necessary refinements, but it's also not inconceivable that he could be reduced to a fringe-rotation three-point specialist, depending on how other elements of the rotation shake out.

weekend review

I have to admit, I've spent all my grand narratives regarding the St. John's game on Sunday.  UVA beat St. John's at our own place in the NIT's second round exactly 10 years to the day they lost to St. John's on the road... in the second round of the NIT.  And you knew that from reading the game preview.  I guess it's been that kind of year for that stuff, having earlier beaten a top-5-ranked team exactly 11 years to the day they last did it.  Is Wednesday some kind of anniversary of the last time we played Iowa?  Probably not, but one can hope, I suppose.

I'm really just relieved to see the offense reappear, alive and well.  At 1.06 points per possession, it wasn't exactly awe-inspiring, but it worked.  I call it pretty good for playing against a solid defensive team like St. John's.  The stat that hit me the most: 24 buckets, 19 assists.  Bruce Pearl made mention of that at halftime (I think it was 11 and 9 at that point) and he hit the mark.  That's solid ball.  The cynic would say it means we don't have anyone who can create their own bucket, and there's a grain of truth to that, too.  But it's the coach's job to figure out how to make do in that case, and the assist total is a testament to how well that's going.

UVA, by the way, has an A/FG ratio of about .6 for the season, which places them in the top 50, so Sunday wasn't an outlying phenomenon.  They've been creating each other's offense all season.  Anyone who bemoans Jontel Evans's insistence on never shooting a three ought to keep that in mind.

So, then.  Iowa.  KenPom called it "one of the best NIT quarterfinals in decades," and yes, haha that's not saying much, but I think that's kind of the point, too.  You don't usually get such interesting games in the NIT, at least, not played in locales other than Madison Square Garden.  And this year, not there either.  It's possible we could get UVA-Maryland, round 3, and while the chance to beat the Twerps thrice in a season is something each of us should cherish deeply, the world won't care much about a conference rematch.  (Yes, again, to the extent they care about the NIT haha.)  Southern Miss is another 1 seed - not exactly a school that moves the needle when Brett Favre isn't involved.  Bob Morris killed off the other actual interesting 1 seed in the tournament.

More bullets:

-- Taylor Barnette, take a bow.  I don't think he'll ever really be a full-fledged member of the rotation with guaranteed minutes every game.  He's going to have to scrap for every single one.  But if he keeps playing like that he'll be an indispensible cog.  I'm only partly talking about the shooting and partly talking about the terrific entry pass to a cutting Jontel Evans.  He may never start a game but he could very well turn out better than the reserves on 3/4ths of the teams in the league, which makes him valuable.

-- Akil Mitchell has never really been the kind of guy to start things.  But he's provokable, hence the shoulder bump on the way back to the bench that was rewarded with a shove into the scorer's table.  Even on TV it seemed like the St. John's guys were an edgy bunch who weren't far from getting T'ed up.  Although I did think the refs did the right thing by not calling anything when Justin Anderson was pushed to the ground, because he wasn't really pushed to the ground, he was just pushed.  The ground part was his own doing.  I don't really like our guys doing that - unless we're playing Duke or UNC, in which case it wouldn't bother me if they went full Italian-soccer-player out there.  Taste of your own medicine and all.

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

I'm not even going to waste more than a couple minutes on lacrosse.  What a humiliation.  Dom Starsia said he "thought we were too tentative in the first half" which is a mild understatement.  I would've put it more like "we didn't display the slightest fucking interest in going anywhere near the net" but I guess Dom has to be PG when microphones are present.  The fact that Rhody Heller had a career high in both saves and goals allowed should tell you all you need to know about how much interest the defense had in the game, too.  I didn't see the second half.  Apparently the team bothered to score once or twice.  I might chalk that up to Hopkins deciding 9-1 was a safe lead and letting off the gas a little, but I don't know, I switched to baseball.  So that's what we're gonna do here.

It's a much more pleasant topic.  While the lacrosse team is playing its way out of relevance, the baseball team is playing its way back in.  From unranked in most polls to a consensus top ten team in the country after a sweep of NC State, which not coincidentally or surprisingly dropped out of every top 25.  Losing the yearly series to NC State has been just as much a given as death, taxes, and playing like ass after finals break, and that was one of two ACC teams Brian O'Connor hadn't swept.  (FSU is the other.)  BOC was something like 9-18 against NC State before this weekend.

Much credit goes to Brandon Waddell for matching NC State's fearsome ace, Carlos Rodon, inning for inning until both handed off to the bullpen in the sixth inning.  And then to Austin Young for holding steady for the rest of Game 1 while the Wolfpack bullpen proceeded to melt down.  In fact, UVA's pen didn't give up a run all series until Game 3, when Kyle Crockett finally let one sneak across in the top of the ninth.  We forgive him, because he did an outstanding job preserving a one-run lead the day before.  And in fact, the only walks all weekend were a pair issued by Nick Howard in the third game.  That'll make for a happy coaching staff.

UVA's midweek game is Towson (written that way on purpose, in a form of solidarity), which has been a reliable scheduling partner for years, but this looks like the end of the road for that particular agreement, given that school's recent decision to cut baseball (and men's soccer too.)  Next season, Towson will sponsor five men's sports and eleven women's sports.  Just sayin'.

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

It's been a while since the last recruiting board update, during which time not one but two very, very blue-chip recruits have committed to the football program, so let's get a move-on here.  The changes you'll find:

-- Moved S Quin Blanding and OT Steven Moss from blue to orange.  Moss committed this weekend, giving UVA two Rivals top-100 commits before April.  What this class will lack in quantity it has already made up for in quality.

-- Moved DT Derrick Nnadi from green to blue.  Nnadi was once genuinely wavering between UVA and VT, and we might see some wavers back in that direction sometimes, but I think the UVA pull is going to win out in the end.  Even if it doesn't, UVA's chances look good enough to justify that move.

-- Moved RB Cortavious Givens from green to yellow.

-- Moved OT Justin Falcinelli from yellow to red.

-- Moved DB C.J. Reavis from red to yellow.

-- Removed OTs Trip McNeill and Coleman Thomas and DE Andrew Trumbetti from yellow.  Committed to Duke, Tennessee, and Notre Dame, respectively.

