a look around

We have a slight pause between the regular season and postseason, so it's time to take stock of how things are going in UVA's major sports.

Basketball, obviously, is pretty much the way it's been since Joe Harris knocked on Tony Bennett's front door a couple years ago.  The team could literally take a collective dump at center court on Thursday and then stagger off the court smashed on Wild Turkey, and they'd still be a three seed at the barest of minimums.  Since theydo actually plan on trying to win a basketball game (against either Clemson or Georgia Tech), the only drama left when it comes to tournament seeding is: 1 or 2?

Right now they're Joe Lunardi's third #1.  (And in a bracket that sets them up on a potential crash course with Buddy Hield, which would be excellent theater.)  That said, Michigan State and Xavier are strong candidates to take that 1 seed with strong tourney runs - and let's face it, MSU has to be considered the massive favorite in the B1G tourney just because of Izzo and their evil vampire nature.  (Come to think of it, I would consider them the massive favorite in the NCAA, too, without a powerhouse team in the bracket to apply the stake to the heart.)  UVA would be at risk of dropping to a 2 seed if they didn't make it to the ACC championship game on Saturday - but would be close to a lock for a 1 if they did.

Attention must be paid to Malcolm Brogdon, opening up a new door in ACC history with the never-before-seen feat of winning ACC POY and DPOY in the same year.  The two awards are clearly linked to each other, though, because the conference's two leading scorers are Tobacco Roadies.  In other words, Brogdon isn't POY without being DPOY.  The interesting thing is that the POY vote wasn't all that close, and his defensive stats don't really stand out.  He's not a machine for either blocks or steals, which is usually how you win DPOY.  You have to actually pay attention to UVA games to know Brogdon's value on defense - which is to say, UVA has become must-see TV for ACC journalists.  Quite likely, they noticed how Brandon Ingram stopped lighting up the scoreboard when Brogdon was assigned to him.

The ACC tournament sets up well for UVA.  The other side of the bracket has the conference's top three offenses (UNC, Duke, Notre Dame); the only top team in the conference that UVA didn't beat (Duke) didn't earn a double bye and needs to take their thin lineup through a gauntlet.  That said, it's a shame Louisville isn't involved - it'd be tougher to get through, but man, six teams like the ACC has at the top, plus some danger mice like Clemson and VT, would make for an ACC tourney for the ages.  Or really, just the way things should be every year.

Speaking of Louisville, though - are we liking this new tradition of going out on Senior Day and bombing some highly-ranked but temporarily hapless opponent back to the Stone Age with Dick Vitale in attendance?**  And capping it with a three-pointer from a senior walk-on causing the roof to blow off the place? Senior Days don't get better than that.  And I've been sticking up for Mike Tobey all year - I think he gets slapped with expectations and standards that are different from everyone else's, and unfairly criticized as a result - and it was therefore doubly awesome to see him own every square inch of the interior.  And since Thomas Rogers's cherry-on-top three against Syracuse two years ago is still my favorite UVA basketball moment of all time, watching the rerun starring Caid Kirven was like hearing a favorite song on the radio that the DJ never plays.  I could watch that show over and over.

**Don't underestimate the presence of Vitale.  First of all, I don't give a shit what anyone says, I like the guy, a lot.  And second, on the same day that Duke and Carolina were playing at Cameron, ESPN put UVA in the prime-time slot and sent Dickie V to Charlottesville.  UVA-Louisville trumped Duke-UNC.  How about that?

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

March 10 is approaching quickly enough that you might read this afterwards.  It's significant in this context for one thing: six years ago, it was the day that Mike London picked up his first two commitments of his first full recruiting class.  That would be David Dean and Clifton Richardson.  Bronco Mendenhall is unlikely to beat that pace, which, of course, is fine.  Mendenhall has really cranked up the offer cannon, and hardly a day goes by without a new one going out.  He's already held two junior days, both of which were highly attended.

I don't think that all these offers are actually, like, offers.  Bronco's not going to be one to tell you you have an offer when really you don't, but he's got to get out front of the relevance train, and there are ways to let a guy claim an offer while making sure he knows he's got to continue to earn it.  There's a feeling-out process going on.  An offer that goes out might be to see if the interest is mutual, or to keep UVA in the game while Bronco continues to evaluate.  Or a combination of the two.

Meanwhile, the feeling-out process is both ways.  There's clearly interest in what Bronco is putting together, but no prospect could ever be faulted for doing his homework.  Mike London was more familiar to everyone locally.  Nearly all his 2011 class was from Virginia or Maryland, and he was already a somewhat known quantity to the recruits he was talking to.  Now we have guys who either were not hearing from UVA before, or had been but under a totally different regime.  It's encouraging that the combined junior day attendance (between the two that've been held so far) was around 50.  Should we be surprised that the process is taking a little bit of time to ramp up?  Not remotely.

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

And finally, our beloved spring sports....are showing the rust something fierce.  The baseball team is already loaded down with long-term injuries just a couple weeks into the season, and the bullpen has blown a few leads.  And the lacrosse team....pfff.

It's interesting, actually, that a lot of the reaction to the loss to High Point was not "Virginia is really losing their dominance" but "The blue bloods are really losing their dominance."  I think that's a little bit of a confirmation bias thing.  Most people want there to be more parity in lacrosse, and many are rooting for the "blue-bloods" to lose their hegemony even if they're a fan of a blue-blood.  They just don't want it to be their blue-blood.  And parity in the game is slowly increasing.

But it's really coming more at the expense of the middle tier than the top.  ACC teams are having a fairly tough time this year, and Hopkins has been vexing their fans for a while now, same way UVA has.  But that's nothing compared to how the older middle-tier teams are looking.  Teams like Georgetown, Delaware, St. John's, UMass - formerly tough wins under any circumstance, and now complete pushovers.  Sure, it's not a good sign for lacrosse royalty that teams like Cornell and UVA are no longer powerhouses, but the real brunt of the power shift has been felt further down.

Which means that UVA's struggles - some bad losses and some ugly wins - are more about UVA than the tide of change.  Because let's face it: If Dom Starsia is gently steered toward retirement, which he probably should be if the season continues the way it started, you're nuts if you think the job would have any trouble attracting qualified candidates.

And if you think a 9-4 baseball team is any reason for panic, you learned nothing last year.

kirby's dream land

It's hard to capture in words what just happened, for the simple reason that it's so easy to see what just happened.  It's not just a national championship.  It never is, I suppose.  By definition, national championships are stories to tell.

It's just, it's hard to think of a time the stories flowed so freely and easily.  There was the rematch.  The hometown boy and his statue.  The program barely a decade from being cut.  The tribute to a fallen police officer.  The ACC's championship drought.  The injuries.  The depth and lack thereof.  The multitude of clutch hits, pitches, and performances.  No, a national championship really is never just a collection of wins, but this one, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a storyline.  This thing means so many different things, it'd take an extra volume or two to capture it all.

I say we start with the last two innings, and I have the only vote.  Something extraordinary had just happened, which really doesn't narrow it down but still.  Brandon Waddell - Big Game Brandon, a moniker not even a month old - told Karl Kuhn he was done.  Even though UVA's pitchers are instructed to do that if they feel the need, it has to go against every competitive fiber in a player's body.  With Waddell understandably out of gas, Nathan Kirby took the hill.

Let's go back a bit.  As a UVA commit out of high school, Kirby was already considered nigh-unsignable by MLB clubs, but he famously went the extra mile by not even submitting to the MLB drug testing and medical requirements, making himself ineligible for selection.  A very rare step.  That recruiting class had some outstanding pitchers, but Kirby was the headliner.

And then he stunk.  A lot.  Expected to compete for a weekend role, Kirby only started two games and pitched mostly in relief.  Badly.  His fastball had less movement than a roadkill skunk.  His breaking stuff didn't get over the plate enough and hitters ignored it, waiting for the nice easy batting practice fastballs.  Waddell started the first game of the season, Josh Sborz immediately became an elite reliever, even Trey Oest - who left after that season - had a larger role.  Kirby's sophomore season was a night-and-day difference.  He was every bit the ace he was supposed to be.  Dominant.  Pitched great in the postseason, too - an eight-inning, one-hit, nine-K gem against Arkansas; a seven-inning, one-hit effort against Ole Miss.

It all came crashing down against Vanderbilt, though, in one absolute nuclear disaster of a third inning in which he walked five and ultimately got charged with eight runs.  And because of how things go, that was the lasting memory, even into a junior season that saw his ace self return, right up until the lat injury.

He wasn't even that good upon his return.  Rusty.  It was plain to see his command was less than sparkling.  He ended up tagged with the loss, though the game wasn't really over until well past his removal.  Getting the ball a few days later, he was walking to a mound where he'd never pitched well, to face hitters who had destroyed him when they saw him last.  And all he was being asked to do was close out a national championship.

Five strikeouts and a grounder later, everyone forgot all of that.  And if you ask me, that's the power of a trophy.  Kirby's story, to me, is as good as any in the tournament, but it didn't get a whole lot of attention, because the instant it became a story, UVA won, you know, a frickin' national championship.  But Nathan Kirby is too good of a pitcher and there was no way in hell he deserved to be remembered for the downsides of his career.

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

I did say it'd take an extra volume or two.  Of the various teams I consider myself invested in, pro and college, I've watched them win, by my count, anywhere from 9 to 12 national titles, depending on how early in my life you let me start counting.  This one is either my first or second favorite; it's not fair to judge while I'm still riding high, but it's at least up there.  So, yeah, this is a weekend's worth of stuff right here.  Stay tuned.

gators chomped

I sorta wish I hadn't completely used up my supply of grandiose praise for Brandon Waddell last weekend, because - uh.  Going into the "bracket" games in Omaha - the second round, that is - here's how many runs each CWS team had scored up to that point:

Florida: 68
TCU: 68
Vanderbilt: 57
Miami: 51
Arkansas: 44
Virginia: 38
Fullerton: 35
LSU: 27

And Florida was one of only four teams to take the shortest path - the minimum six games and six wins to get to that point.  TCU needed the most games possible (nine), not the least, in order to tie with the Gators on that list.