It sounds odd to say, but there aren't really more than 10-12 spots left in this class already.  And the four guys in blue are likely enough to occupy four of those spots.  It will be a summer sadly bereft of commitment frenzies, but a satisfying Signing Day nevertheless.

game preview: Florida State

Date/Time: Thursday, March 7; 7:00

TV: ESPN2

Record against the Noles: 18-21

Last meeting: UVA 56, FSU 36; 1/19/13, Charlottesville

Last game: BC 53, UVA 52 (3/3); UNC 79, FSU 58 (3/3)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.6 (#337)
FSU: 66.1 (#169)

Offense:
UVA: 110.7 (#35)
FSU: 104.2 (#118)

Defense:
UVA: 88.7 (#20)
FSU: 99.7 (#152)

Pythag:
UVA: .9067 (#18)
FSU: .6095 (#121)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (4.6 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 5.1 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (5.2 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.0 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (17.2 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.2 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (6.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.9 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 1.4 apg)

Florida State:

PG: Devon Bookert (5.8 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 2.4 apg)
SG: Michael Snaer (14.4 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SG: Aaron Thomas (6.3 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 1.2 apg)
PF: Okaro White (12.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 0.7 apg)
C: Michael Ojo (0.8 ppg, 1.1 rpg, 0.1 apg)

I hate to say the season hangs in the balance tomorrow night because it's such an exaggeration.  All the same, at some point if you want to go to the tournament you've got to beat bad teams on the road.  Calling FSU a bad team is another exaggeration, but it doesn't matter: they're (theoretically) not as good as UVA.  Which means tomorrow night's game is sorta high on the must-win scale.

-- UVA on offense

Could've gone better than it did last time, thank you very much.  I think what we'll see against FSU is a tightening of the rotation and a little bit of a back-to-basics approach.  No sense getting fancy on the road, after all.  Taylor Barnette's shooting is undeniably useful, but the few minutes he played against BC coincided with BC's comeback run.

Leonard Hamilton's approach to his lineup is to have a center out there a little more than half the time, and "go small" the rest of the way.  Small is relative, though; Hamilton gets away with this because his guards are pretty big.  Joe Harris had a tough time against BC because opponents are finally realizing they have to have their hands up at all times, and didn't let him just pop off the semi-guarded three that he likes.  FSU ought to be able to do the same - when they're guarding him.  Their guards are tremendously inexperienced, though, with three freshmen in the main rotation, and it's led to defensive lapses and wide-open threes that opponents have been able to knock down.

FSU actually has three centers they use.  The thing with Michael Ojo has been that Hamilton starts him, plays him for like three minutes, and then permanently glues his ass back to the bench.  He's got the MPG of a walk-on, but at the beginnings of games rather than the end.  Kiel Turpin is the main guy; Turpin is a very aggressive defender who picks up both blocks and fouls with astonishing regularity.  Boris Bojanovsky also gets a few regular minutes, and at 7'3", is better than Turpin at blocking shots without hacking away.  He's probably underused, but I'm not gonna cry about that unless he suddenly gets 25 minutes on Thursday.  Point is, I feel better with Mike Tobey in the lineup as an option here, but Tobey still looks like he's feeling the hangover from his bout with mono.

With all that height, you'd think FSU would be a better rebounding team, but their defensive rebounding is outside the country's top 300.  They've missed Terrance Shannon in that regard (Shannon has been out for about six weeks and just came back on Sunday for three minutes - he was the guy that banged his head on Evan Nolte's hip and had to be carted off, so it's nice to see him even back on the court, really) but Okaro White is a 6'8" power forward who often has to deal with centers (sound familiar?) so his rebounding percentage is a little depressed.  (Also, White kind of straddles the line between three and four, whereas Mitchell is a true four and has 20-some pounds on White.)  Turpin and Bojanovsky, however, don't provide the help on the glass that they should.  Of course, Tony Bennett's don't-bother approach to offensive rebounding nullifies this advantage a little, but Akil Mitchell tends to be pretty active on the glass anyway and might find a few putback opportunities.

I think the Hoos ought to be able to score on FSU, but then, I thought they ought to have been able to score on Boston College, too.  It's the road - we never really know.  But FSU's youth in the backcourt has led to breakdowns, and I like UVA's chances to improve on that showing in Chestnut Hill.

-- UVA on defense

There's one thing that Florida State does consistently well: shoot free throws.  In conference-only play they're the ACC's leading team at the stripe.  So "try not to foul them" is the obvious advice.

That aside, there're a lot of things that Florida State can do well, but doesn't all the time.  They have a a similar build to UVA's; Michael Snaer is the Joe Harris of the outfit, a wing who can do just about everything.  (He just doesn't do any of it as well as Harris does.)  And similarly to Akil Mitchell, Snaer's primary complement is Okaro White at power forward.  White doesn't have Mitchell's size, so he's not as good a defender and can be coaxed into foul trouble, but on offense, he's got more versatility (he'll shoot a few threes) and very good skill at the rim.  Mitchell will be assigned to him most of the time, and his combination has good frustration potential.

Devon Bookert has taken over for Montay Brandon as the starting point guard, and is an improvement in every way.  Bookert is a deadeye three-point shooter, a great free-throw shooter (Brandon is horrible at both), a better creator, and turns the ball over less.  If FSU could only ever use Bookert and Snaer in the backcourt they'd be doing great.  The minutes get much less productive when used by the rest of the gang.  Ian Miller has taken a huge step back this year, and Aaron Thomas is basically replacement-level.

As for the centers, the one that gives me pause is Bojanovsky more than Turpin.  Turpin's not bad, but a little too eager to shoot when he's away from the rim, and kind of a generic big guy.  Bojanovsky has some real skill and is better at getting to the rim before shooting.  It'll be interesting to see how Tony decides to play the matchups; FSU will play their centers more combined minutes than Tobey will get, and Mitchell will have to be taken off of White when Tobey's not in the game.  It might result in a few bad-news possessions.

That frontcourt matchup issue is probably the only one where FSU has an advantage, though.  UVA's guards are much better defenders than FSU's are on offense.  They'll be able to cheat a little and help on the main characters - Snaer and Bookert - and if we get hurt because Aaron Thomas went nuts, well, OK then.  I surely don't expect to see a repeat of FSU's 36-point performance from last time, if only because they've finally found out who their best point guard is, but I think the Hoos will have some success here.

-- Outlook

In one way, the Seminoles are UVA's polar opposite.  UVA can beat anyone and lose to anyone.  FSU generally wins and loses the games they're supposed to.  That's a plus in UVA's favor.  They also tend to win close and lose big, which is why their RPI is so much better than their KenPom ratings.  I'm going to go the optimistic route here and suggest that UVA has their sense of urgency hammered back into them by the debacle in Chestnut Hill, and is likely to get themselves back on track.