Florida also won on Wednesday, rather easily.  Their run count in each game up to just now looks like this:

19, 8, 2, 13, 11, 15, BRANDON WADDELL, 10

Point: This is no small feat, what Waddell did to them.  Forget Miami, which got all the hype for their lineup and fizzled twice.  Florida has the best lineup in Omaha, and by logical extension, quite possibly the whole country.  Or if "best" is too subjective, certainly the most productive.

Was it just a bad day?  Hard to call it that, when they hadn't really proven themselves overly prone to them so far this postseason.  Waddell, a pitcher who specializes in - and requires - pinpoint location, had it in spades on Monday night.  He only struck out three hitters, which is four fewer than he did against Maryland.  But he pitched to a lot of successful contact.  Sabermetricians might point to BABIP and suggest some luck involved, which is why it's always important to put stats into context by actually watching the game.**  Only five Gators hit the ball into the outfield all day.

The pitching matchup was fascinating.  Waddell, the command and control artist, against Puk, the fireballing bazooka heaver.  Puk was effective in his own way, but he and command have yet to make each other's acquaintance.  That wasn't working on his third trip through the lineup and probably would've fallen completely to pieces on a fourth go-round.

Consider me impressed, blown away, absolutely smitten.  It took me a while to get here, I'll admit - Waddell's game has always seemed balanced on a ledge.  This year he was tipping right over, too, most of the season.  Two games have launched Waddell straight into the pantheon.  Very different games.  Both masterful pitching performances.

**I am not anti-sabermetrics.  Sabermetrics are fantastic.  I just think they augment rather than replace the good old-fashioned techniques.

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

-- I don't want to discount Josh Sborz, who accounted for two of the nine shutout innings after all.  Particularly the eighth, in which he escaped a two-on-none-out jam with catlike reflexes on one batter and unhittable stuff on the next five.  On that first out, there's so much that could've gone wrong.  First, the ball was just plain launched - dude could've been hurt.  If he'd deflected it wrong, like with the tip of his glove and off into foul territory, the run might've scored.  If he'd missed it, Ernie Clement was positioned almost up the middle and could've had a shot at a double play (if he'd made what would've had to be a pretty slick backhand stab) - but the run would've scored.  Then Sborz had to make a throw to the most dangerous base without his glove on - and it sounds stupid but that's a really distracting situation.  Randomly put a three-pound weight on, say, Peyton Manning's off hand in the middle of a play - he'd be suddenly haywire.  It's no different suddenly losing the same weight, if it's a familiar one.

-- Should BOC have sent Sborz in earlier?  Like at the beginning of the eighth, or at least after Waddell walked the first hitter?  Uh, no.  Keep in mind - Waddell was basically no-hitting these dudes.  Their one hit was a nubby little dribbler that in retrospect I'm glad happened because the added distraction of pitching an actual no-hitter would've been at best an unnecessary distraction.  Pull a dominant pitcher before he shows any signs of being less than dominant?  No reason to.

-- Florida will send Logan Shore back to the mound on Friday.  Shore beat Miami in the opener, but he wasn't sharp, and set the tone for his not-sharpness by thwacking the first batter.  And as is common knowledge by now, Nathan Kirby makes his long-awaited re-debut.  I really thought he'd stay in the pen, but the logic in this makes perfect sense: we don't know whether he'll be awesome or unbelievably rusty, and really, neither do the coaches.  If the former, Jones and Waddell line up to pitch the first two games of the finals.  If the latter, BOC can still choose between those two for the Florida re-rematch on Saturday.

game preview: Arkansas

Date/Time: Saturday, June 13; 3:00

TV: ESPN

Record against the Hogs: 2-1

Last meeting: UVA 9, UA 2; 6/1/14, Charlottesville (NCAA Regional)

Last weekend: UVA 2-0 over Maryland (5-3, 5-4); UA 2-1 over Mo. St. (18-4, 1-3, 3-2)

Pitching probables:

Virginia: RHP Connor Jones (7-2, 2.95, 105 Ks)
Arkansas: RHP Trey Killian (3-4, 4.74, 56 Ks)

Familiarity, again.  Seems to happen a lot on our roads to Omaha.  UVA played the rude host to Arkansas last year, beating the regional 2 seed twice to polish off a three-game regional sweep.  The stage is bigger now.  UVA must try to battle it out in Omaha against a whole bunch of teams that come much more highly recommended on paper.

It's tempting to draw parallels to Fresno State, the regional four seed that upended the whole tournament and walked out of Omaha as national champs.  Baseball certainly lends itself to that kind of tournament run.  Still, at this point, that's getting ahead of ourselves.  Fresno State had already beaten two regional 1 seeds by this time, and finished up the tourney having beaten literally half the eight national seeds and personally eliminated three of them.  UVA hasn't yet faced a regional 1 seed, and still won't have after this game.  (Miami and Florida, the other teams in the "regional", are both national seeds, so that streak comes to an end in game 2 no matter what.)

UVA faces an Arkansas team struggling, if this is is possible, even more with pitching depth than the Hoos are.  Trey Killian almost certainly gets the ball on Saturday, and those depth issues likely won't hurt the Hogs much yet in game 1, but they recently announced the loss of a mainstay reliever, and they also lost a rotation pitcher during the SEC tournament.  (Dominic Taccolini, who did a very solid job pitching in relief of Killian during last year's first matchup against Arkansas.)

Meanwhile, the Hoos are headed in the other direction.  Nathan Kirby is expected to return to the mound in Omaha.  When, only the coaching staff can say, but at some point, he'll come trotting out of the bullpen.  Given the extra days of rest between games, this is a huge, huge addition, basically giving UVA just about all the depth it needs.  He and Josh Sborz were the gems of their recruiting class and the first two Hoos taken in this year's MLB draft (Brewers and Dodgers, in case you were wondering) - it's a little strange that they're being used as bullpen aces rather than innings-eating starters.

Speaking of starters, Connor Jones will go for UVA.  You know the drill.  Said it before and I'll say it again: as long as Jones and Brandon Waddell are shutting down hitters and pitching deep into games, UVA will keep advancing.  The moment one of them falters, it's the beginning of the end.  Here's the lineup the Razorbacks will send to the plate to face CJ:

-- Catcher: Tucker Pennell (.200-0-7): The light-hitting juco transfer Pennell anchors the ninth spot in the lineup.  With an OPS of just .508, he's neither proficient at getting on base nor a power hitter of any kind.  That means he's probably going to do something totally heroic at some point in this tournament.

-- First base: Clark Eagan (.284-2-30): There's a mashup of solid but unremarkable hitters occupying the 5 through 8 slots in the Arkansas lineup; Eagan is one, having batted both fifth and eighth during the postseason run.  He was a platooning DH last year, but starts regularly at first and boasts a pretty good glove.

-- Second base: Rick Nomura (.294-4-19): Nomura is another back-half player, a hitter who prefers to make contact rather than wait for something to happen; his walks and K's total just 42 all year.  This places him generally fifth or sixth in the order.  He's also an excellent fielder.

-- Third base: Bobby Wernes (.280-5-26):  One of four Arkansas juniors taken in the draft (30th round), Wernes bats second and showed a huge improvement over his numbers from last year, when he barely hit.  This year his bat has some pop, as he's third on the team among eligible players in slugging - 11 of his 63 hits went for more than two bases, a number second only to superstar Andrew Benintendi.

-- Shortstop: Michael Bernal (.280-4-30): Bernal's numbers are a slight oddity; four homers and only five doubles.  Really, he's not a particularly powerful bat, but you can do much worse than to have a .280 hitter in the 7th or 8th slot.  He does have a good batting eye: despite being only seventh among eligible players in batting average, he's second in OBP.  (Partly due to getting plunked a lot, too.)

-- Left field: Joe Serrano (.285-4-35): No, not Pedro.  Leadoff hitter who's also proficient at taking a walk, but also strikes out a bit more than a leadoff hitter should.

-- Center field: Andrew Benintendi (.380-19-55).  The 7th overall pick in the MLB draft, there's not much Benintendi doesn't do.  His OPS isn't a perfectly normal .715 - he slugs .715, with an OPS of 1.204.  His chances of getting on base are almost 1-in-2, and between his extra base hits and his 23 steals, he's got roughly a 1-in-5 chance of getting himself at least to second base every time he steps to the plate.  By far the toughest hitter UVA has faced this postseason.

-- Right field: Tyler Spoon (.331-6-54): As the cleanup hitter, Spoon has the job of protecting Benintendi in the lineup, and does just fine at that.  He's the team leader in doubles and slugs .500 himself.  He doesn't walk much, but it's not his job to.  Spoon is also one of the Hogs' four draftees, going in the 35th round.

-- Designated hitter: Brett McAfee (.280-2-22): McAfee was the starting shortstop for about a month last year before he went down with an injury; he's seen time there this year as well, but settled into the DH job lately.  Sixth or seventh batter and another one of those decent hitters whose numbers don't stink but don't jump off any pages.

-- Starting pitcher: Trey Killian (3-4, 4.74, 56 Ks): Killian has a wide array of different pitches - fastball, cutter, change, slider, curve - and it's the potential to develop at least some of them into major-league stuff that got him drafted pretty high.  That and his excellent sophomore year.  Not so much his junior-year numbers.  Killian battled tendonitis early in the season and hasn't really ever rounded into form.  But he's pitched on Friday most of the year, and with Taccolini out and Keaton McKinney having hip troubles, Killian is really the only healthy starter.  UVA knocked Killian off the bump early in last year's matchup against him; those numbers offer plenty of hope they can do it again.

-- Bullpen: Despite losing James Teague to an elbow injury, Arkansas has plenty of options here; it's their rotation, not their pen, having the major depth issues.  (Teague also started 10 games this year, and probably would've been high on the consideration list to start a game sometime in Omaha.)  Zach Jackson - with 87 Ks in 56.1 innings and a .185 OBA - is used as something of a super-reliever much as Sborz is, and is probably the first off the bench if Killian gets into trouble.  Jackson Lowery is a bit wild at times but a solid option, though he may be held back to start a game himself.  Lance Phillips and Josh Alberius are also dependable options for a couple innings.  One thing about the Arkansas pitching options: they're totally bereft of left-handers, except for a couple players who won't be used.  Every Razorback who takes the hill in Omaha will be a righty.