Final score: UVA 62, FSU 57

game preview: Maryland

Date/Time: Sunday, February 10; 1:00

TV: ACC Net., ESPN3

Record against the Terps: 71-106

Last meeting: UVA 75, Md. 72; 3/4/12, College Park

Last game: UVA 78, Clem. 41 (2/7); Md. 60, VT 55 (2/7)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.2 (#343)
Md.: 66.1 (#187)

Offense:
UVA: 104.9 (#93)
Md.: 104.5 (#102)

Defense:
UVA: 85.7 (#8)
Md.: 90.0 (#33)

Pythag:
UVA: .8876 (#23)
Md.: .8217 (#56)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (3.2 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 4.7 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.3 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 1.2 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.4 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (6.5 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.5 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 1.6 apg)

Maryland:

PG: Nick Faust (8.3 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.8 apg)
SG: Dez Wells (12.0 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 3.1 apg)
SF: Jake Layman (5.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.0 apg)
PF: James Padgett (6.0 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 0.5 apg)
C: Alex Len (12.6 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 0.8 apg)

I was a little disappointed by that beatdown of Clemson the other day.  We didn't make it to 80 points AND we let Clemson over 40.  There is obviously work to be done.  Seriously though.  How many fans around the country of teams other than UVA say things like "aw man, they got to 40" on a semi-regular basis?

So halfway through the ACC's regular season, the Hoos are 6-3.  I'll take it.  There are some couldas, but I'll take it.  The second half will be tougher; it features Miami on the road, Duke at home, and four home games against five road games.  Upcoming this weekend is the third most difficult of those five: the enormously sized Maryland Terrapins.  Boo this team.

-- UVA on offense

You can start to see the cracks appearing in the depth, as is only fitting when we're trying to have a good season over here.  With both Mike Tobey and Darion Atkins out against Clemson, Tony Bennett had no choice but to go even smaller and try out Taylor Barnette in the rotation.  Barnette's defense is behind that of his teammates, hence his spotty presence on the court, but you can't knock his shooting.  He's brought a little instant heat off the bench in each of the last two games now, shooting 3-for-4 from three-range against Clemson.

This is a fortuitous development that we need to keep up.  We've got no hope whatsoever of matching Maryland's size; they're the second-biggest team in the nation.  Without Tobey and Atkins, our inside options are limited to Akil Mitchell and maybe driving the lane.  The consolation is this: outside of Alex Len, who you know all about, Maryland isn't much of a shot-blocking team.  It's probably not wise to drive with Len sitting underneath the basket, but even big, beefy backup center Shaquille Cleare isn't an inordinately great threat to swat a shot.  But they do tend to a nice job of altering shots; Maryland's two-point defense is 2nd-best in the country, and they stay out of foul trouble very well.

That means bombs away.  So it's not necessarily the worst thing ever to add another shooter to the rotation.  I would even advocate a five-shooter lineup of Barnette, Jesperson, Harris, Anderson, and Nolte (ok, four and a half) when Len is on the court, if that didn't leave the prickly question of who would guard him.  Chances to shoot will definitely appear, as Maryland doesn't aggressively defend the perimeter and doesn't try to clog your passing lanes.  Like UVA, they sort of invite you to swing the ball around the outside and dare you to try and drive, just for different reasons.  In Maryland's case it's because their bigs for the most part aren't too comfortable when the basket is too far away,

I'm a little nervous about the idea of going up against such a big team, especially on the road, because it makes the three such a necessarily big part of our game.  (Also, it would've done Tobey a lot of good to get the experience of going against Len on the road.)  UVA should be able to keep up the recent trend of staying out of the turnover column, but everything basically depends on whether the threes are falling.  The total interior dominance we saw against Clemson is going to dissipate pretty quick among the Maryland trees.

-- UVA on defense

Obviously this whole discussion has to start with Alex Len again.  He's a formidable dude.  Len's a classic European big man, which is to say he's pretty comfortable away from the basket.  Like Tobey, he likes jump shots.  Even so, the thing to do is keep him the hell away from the rim, because he's actually a much worse two-point jump shooter than Tobey is.  Let him near the rim and he's shooting 73%, much of that on putbacks because he's also a nasty-good offensive rebounder, obviously.  On two-point jump shots he's only at 32%.  I'll take those odds all day.

Because of their size, Maryland actually really likes those two-point shots from everywhere.  The slow but steady trend in hoops lately has been to make shot charts look like bullseye targets; that is, the ideal mix is three-pointers and layups.  You don't get any extra credit for jumpers at the elbow, but they're less likely to go in than layups.  Maryland goes against that trend because their size makes them tough to defend when they take shorter jumpers, and it sets up their rebounders to put back their misses.  They're one of the country's elite offensive rebounding teams.

Dez Wells and Jake Layman are the best at hitting the two-point jumpers, and Layman is a fair three-point shooter too.  Layman has been finding his way into the starting lineup lately.  He's a little like Evan Nolte - tall and tough to defend, but not especially strong.  Wells lays off the three-pointer mostly but does a lot of scoring by hitting jumpers in the lane or getting to the rim.

Besides size, Maryland is also notable for the size of their rotation.  Mark Turgeon has no problem rolling ten players in and out.  He's also had no problem tinkering with the starting rotation, being rather unsatisfied with his point guard play of late.  Nick Faust, for now, has taken over those duties.  He played the point last year out of necessity and here he is again, as Turgeon has tired of Pe'Shon Howard's somewhat random ways.  Seth Allen isn't quite ready for the starting job either, and so Turgeon turns to Faust as a calming influence.  Howard and Allen still get their chances off the bench, but Howard is starting to see his minutes disappear as he's a crummy shooter and not much use if he's turning the ball over too much for Turgeon's liking.

Since there isn't much three-point shooting here, Maryland uses Logan Aronhalt off the bench when the defense needs loosening up.  Aronhalt is the Terps' only really dangerous three-point shooter, and he only gets about 12 minutes a game but he shoots a ton when he's in, averaging almost 11 attempts per 40 minutes.  To put that in perspective, Joe Harris would have 184 attempts if he shot that much (and would be 7th in the country in 3-point percentage since right now, he doesn't qualify.  Frickin' NCAA pacists.)

Plus, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that besides Len, pretty much all the other Maryland bigs can get it done offensively.  James Padgett, Shaquille Cleare, and Charles Mitchell aren't really the focus of the offense, but none of them are stiffs.  So with all this size, why isn't the Maryland offense completely unstoppable?  Mostly, undisciplined guard play and turnovers.  They can definitely be coerced into a turnover, and since they don't get any on defense they tend to badly lose the turnover battle.  They're not as patient as they should be on offense, either; working the ball inside and shooting fewer threes would benefit them.

-- Outlook

Maryland's size is formidable, but their 5-5 record is a little deceiving.  Other than a one-point home win over NC State, their wins are built up on the ACC's dregs: VT twice, BC and Wake once each.  But they've protected their home court, with a three-point loss to FSU their only blemish in College Park.