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

On paper, Arkansas isn't too scary.  (Neither is UVA, but at least we'll be starting an ace with ace numbers.  On the other hand, four of nine lineup hitters are hitting .252 or worse.)  Arkansas isn't too different from USC.  Pretty good lineup - two stars, one guy with barely any bat at all, and six solid regular dudes.  Killian's numbers, though, might be the worst of any starter in Omaha in recent memory.  He's clearly a better pitcher than his stats, but sometimes that's a thing for next year, not right now.

Benintendi will probably get his hits, but whether he does or doesn't, it's mainly the rest of the lineup that'll win or lose this game for Connor Jones.  If he can mow the rest of them down, UVA will win - possibly by a lot.  If the bottom half of the lineup starts dinging him, UVA might find itself on a track to go 0-for-Nebraska.

You can bet, though, that Arkansas won't let Killian dig too deep a hole, if things start going south.  I expect a quick hook.  If UVA's bats start off lively, Arkansas will ask Zach Jackson to hold down the fort while they try and repair the damage.  A big win will require the bats to stay hot against the bullpen.  Ultimately, though, UVA should be favored.  Joe McCarthy has been heating up after an understandably slow start, and UVA has, if nothing else, been the tourney's most clutch-hitting team.  The Hoos have won five games - and been losing to start the 7th inning in all but one (and that was a 1-1 tie.)  With Omaha's ballpark encouraging low-scoring games, that not only gives UVA a chance to build on their clutch reputation, but levels the playing field for a team like ours with a thin bullpen - starters can go deeper into games.  Game 2 will feature a stronger opponent than UVA has yet faced this postseason, but I really like UVA's chances to get there on the winning side of the bracket.

super, thanks for asking

It took a while, but spring finally sprung, as they say.  You can tell because UVA sports have begun kicking ass again.

So much that was said about the Lake Elsinore regional came true.  Evenly-matched?  Yup - the regional flipped upside-down right out of the gate, with the top two teams both facing elimination after one day.  UCSB as a shaky host?  Yup again - the only one seed not to win a game.  And UVA needing to race through at top speed or else miss out on the supers?  I guess we don't know for sure, which is good.

But BOC sure felt that way.  In other years, Josh Sborz probably wouldn't have been kept on the mound after his team padded a 3-1 lead with three more runs brought to you by Geico.  And he wouldn't have been asked to "save" a five-run lead after pitching the previous two days, either.  Sborz's usage tells you all you need to know about how BOC felt about stretching out the series, which is to say, DON'T, at all costs short of shredding all his elbow ligaments.

It's obvious why: come the 11th inning, the Hoos were down to one unused pitcher, who was also the center fielder.  Had UVA lost that game I don't know what the hell, man.  You'd have had to hope a combination of Adam Haseley and Alec Bettinger could've gotten you through seven innings, eight if you're really lucky, and then I suppose more of Sborz (who wouldn't have gone on Sunday if he wasn't protecting a lead) and then some dudes who'd pitched like three innings all year.

Scary thought.  Less scary had San Diego State held on in the losers' bracket, because their pitching staff is in even worse shape, which makes me sort of wish they'd beaten USC and then us on Sunday to set up a hitters' duel for the ages.  If 14-10 represents the mutual near-collapse of two pitching staffs, I'd've bet everything on the over in a UVA-SDSU matchup on Monday.  I guess we'll just have to settle for winning the regional the semi-easy way.

A lot of credit goes to hitting that was clutcher than clutch.  Ernie Clement delivered the game-winning hit on Saturday and almost the whole lineup made Sunday happen, but for my money the guys who won this regional are Connor Jones and Brandon Waddell.  This simply doesn't happen if they don't both pitch into the eighth, combine for sixteen innings, and allow one lousy run each.  UVA will advance through the tournament as long as those two pitch lights-out, and be eliminated when they don't.

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

I have yet to exult in UVA's 22nd national championship, so: woohoo tennis!  Five schools have won multiple national championships this season - UConn, Colorado, Ohio State, Stanford, and, of course, because I wouldn't mention it otherwise, UVA.  Three years ago, men's tennis was a program with a rep for being that program that couldn't get over the hump.  Now with two trophies, they've taken their place in the elite.  Hopefully for quite some time.

I was also going to write about consecutive trophies, but I forgot it was two years ago they won their first.  I realized I was thinking of Danielle Collins's individual singles championship last year.  Silly me, mixing up our powerhouse programs like that.  It didn't help my muddled situation that Ryan Shane won the singles title this year.  All these damn trophies are so confusing to keep track of.  How I long for the simplicity of life in Blacksburg and the clean, uncluttered trophy cases and freed-up postseason schedules.  Oh wait no I don't.

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

-- Don't you love when you watch this really long drawn-out recruitment that takes years and then the subject of said recruitment sticks around for one season and then boogies?  Jamil Kamara's name first popped up when he was a high school freshman at Princess Anne.  His full UVA career: one catch, six yards.  Unlike the loss of Greyson Lambert I don't really chalk this up to the fact that this program is the result of a crash between a fireworks truck and an oil tank.  I guess you could argue that there's excessive WR depth and that the inmates are just a little too much in charge of the asylum when it comes to redshirting decisions.  I'd happily concede both points.  It's just that Kamara's overinflated opinion of his readiness is why he didn't redshirt last year in the first place, and why he'll be suiting up elsewhere next year.