UVA will probably win this game if the threes are falling.  They will lose and lose badly otherwise.  That's what it comes down to.  The kind of size we have - especially without Atkins and Tobey - is mainly useful for shutting down teams with normal-sized guards, not for dealing with a rotation chock full o' bigs.  Maryland's guard play isn't great, but I would expect Turgeon to try and force mismatches by putting multiple bigs out there to minimize UVA's backcourt advantage.  Joe Harris and Evan Nolte guarding Padgett and Mitchell could be an ugly sight.  Given UVA's tendency to go cold on the road, the odds are not in our favor.

Final scored: Md. 55, UVA 49

game preview: North Carolina

Blogger won't let me upload the usual preview picture.  Or any picture.  I swear this whole experience has gotten buggier and buggier ever since Google took over this operation and changed the site interface.

Date/Time: Sunday, January 6; 8:00

TV: ESPNUVA

Record against the Heels: 49-125

Last meeting: UNC 54, UVA 51; 2/25/12, Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 74, Woff. 39 (12/30); UNC 79, UNLV 73 (12/29)

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.7 (#342)
UNC: 75.2 (#1)

Offense:
UVA: 105.0 (#82)
UNC: 108.6 (#38)

Defense:
UVA: 87.3 (#18)
UNC: 91.4 (#47)

Pythag:
UVA: .8697 (#27)
UNC: .8541 (#34)

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (1.5 ppg. 2.0 rpg, 2.8 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.5 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.5 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (13.2 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 1.9 apg)
PF: Darion Atkins (8.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 0.6 apg)

North Carolina:

PG: Marcus Paige (7.4 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 4.3 apg)
SG: Dexter Strickland (9.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 4.5 apg)
SF: Reggie Bullock (13.1 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 3.3 apg)
F: James Michael McAdoo (14.8 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.5 apg)
F: Desmond Hubert (1.2 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 0.2 apg)

True fact: I'm still kind of cheesed off about the refereeing in the last UNC game that put our guys in foul trouble thanks to the refs falling for UNC's Dukery.  (My favorite totally unprovable hypothesis that I've ever come up with is still the one that says the refs in that game realized they'd been had, after looking at the video monitor to check for a flagrant foul and found no foul at all, and stopped calling stuff on UVA for the rest of the game.)  This is a good chance to get a small measure of revenge for last year's crap.  UNC isn't half the team they were - still damn good and talented, but sorely lacking as compared to last year.  It's still tough to get a bead on exactly how good they are; most good teams they've played have destroyed them, and everyone else they've played is crap, and gotten killed.  Their last game, a win over UNLV, finally gave the world a measuring stick for the Tar Heels.  But the Heels have been poor away from their own gym, so UVA has as good a chance as they've had in a while.

-- UVA on offense

UVA will likely get Jontel Evans back for this game, which I don't need to tell you is a good thing.  I would guess his minutes will be limited; even though it's the ACC season now, Tony Bennett is almost certain to use an overabundance of caution, and make sure Evans is truly ready for game action before he throws him completely back into the fire.  It's gonna be a while before Evans gets 30 minutes a game.

That said, not having to dig past Teven Jones in the point guard rotation will be a great thing in and of itself.  Taylor Barnette still doesn't look like a point guard and Doug Browman is just too limited.  Not that I'd totally count out the idea of either of them getting a few minutes here and there at the point, but we're likely to spend 40 minutes with a point guard who makes the offense move, and that's a plus.

Good thing, because despite what Roy Williams tells you, UNC's defense is still perfectly good.  They're active and athletic and like to get steals, which helps boost their tempo - the fastest in the country.  And everyone's a contributor in that regard.  Williams's concern about his defense has led him to lean toward Desmond Hubert as the fifth starter; Hubert is long and lanky and gets a lot of blocks, and is a better defender than either of his competitors for that spot.  But he doesn't stay in the game long, and rotates freely with Brice Johnson and Joel James.  Hubert presents a challenge for our interior game of Mitchell and Atkins; Johnson and James less so.

This is likely to be an outstanding yardstick for our offense.  Both teams are probably overrated by KenPom thanks to beating up on crap teams.  UVA more so.  Good offenses - and the occasional bad one - have topped or approached a point per possession; UNC's good KenPom defensive numbers come from holding really awful teams like ETSU and Mississippi State down in the .7 range.  Can UVA get to that magic number of 1 point per possession?  If they take good care of the ball and take patient, good shots, quite probably.  Doing so will make the Heels look exceedingly mortal.

-- UVA on defense

UNC got a big boost when it was announced Reggie Bullock would return from a concussion and will play Sunday.  Bullock is one of UNC's most experienced players, and probably their biggest threat on offense.  He can shoot from anywhere and takes care of the ball very well.  He's likely to be Joe Harris's assignment, and Harris will have a tough one on his hands.

The other major challenge for UVA is that siccing Jontel Evans on the opposing point guard won't work as well as usual; first because of Evans's iffy foot and second because UNC spreads out the ballhandling duties.  Bullock occasionally initiates the offense, and they'll also put the rock in the hands of both Marcus Paige and Dexter Strickland.  It might be that Evans (and Jones) just guards whoever brings the ball up the court, but they still might find ways to start the offense elsewhere.  Of the two, Paige is the more likely to turn the ball over.

It wouldn't be UNC if they didn't have some depth, and the Heels can bring some heat off the bench with P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald.  I have yet to mention James Michael McAdoo, and he's a very good player with a ton of athleticism, but he's kind of a volume scorer and the truth is that Hairston and McDonald don't represent much drop-off.  If Desmond Hubert starts, Brice Johnson also counts as a bench guy, and he's insanely skinny but also very adept near the rim.  (Hubert, for his part, is no threat whatsoever.)

As I've said in the past, UNC has some holes.  No true center other than maybe Joel James, and him not really, which is a boon for our hyperactive forwards, Mitchell and Atkins.  It's starting to look as though there aren't many players their size they can't deal with (as well as a few bigger ones.)  Most of their three-point shooting is Bullock and McDonald, who don't spend a great deal of time on the court together.  (Hairston's alright too, but the main point is that their ballhandling guards, Strickland and Paige, are almost strictly two-point scorers.)  All this said, though, there aren't many players who can't hurt you if you give them even the smallest chance.  Last year the game was close thanks to a hell of a system effort; it will always take that kind of defense to stop the Tar Heels.  They'll want to score fast, so as with last year, our best chance is to frustrate them into a slow game.

-- Outlook

KenPom says we have like a two in three chance at winning this game.  That would be great, but I can't find myself being that optimistic just yet.  Maybe it's that Carolina mystique or something, but until we really start making a name for ourselves - I mean over a longer term than a year - I have a hard time being that confident.  Plus, it's not hard to see where and why the Hoos are being overrated by KenPom - most other ratings systems, Sagarin and the like, are far less excited about UVA.  I can't let myself get too homer-blinded here, and have to cautiously predict a slim loss.

Final score: UNC 63, UVA 60

weekend review

I really must admit to being part of the problem.  The fact that TV money and inertia** are the sole drivers of the landscape of college sports these days is a depressing thought indeed.  Yet I can't help but admit that it has its benefits.  The rapid expansion of TV means watching games that used to be completely inaccessible unless you bought a ticket.

To wit, then, I watched the Hoos take on Mississippi Valley State from the comfort of my computer chair.  (With Army-Navy simultaneously on the television, I might add.  Ah, the 21st century.) I cannot claim, however, to have learned anything especially new or groundbreaking.  That's what happens when you're playing one of the worst defensive teams in the country.  I seriously would bet that the Hoos had more dunks than MVSU had made field goals.  Akil Mitchell came down from what must have been his fourth or fifth one sheepishly smiling, as if to convey a head-shaking disbelief that it was coming that easy all day long. 

(That wasn't even the one where he took an entry pass and made half a post move on a ghost defender before realizing the only thing guarding the basket was a small collection of nitrogen atoms.  I watched that play a couple times to try and figure out why Akil had such an easy path to the rim and as best as I can gather, MVSU's #13 spotted a delicious slice of pie somewhere in an area that had nobody else in it and rushed to guard that instead of the bucket.  Why else he would be running in the direction he was remains an unsolvable mystery and I suspect his coach will learn as much in film review.)

At any rate, I won't tell anyone at Tennessee if you won't, that MVSU outscored them on our floor despite shooting 19% from the field.  Other fun yes-this-was-a-rout-we-get-it stats:

-- Joe Harris failed to score a single field goal.
-- 17 of the Hoos' 28 buckets were assisted.  Harris had six of those assists.
-- MVSU had 11 buckets; three were assisted.  In case you're wondering, an average rate in that regard is about 54%.
-- Teven Jones continues to lead the nation in "contributions to the actual game/contributions on the stat sheet" ratio.  At this point, Doug Browman and Taylor Barnette are not actual answers at the point.  Teven, on the other hand, reminds me quite a bit of the freshman version of Jontel Evans in this respect: I couldn't explain it with numbers the way I like to, but I felt good about the game with the ball in his hands.  The same with Jones.

We now head into the dreary, gaping maw of finals week; games resume a week from Wednesday, against Morgan State.

**Inertia, in the sense that the only reason some schools are in Big Five conferences is because they always have been.  For example, if the SEC could start all over, and was even given the limitation that they could only choose schools in states in their current footprint, would Mississippi State make the cut?  Would Indiana make the Big Ten's?  Iowa State the Big 12's?  I sort of doubt it.  If you really threw all the schools into the air and told them to form new conferences, limit 12, quite a few schools currently in power conferences would no longer be there after the shuffle.  And before you ask, is Virginia one of those schools?  No, for the same reason that the SEC would be loath to let Vanderbilt go anywhere.

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

Last week's profile of Zach Bradshaw elicited a pleasantly surprising response from a knowledgeable source on the subject: Zach's father.  He offered a few follow-up comments and clarifications on the post, bulleted and printed here in their near-entirety (minus a few tiny snippets I was asked to leave out.)

- I have followed Micah Kiser a bit as he plays in MD and am looking forward to watch them play together. Their skill sets will complement each other. I haven’t seen Smith play but it looks like a great group of LBs in the same class.

- PSU actually offered as an OLB. UVa was interested as both H-Back/TE type or OLB but we all eventually settled on OLB. Michigan, South Carolina had offered as WR; NWU as Super Back (H-Back). I think OLB or H-Back will be his most natural position.

- I attribute his lukewarm ratings to two factors (1) we did not hit the combine or camp circuit much opting to spend our time visiting schools instead. (2) Zach does many things very well rather than just a few things exceptionally well. He was rated by Rivals as a WR, Scout as an LB, 247 as an ATH. For us the ratings didn’t matter as much as the feedback from the college coaching staffs. Hopefully, his versatility and work ethic will help him get on the field.

- He weighed ~ 210 lbs before the season started and dropped some during the course of the year. He has gained most of it back and hopefully will be between 215 and 220 before he reports this summer. As you described, he has a big frame that can support added weight. PSU projected him to ultimately play at ~ 235 lbs and like UVa saw him as a “space” OLB.

- He did actually punt this year J Actually, he snapped in some situations if they needed him for his cover skills (center can’t be hit on release from LOS) but mostly punted.

- It will be interesting to see if he plays special teams as a freshmen or red shirts. We haven’t really had any conversation about it with the UVa coaches. The advice we’ve been given from several college coaching staffs is – come to camp in the summer prepared to fight for a starting job.

 

So there you go: he does punt, among everything else.  Many thanks to Mr. Bradshaw for offering up impressions from the inside.  I believe that officially makes this one of the most accurate recruiting profiles I've ever done.  There's only one left for this season, assuming the class is finished, and I think you know which one it is.  I won't keep you waiting much longer for it.

 

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

 

Speaking of recruiting, it's just about time to retire the 2013 recruiting board.  You remember that, don't you?  UVA's top targets that were left on it have committed elsewhere, and right now the focus is mainly on putting up fences to keep the wolves out of 2013, and working on relationships for 2014.  That board will go up in about five weeks.  As for the rest of 2013, I think it's likely that no other commitments occur.  For propriety's sake, here are the changes - mainly so that I can look back later and recreate the evolution of the board if I need to:

 

-- Removed DT Tevin Montgomery from blue (committed to BC.)

 

-- Removed WR DaeSean Hamilton from green (committed to Penn State.)

 

-- Removed CB Priest Willis from yellow.  He took an official visit to UVA last weekend; since that visit didn't cause any changes that would cause me to move him up, you can probably forget it.

 

-- Removed WR Brian Lemelle, LB Marcel Ngachie, and CBs Calvin Jones and Ryheem Lockley from red.

 

-- Changed LB LaChaston Smith to an early enrollment status. 

 

Let us hope we can go a second straight year without seeing any decommitments.

 

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Always the last to produce such things, UVA finally released the lacrosse schedule today.  I know better than to wait on pins and needles for it, because it doesn't change much from year to year. The standard opponents are present, and in the standard order. Ohio State returns for a third season, so it would appear likely they'll be added to the list of usual opponents for the time being. The Hoos will venture outside Charlottesville just five times this year, until the NCAA tournament begins: three away games (Stony Brook, Syracuse, Duke), one "neutral site" game that's really an away game (Hopkins at the home of the Baltimore Ravens) and the ACC tourney in Chapel Hill. The only change to the schedule: the home-and-neutral with Penn is over, the Quakers replaced with Bellarmine.