-- I know the baseball team's camo unis have a near-perfect win-loss record.  I still hate them.  Especially when the home whites are so damn classy-looking and they finally got a set of decent road grays.  I'd just hate to think we might finally win a national title and all the lasting images of the team that does so would be in brown.

lake elsinore regional preview

Not-so-fun fact: The last time UVA baseball played in an NCAA regional that was 1) not in Charlottesville and 2) not in the Pacific time zone was 1996.  Every UVA placement in the Brian O'Connor era has either been as a host or in California, except for the one trip to Corvallis, Oregon.  Geographic constraints, I suppose.  You can send three teams on short plane rides, or two teams on bus rides and one team to the opposite coast.  That's how the selection committee thinks, and thus UVA is taking another trip to the desert to face three teams that could practically ride their bikes to the playground.

Last time that happened, though, things went pretty well.  So we'll see.  There's a semi-familiar opponent in San Diego State, last seen futilely throwing Stephen Strasburg at the Hoos' lineup.  UC-Irvine isn't here, but there's another UC-Somebody in their place.  And the Hoos' actual matchup is a fascinating story.  Oh, and if UVA gets past the regional, they won't leave the state, and the #1 overall seed likely awaits.  So the storylines are here, the teams are here, let's see what it all entails.

#1 seed - UCSB Gauchos

Conference: Big West
Record: 40-15 (16-8)
RPI: #20

Lineup:

C: Campbell Wear (.195-1-21)
1B: Robby Nesovic (.344-0-39)
2B: Woody Woodward (.295-0-12)
3B: Peter Maris (.300-2-24)
SS: Clay Fisher (.247-0-18)
LF: Cameron Newell (.380-3-31)
CF: Andrew Calica (.315-1-18)
RF: Luke Swenson (.307-0-29)
DH: Paddy O'Brien (.400-2-18)

SP: Dillon Tate (8-4, 2.08, 100 Ks)
SP: Justin Jacome (7-4, 2.53, 91 Ks)
SP: Shane Bieber (8-4, 2.26, 95 Ks)
SP: Domenic Mazza (6-1, 2.69, 72 Ks)

RP: Robby Nesovic (1-0, 2.70, 13 Ks)
RP: Kyle Nelson (3-1, 0.80, 31 Ks)
RP: Connor Baits (1-0, 4.32, 11 Ks)
RP: Chris Clements (3-0, 2.16, 10 Ks)

Lineup notes: The DH position here is rotated heavily among a few different players, and substituted liberally.  O'Brien is the best hitter of that otherwise not real inspiring group, but Billy Fredrick does have a very patient batting eye, with 18 walks in 72 plate appearances.  Some lineup shuffling was necessary when 1B Dalton Kelly broke his leg in April.

If talking about formidable #1 seeds to try and get past, UVA could hardly have landed in a more favorable regional.  UCSB is a host instead of a 2 seed somewhere because the Big West is legitimately a tough conference; the higher-RPI teams that aren't hosting are in legitimately bad conferences.

Like any 40-win team, UCSB has some high-quality bats in their lineup.  Unlike most #1 seeds, it's not a murderer's row.  The clear best hitter in the lineup is Cameron Newell, the Big West co-POY.  Newell, along with Andrew Calica and Luke Swenson, is part of a very sure-handed outfield; Newell and Calica had zero errors this season and Calica has never committed one in his career.  Calica's a very tough player to put out; he's second on the team in walks and fast on the basepaths with 14 stolen bases against only four times caught.

The top six or seven in the very flexible batting lineup (any Gaucho player might hit in almost any slot, and even Calica, who had a 37-game on-base streak to open the season, has batted as low as eighth) are generally at least solid hitters, but there are some weak points, particularly sub-Mendoza catcher Campbell Wear.  There's not a lot of home run power, though - no Gaucho has more than three - so they bunt and send baserunners frequently.  (Sounds like someone I remember from the last California trip.)

UCSB's real strength is on the mound.  Any one of four starters could take the mound and be a major threat to shut you down.  Dillon Tate is one of the country's elite pitchers and a very likely top-five pick in the upcoming MLB draft, possibly even #1.  (Sounds like someone I remember from the last California trip.)  Tate changes speeds on his fastball, sometimes cranking it up near 96 or 97 or dropping it as low as 91.  His slider is a nasty strikeout pitch, and his well-developed changeup isn't instantly deadly but as a third pitch it's a big reason he's projected so high.

The next two guys on the list are no picnic either.  Justin Jacome and Shane Bieber each pitched very deep into games this year, averaging over 7 1/3 innings per start.  Jacome's control is exquisite, walking just nine batters in 111.1 innings.  Fourth in line is Domenic Mazza, mostly a weekday starter and occasional reliever, but then, weekday starter doesn't mean quite the same as it does in a power conference like the ACC.  Mazza beat fellow regional member USC twice this season.  He'll likely give UCSB an enormous advantage on Sunday this weekend.

This is a beatable team if you can hit them.  Easier said than done.  On a 1-to-10 scale for chances of getting out of the regional alive, D1Baseball gave UCSB a 3.  Ouch.  But the Gauchos will have the advantage in any close game, particularly in, say, the sixth inning when you're starting to warm someone up and their starter is still trucking.  This is an evenly-matched regional by a lot of metrics, and UCSB's bats strike fear into nobody.  But it's never a bad idea to bet on the team with all the pitching.