The NCAA quarterfinals are hosted this year in an interesting place: Indianapolis, at Lucas Oil Field. I can't remember when the NCAA put its quarters in an NFL stadium rather than a host school's home field. The Final Four is in Philly.

hoops preview, part 1

Yup, next week.  Bastyball is only a week and change away, which means our focus slowly shifts that direction.  Today and next week, we have player previews for your perusal and entertainment.  They come with one sizable caveat: there are three scholarship upperclassmen on this team, and younger players are that much harder to figure.  Especially the freshmen.  Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.

Twelve scholarship players mean we can split it neatly up into six today and six next week.  Not a lot to say about the walkons.  There is this: with point guard being so ridiculously thin at the moment, Doug Browman could be called on to chip in.  Recruited walk-on Justin Miller is also a possibility, but Miller hasn't played competitive basketball in years and the learning curve will be steep.  Otherwise, don't expect a major role.

On with the show:

#1 - Jontel Evans - Sr. PG

Fortunately, we start with an easy one to get me in the groove here.  Evans is the only scholarship senior, and you know by now what he brings.  As the senior point guard, this is basically his team now.  Which he'll have to watch from the sideline for at least the first game of the season, as he recovers from a surgically repaired broken foot.

When he returns, the show is his.  He'll be a 32-minute player, more in big games.  He plays that aggressive and highly effective on-ball defense, and he's become a very physically strong player.  He's a better shooter now than he's been given credit for; a .479 percentage on two-pointers is not bad.  Mostly that comes from going to the rim; the jump shot is streaky and he doesn't fire from three.  Not doing that, and not being a great free throw shooter, prevent him from being a top-flight point guard.  A .621 FT% mean that with the game close late, having the ball in his hands can be dicey, but UVA will have no other choice.

The Hoos won't need Evans to be a go-to scorer, though.  His 7.3 ppg from last year are good enough; if he tries to press and do too much in that area, it'll detract from the offense.  He's a good facilitator and knows where to find open teammates.  What they really need most, though, is his veteran presence and a steady hand on the court.  Like Mike Scott did, Evans needs to channel his emotions positively, and it'll translate to team success.

#2 - Paul Jesperson - So. SG

The plan was for Jesperson to redshirt last year, and when the transfers got too heavy and Tony had to take the wraps off, you could see why.  Very few of the minutes Jesperson played last year were good ones.  He had his moments, including and especially a big-league white-boy-can-jump slam dunk against Duke, in Cameron.  That was cool.

Most of the time, though, he was a fish out of water, and it was obvious.  And it affected his shot, which was supposed to be his calling card and looked more like a brick machine.  The result was an astoundingly bad KenPom O-rating of 68.8.  Anything in the 80s and you're talking about an obvious offensive liability; the 60s are, like, incomprehensible.

That makes this a very, very important season for Jesperson.  One thing UVA has in long supply is swingmen.  Jesperson has a leg up in that he's seen plenty of minutes, but he needs to put that experience to good use this year.  Guys like Evan Nolte and Justin Anderson will eat into his minutes, hard, and eventually push him out of the rotation, if he doesn't at least knock down jump shots, which is what he was recruited to do.  The rotation is probably not too settled right now, which gives Jesperson a window of opportunity.  If he takes advantage, UVA will have a guy who can keep defenses honest off the bench, open up space down below with his shot, and chip in some rebounding.  There were some encouraging results in this regard during the August trip to Europe, so we'll see.

#4 - Taylor Barnette - Fr. G

Commitment post

Barnette was a late addition to the 2012 recruiting class; Tony Bennett went looking for depth after watching the magical disappearing depth chart of 2012, and found it in a guy who is guaranteed to have his name confused with that of his coach fairly often.  Barnette had asked out of a Central Florida commitment, on account of upcoming NCAA banhammer.  Anyway, Barnette could play the point some, a possibility being somewhat extensively brought up what with the point guard crunch we have going now.  In fact, with Evans and Malcolm Brogdon both very likely to miss the GMU game, and Teven Jones suspended for it, Barnette looks like one of the primary options.

In a perfect world, though - that is, one with point guard options at our disposal - Barnette is a two guard.  He's not real likely to make a big splash this season, unless he opens up a surprise can of whoopass on George Mason and sticks at point guard.  More likely he takes fringe rotation minutes at most, while the coaches evaluate how best to use him.  You can never discount any incoming freshman entirely, but Barnette was toward the back of the rotation in Europe, which is a likely preview of the regular season.

#5 - Teven Jones - Fr. PG

Commitment post

One great way to blow your chance at playing your way into the rotation is to get yourself suspended for the one game where your team is desperate for your services.  NOT SMART

Mini-rant out of the way, Jones is of course squarely in the mix for point guard minutes, and it's not like he's blown his whole career since this entire year is an audition for the post-Bub Evans era.  Of the candidates, Jones is expected to be one of the better defenders of the bunch, and of course half a year of practice with the team will hopefully prove invaluable when it comes to learning Tony's demanding system.

As far as playing the point, that is probably going to be his biggest hurdle, as he was mainly a two-guard in high school, and didn't play much of a season for Fishburne post-grad.  He's a well-rounded offensive player with a solid shot, handle, etc., generally a well-balanced, physical player who sounds awfully like Jontel Evans, Jr. if he lives up to his potential.

#10 - Mike Tobey - Fr. C

Commitment post

I wrote that post almost two years ago.  That is why I hate basketball recruiting.  Anyway.  One theme with a lot of the freshmen like Jones, Barnette, Evan Nolte, etc., is that we can guess and wonder all we want and nobody really knows how many minutes they'll get this season.  Not even the coaches, I bet.  Not so with Tobey.  He's the only guy bigger than 6'8" on the roster.  He gonna play.

And the fun truth is that he just oozes potential.  He's added almost 20 pounds since we checked in on him with that commitment post, and about five years to his face.  He was sixteen at the time and didn't look old enough for a learner's permit.  Now he's a legit big man and should open some eyes this season with a scoring touch.  Not to overdo the exciteyness, but the big thing for the coaches will be to manage his minutes so he doesn't burn out by mid-February.  If he's as good as advertised, the temptation will be to lean on him for 30 a night, because when he comes out the lineup suddenly gets really small inside.  Too much of that and you can watch his production spiral down the drain late in the season.  Asking a freshman to bang around the middle with the ACC's best big men night in and night out for entire games is asking for it.

Better that he go for about 20 minutes on average.  If all goes well, this guy is one of our biggest building blocks.  (Yes, literally and figuratively, smart guy.)  But not only that, he's one of the most important pieces this season; he's the only center we've got, and there basically is no interior game otherwise since Mike Scott isn't walking through that door.  Keep him healthy.

#11 - Evan Nolte - Fr. SF

Commitment post

One of the big-timest recruits Bennett has brought into the program.  Period.  Nolte comes to us from the hoops hotbed of Atlanta and had offers from some pretty damn good basketball programs.  He's one of the tallest players on the team, but he's not a power forward type that you can expect to see banging on the block with post moves.  What he is, is a tall scorer.  One of the kind of guys that, if he realizes his potential, makes opposing coaches curse the unfairness of it all for making them come up with ways to try and defend him.  Nolte brings a shooter's reputation and will just loft it over shorter players' heads.

In Europe this August, though, he displayed the inconsistency you expect out of freshmen.  Double digit points one day and a disappearing act the next.  He doesn't have a fully-developed arsenal of moves; that will come with time.  I think you can expect the Europe trip to be a microcosm of the season; I fully expect a 15-18 point game out of him at some point, as well as a 1-for-9 night sometime in the depths of January.  But he'll get every chance to prove himself, because he's the kind of player who can just make a mess of someone's game plan.

Next week: our best player, our ghost, our versatility, our pirated loot, and our X-factors.

the recruit: Taylor Barnette

Name: Taylor Barnette
Position: SG
Hometown: Lexington, KY
School: Lexington Christian
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 180

24/7: NR
ESPN: 81; two stars; #146 SG; Southeast #150; KY #6
Rivals: three stars
Scout: three stars

Other offers: VCU, Alabama, Miami (Ohio), JMU, Central Florida, Samford, Belmont, Wofford, Liberty, Navy

Conventional wisdom had it that Tony Bennett would not want to repeat the problems brought on by having six players in one class, and was done recruiting anyone that would count in the 2012 class and graduate in 2016, as will Anthony Gill.  Turned out the problem he really wanted to avoid was the one where you head into the NCAA tournament with six and a half scholarship players.

I guess if you want to look at it this way, Taylor Barnette is Central Florida's way of paying us back for letting them have Tristan Spurlock.  Barnette was originally signed there but asked out of his commitment in April the wake of NCAA violations at the school.  Hence the very late signing; this is normally the time of year when we'd be profiling 2013 recruits, if we had any.  When he reopened his recruitment, VCU and Alabama, along with Miami of Ohio, were some of his bigger suitors.  A better list, actually, than those who'd offered him last summer before his commitment to UCF.

Not exactly an inspiring list, if we're being honest with ourselves.  An array of small southern schools with offbeat names.  Even at UCF he was considered unlikely to earn a ton of minutes in his freshman season, as the Knights had an excess of guards and Barnette's senior season in high school was cut short by an ankle injury.

His senior season must've looked pretty good until that injury.  Part of the reason bigger programs were after him after his decommitment than before is because programs always have bad news to react to and do so in unconventional ways like this.  But it's also encouraging that teams like Alabama and Dayton were interested.  It'd be hard to pretend I wouldn't be a little skeptical (or a lot skeptical) if there was this recruit being fought over by Samford and Belmont and Liberty and for whatever reason we swooped in.

Anyway.  Part of the reason we swooped in here is the depth chart, which I've updated.  Specifically, the lack of two-guards on it.  Joe Harris can be a two on the offensive end but not on the defensive end.  Justin Anderson might have the quicks to be passable at the two, but his style of play screams wing, or three - not guard.  Malcolm Brogdon is about the only player who really fits the mold of a two-guard, and that is problematic because you're supposed to get a lot of scoring out of that position.  You know, shooting guard.  Barnette really has the profile of a guy who'd come in and gather a lot of splinters his first couple years, because he's not at all highly rated (and it's not for lack of exposure) but we may well find out early if his reputation as a shooter is legit.

There's also the likelihood he'll factor into the race for minutes at the point, which a lot of respectable people are writing, but I don't think there'll be too many of those available; Jontel Evans played 31 minutes a game last year and will probably do so again this coming year.  Teven Jones is not to be forgotten about, and neither is the still-open possibility that Brogdon could get a few point guard minutes here and there as well.... and then there's Justin Miller, the preferred walk-on we brought in.  No, I think Barnette's route to playing time is hitting shots off the bench, not playing the point.  If Paul Jesperson had shot the ball well last year it would've opened up a lot more minutes for him; Barnette will have the same mission.

If he can do that, great: he's Keith Friel, and Lord knows I wish Keith Friel had infinite eligibility because I really miss the ability to bring a guy in cold off the bench and drop a quick couple of automatic threes.  That's handy.  I'm always hankering for the next Keith Friel, which means every white kid whose best skill is shooting will get compared to Friel until one of them pans out that way.  If Barnette does this it's 12 minutes a game, easy, mainly as Brogdon's backup at the two.  And it would probably squeeze Jesperson out of the rotation.

If not, then I don't know what the hell's gonna happen at the two, it'll probably mean we moonlight some of our quicker threes like Anderson at the two for a spell here and there during games or hope that Jesperson's shooting touch is there instead.  There are now 12 scholarship players on the roster for this season, 11 of whom can play, and Bennett ideally likes to run about eight.  Maybe nine, but the ninth guy isn't getting much time.  Barnette is in the weird position of being probably less skilled than most of the rest of the team, but having a wide-open depth chart to deal with.  So he could easily be one of the guys squeezed out of the rotation, or he could be the Akil Mitchell of the class - the least heralded but one of the quickest to earn and keep playing time.

As for the big-picture effect, adding Barnette leaves two free scholarships for the 2013 class, both of which could be filled.  However, I don't think it's likely.  Could we, say, add Matt Thomas and Anthony Barber?  Yes - but it would leave only one more spot for the 2014 class.  In an ideal world we're going to add both Brandan Stith and Devon Hall, and Tony Bennett is a nutcase if he risks squeezing one of them out of the class.  I think taking Barnette might be a commentary on how 2013 recruiting is going - by this time last year we'd already gotten commitments from Evan Nolte and Mike Tobey.  That's not to say we should be worried because we don't have any yet for 2013, but I just wonder if the coaches are getting a bad vibe from their 2013 targets (and I haven't gotten the impression there are many) and decided to take what he could now instead of risking missing out later.  I think the most likely event is only getting one 2013 player (though we'd take two depending on who they are, and deal with any crunches later.)

weekend review, which is mostly tourney talk

UVA's lacrosse team didn't play any games this weekend, but they won anyway - on Sunday night when the bracket selection was revealed.  Oh, we could've had a better seed by winning some of these close games (or not so close ones) but this is a bracket that shakes out about as good as you could have ever hoped.

Princeton is the opponent, and they're no slouch of a team.  I'd still rather face them than Syracuse, which finally woke up in the Big East tournament and obliterated its opposition.  Princeton struggled to put away Brown and then was totally outclassed by Yale(!).  They're headed in the opposite direction.  And perhaps I'm being too optimistic in thinking of Notre Dame and their nation-best defense as a potential second-round opponent - it may be that I just feel better about our chances of beating a team that hasn't beaten us yet.