#2 seed - USC Trojans

Conference: Pac-12
Record: 37-19 (18-12)
RPI: #23

C: Garrett Stubbs (.330-1-22)
1B: Jeremy Martinez (.290-1-35)
2B: Dante Flores (.315-5-41)
3B: Blake Lacey (.295-0-34)
SS: Reggie Southall (.230-1-18)
LF: Bobby Stahel (.379-4-31)
CF: Timmy Robinson (.298-6-50)
RF: A.J. Ramirez (.268-8-39)
DH: David Oppenheim (.281-3-24)

SP: Kyle Twomey (7-2, 2.81, 65 Ks)
SP: Mitch Hart (7-3, 3.67, 48 Ks)
RP: Kyle Davis (3-2, 4.23, 43 Ks)

RP: Tyler Gilbert (4-2, 2.97, 62 Ks)
RP: Brent Wheatley (4-3, 3.68, 62 Ks)
RP: Marc Huberman (6-4, 2.37, 48 Ks)
RP: Bernardo Flores (3-1, 3.38, 44 Ks)
RP: Brooks Kriske (2-1, 2.45, 26 Ks)

Lineup notes: This is a very stable lineup with few changes day-to-day, but USC does platoon at shortstop between Southall and Angelo La Bruna.  It's nothing to do with lefty-righty stuff; they're both switch-hitters.  They're just both not that good, is all.

USC is a helluva story.  Picture Duke, post Coach-K, perpetually finishing 10th in the conference and occasionally scraping an NIT bid as a 6-seed, for a decade, and you get an idea of what Trojan baseball has been like.  After uber-legend Rod Dedeaux retired in the '80s after earning more rings than he had fingers to put them, Mike Gillespie (you see how this keeps coming back to times past?) ran the team for another 20+ years, scoring another national title in 1998.  But Gillespie "retired" after missing the tournament three out of four years,** USC hired his son-in-law for whatever reason, and proceeded to disappear.

The Trojans are back, and they'll be UVA's opponent on Friday.  The dominance has passed to their neighbor UCLA, the national #1 seed, but USC is one of a handful of very respectable Pac-12 teams this year, tying for third in the conference with Cal and ASU.  Their lineup hits for average about as well as 1 seed UCSB, but there's more power in it.  Quite a bit more.  A.J. Ramirez only hits .268, but he leads the team in doubles (14) and home runs (8).

The triples leader, though, is Bobby Stahel, an interesting player to watch.  He's got speed and the best bat on the Trojan team.  D1Baseball's regional preview points out that he's made several web-gem diving catches in the outfield, too, and then goes on to say, "he has been in a handful of rundowns, but has been known to get caught sleeping and get doubled up on flyouts as well."  Wheeee basepath adventures.

USC also sports probably the regional's best catcher, which is actually saying something as there's a lot of quality behind the plate in Lake Elsinore.  Garrett Stubbs has cut down over half the baserunners trying to steal on him, an important weapon because most of the teams in this regional are pretty stealy.  That includes USC most of all, as the Trojans have stolen 93 bases this year, about one and a half per game.  Stubbs himself, along with Timmy Robinson, leads the way there - both have 19.  He's also one of USC's only three .300 hitters and their best bunter.

The Trojans almost certainly have the regional's best bullpen (though that's partly a function of UCSB's starting rotation that renders the bullpen halfway moot.)  There's a lot of pitchers they can call on in later innings.  This is the likely reason they've made the interesting choice of Kyle Davis as the Friday starter against UVA - they can hold back Kyle Twomey and Mitch Hart for the later games of the weekend, and quickly yank Davis for a reliever if he gets into trouble.

This makes for a pretty good matchup for UVA in the first game, as much as a regional three seed could say that.  USC's lineup is good, and if you make a mistake they'll drill it and then steal their way to scoring position, but good pitching should also be able to quiet them down.  Davis allows opposing hitters to bat .297.  It might be fun to let Stahel walk just to see if it's true he comes from the run-til-you're-out school of baserunning, but really, he and Stubbs are the guys you want to send back to the dugout early.  USC won't pinch-hit much, if at all, so a good scouting report on the hitters they send up goes a long way.  A very plausible scenario is for UVA to beat USC on Friday and then lose to Dillon Tate on Saturday, so a possible return game on Sunday with the Trojans can be made easier by jumping on Davis very early and forcing the Trojans to burn some bullpen and neutralize somewhat the huge advantage they have on UVA in that department.

**Gillespie immediately found a job managing in short-season A ball and then went right back to college coaching, so you can read "retired" as "politely kicked out for some dumb reason."