But it's the opposite side of the bracket that's loaded.  We could've been handed Colgate, you know.  Instead, the other side of the bracket has the following:

-- Duke playing a red-hot Syracuse.

-- UMass's Will Manny and Colgate's Peter Baum in the same game.  Exciting game for the neutral observer, but you can hear the whining out of Massachusetts from here.**  The effect on UVA is that one of Steele Stanwick's two major challengers to the Tewaaraton crown will be booted in the first round, probably sinking that particular bid.

-- Lehigh and Maryland, two more dangerous contenders, in the first round.

To win the national title, we'd have to eventually play (most likely) either Duke or Hopkins, but not both, and that is a plus.  Loyola is the biggest roadblock on this side.  But if we get that far, we wouldn't have to face them until the Final Four in Foxboro.  You know if you get that far you're playing someone damn good, but I'd much rather take my chances with a team that's never been on that stage before.

Now, if I might be allowed to toot my own horn for a minute.  Actually it's less of a "toot" and more of a blast from the mountaintops.  I don't do it often so deal with it.  If you read yesterday's final lax bracketology, and then compared it to the NCAA's bracket, you might've noticed two things:

1) I was 16 for 16 in picking the teams in the tournament.
2) I was 8 for 8 in picking the first round hosts.

I pretty heftily underrated Hopkins and overrated UMass - I didn't think the committee would let UMass slide all the way to 6th with that RPI.  I did hit three seeds on the nose (although Loyola was way too easy to take any credit for) and called two exact matchups (Loyola caveat again.)  Probably nobody will ever predict all eight games exactly, but 16 for 16 and 8 for 8 is better than last year - and nobody else can make both claims.

This might not be the right year to be boasting of accuracy, as the tourney selections are being widely panned.  One common criticism is that the committee applied different metrics at different times: SOS was used to drop UMass to the 6th seed and to justify Denver's inclusion, while RPI is what put Princeton in.  One example.  My answer: of course they did.  If they just only used one criterion to rank the teams, there wouldn't be a point to having the others, plus everyone would hate that.  It's not like RPI is a perfect top-to-bottom ranking of the teams.

Anyway, the committee's thinking is like this: yes, they used SOS to justify Denver's bid, but only because Denver had a good enough RPI.  (And because they beat Duke.  Beating a seeded team always helps.)  The committee likes those extremes, which is why they couldn't leave out Princeton.  And they didn't exactly leapfrog Denver over a lot of teams in the RPI - their RPI is just one point lower than Fairfield's and Cornell's.  When I'm comparing bubble teams like Denver, Ohio State, Fairfield, etc. one of the first things I do is look for those extremes and, usually, drop teams with extremes on the wrong end (like OSU's low RPI) and keep the ones with extremes on the high end (like Princeton's RPI.)

This is why it doesn't surprise me one bit to see Denver and Princeton over Cornell and Penn State, the two teams most often considered snubbed.  The committee didn't selectively apply criteria because if they had, Ohio State would be in based on SOS as well - theirs is one-ten-thousandth lower than Denver's.  .5848 to .5847.

**Ah, UMass.  They're now fully convinced there's a massive anti-them conspiracy organized by the "lax mafia" (that's the ACC plus Cuse and Hopkins) to keep the upstarts and little guys out of contention wherever possible.  This obviously is how Loyola got the #1 seed.  (Except they're in Maryland, therefore, in on the conspiracy.)  The case goes like this: Hopkins lost to a team the caliber of Navy, and UMass never did, therefore they should be the #2 seed instead.  This is stupid because it presumes that losing to Navy should cancel out wins over Loyola, UVA, and Princeton.

Because, see, the next game UMass plays will be the first against any of the other 15 teams in the tournament.  When it gets down to brass tacks, nobody really cares about one loss if you've proven you can beat tournament-quality teams.  In order to win the tournament, after all, you have to beat at least three and usually four really good, tournament-quality teams.  It's hardly unfair of the committee to want to see you do that before you deserve a real shot at the crown.

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-- Speaking of all that lacrosse, don't forget to also watch the UVA documentary, tomorrow and Wednesday at 6:30 on "this is why I call it" ESPNUVA.  It's got a pretty sweet trailer, too.  The documentary is called "There and Back" so if you're a giant dork like me you automatically want to call it "There and Back Again: A Wahoo's Holiday."

-- Just so nobody thinks I'm glossing over this kind of stuff, here is the article detailing the lawsuit filed by the parents of Yeardley Love against Dom Starsia and the UVA lacrosse coaches, Craig Littlepage, and the state of Virginia.  It's separate from the one that was filed against the actual killer, George Huguely.  Out of respect for the dead I'm not going to editorialize much, but let's just say that Starsia's character and off-the-field coaching abilities have only ever been previously called into question by the uneducated.  The lawsuit claims that Huguely was a star on the team and therefore got special treatment which led to the killing, which would be the first time George Huguely has ever been described as one of the team's stars.

-- Tony Bennett pretty much wrapped up recruiting of transfers and anything more imminent than the 2013 recruiting class by signing shooting guard Taylor Barnette, a (very) late addition to the 2012 class.  As usual I have a great deal to say about this and will say it tomorrow.

-- Alex Anzalone, former recruiting board denizen and also former Ohio State commit, just became the strangest decommitment story ever.  People make jokes about the creepy double entendres of football recruiting, and coaches sometimes don't help with their comments (you should've seen what the OSU coaches said in our local community paper about the recruit they pulled out of the local high school, or more specifically, that recruit's body) but this has got to be the first time an actual child molester has ever been publically involved and identified.  So Anzalone's back on the market because he was unsurprisingly weirded out by a sex offender who drove up from Kentucky to see him and the other 17-year-old recruits.  No, he's not going back on the recruiting board, that ship is good and sailed.

-- David Teel has an excellent take on Old Dominion's conundrum: stay in the CAA or make the jump to I-A football and Conference USA?  My guess is it depends on whether VCU and George Mason stay in the CAA or head to the Atlantic-10 along with Butler.  The effect on UVA is this: it would be incrementally more difficult to recruit the 757 with a third FBS team in the state and it sitting right in the center of the happy hunting ground.  But as long as we don't have any more William & Mary disasters it won't be a thing.  If ODU does make the jump, they'll still want to be more of a recruiting rival of ours - no more practices at their stadium - and my initial thought is we should offer them a road game at their place in exchange for two at ours, play that road game in their first year of I-A ball, and fill their stadium with orange.  This is from the same section of my brain that says we should take our spring ball roadshow next year across the Potomac to DeMatha or Good Counsel, just to cheese off the Terps.