#4 seed - San Diego State Aztecs

Conference: Mountain West
Record: 40-21 (19-10)
RPI: #76

C: Seby Zavala (.283-14-64)
1B: Andrew Brown (.299-1-31)
2B: Alan Trejo (.251-1-16)
3B: Ty France (.346-4-48)
SS: Danny Sheehan (.310-6-45)
LF: Spencer Thornton (.328-2-20)
CF: Steven Pallares (.341-8-47)
RF: Chase Calabuig (.320-1-25)
DH: Justin Wylie (.245-3-16)

SP: Bubba Derby (7-4, 3.35, 122 Ks)
SP: Mark Seyler (9-2, 2.80, 78 Ks)
SP: Marcus Reyes (7-3, 4.20, 45 Ks)
SP: Cody Thompson (4-4, 4.13, 66 Ks)

RP: C.J. Saylor (3-3, 4.86, 42 Ks)
RP: Brian Heldman (3-1, 3.44, 28 Ks)
RP: Brett Seeburger (1-0, 7.01, 26 Ks)
RP: Jacob Erickson (2-1, 3.14, 23 Ks)

Lineup notes: In the MWC tournament, SDSU lost the first game, then made a lineup shuffle that rotated Brown to DH, Wylie in LF, Thornton in RF, Calabuig in CF, and Pallares to 1B.  They kept on winning til they lifted a trophy, and stuck with that lineup the rest of the tourney.  I have no idea whether it'll stick this weekend.

This team, lineup-wise, isn't that different from USC.  Other than the musical chairs noted above, it's a stable lineup with a decent amount of power and solid contact.  Unlike the other three teams in the regional, with Newell, Stahel, and Matt Thaiss, they don't have an obvious elephant in the lineup, but there's good balance at the top and a very solid knack for getting on base.  Bunch of guys with double-digit HBP, and Chase Calabuig, who is not one of them, has 37 walks.

Is it a good enough lineup to touch up UCSB's rotation, though?  Eh....the MWC is a one-bid league, so evaluating their hitting always has to take that into account.  They likely won't get the pleasure of facing Dillon Tate, but we've been over this.  Whoever UCSB throws on Friday is probably better than anyone SDSU faced in-conference.

The Aztecs' pitching, though - eesh.  UCSB has the starters.  USC has the pen.  UVA has - well, some draftable talent, at least a star or two.  SDSU, though, probably has three pitchers you'd really trust in postseason play.  Bubba Derby is one; his 122 strikeouts are more than anyone else in this regional, but he knows how to find the dirt, too.  Mark Seyler is steadier and maybe more effective overall; it was Derby who was rocked in the MWC tourney opener.  Brian Heldman is OK out of the pen.  Jacob Erickson has the lowest ERA among regular relievers, but plunks a batter every four innings.

We've seen worse lineups from #4 seeds, and if they get it together all at once they could at least make it to Sunday.  But a pitching staff like this isn't winning any regionals, ever.

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

So, what's the strategy for UVA this weekend?  Settle in for story time.  When I was about, oh, 10, 11, or so, I was at summer camp playing some kind of organized tag or capture the flag or obstacle course game, whatever it was.  This camp had a creek at the bottom of a steeply sloped gully of sorts.  During the course of this game I was running pell-mell towards the creek and found myself there before I thought I'd get there, and then found myself sprinting just as fast down the gully.  Bit scary, but I decided my best chance of not tumbling ass over teakettle into the bottom was just to keep running and try to put my foot somewhere safe with each step.  If I tried to stop and go more deliberately, I'd definitely crash.  I ended up still upright at the bottom with enough momentum to get me halfway back up the other side before I had to do any real climbing work.

Why I remember this I don't know.  But this is pretty much how UVA has to approach this regional.  And BOC knows it.  He knows what he's doing with pitching staffs, and remember this is the guy that held Danny Hultzen for Saturday and let Robert Morey try to beat Stephen Strasburg.  He definitely believes in the rule that your ace goes in game 2 no matter what.  Not this year, though.  Connor Jones is throwing against USC, Brandon Waddell, presumably, gets the next call.  BOC has said, more or less, that Josh Sborz goes whenever he's needed.  We're going all out to win the first one and then the next one and so on - no chess matches.  The best chance we have is to go 3-0.  The longer this gets stretched out, the faster our chances swirl the drain.

Bigger-picture, this is a fascinating regional.  The top three seeds have RPIs of 20, 23, and 21.  The teams have a lot in common.  They play the college-ball style to various degrees - bunts and steals.  They all have good catchers who can nullify that game.  All but SDSU have a single big-time hitter surrounded by a solid supporting cast; SDSU just has a bit more balance at the top.  Oh, and the host is the second-farthest team from the stadium site, since they don't have lights of their own.  It'll feel more like a true neutral site, except that orange and blue probably won't be well-represented.  And the prize: a trip across town to play the national #1 seed, barring a wild upset.

And because 2009-all-over-again won't go away, if there is a wild upset, the likely beneficiary, and therefore the likely super-regional host if UVA pulls off this regional .... is Ole Miss.  Somewhere, Tim Weiser is cackling.

function and dysfunction

Let's tell a tale of two programs.

The baseball team - profiled last week as they kicked off a road sweep of the Tar Heels - has lifted themselves off the NCAA bubble and is looking at a probable 2 seed in the tourney.  They're just about out of contention in the ACC tournament after a bullpen meltdown against Miami - to get to the final they'll need to win out and hope Miami loses out - but even getting where they are now has been a pretty gutty performance.  Especially Tuesday, when they mercy-ruled Georgia Tech right out of Durham.

Sign of a healthy program.  (Figuratively speaking.)  They might've not made the ACC tournament at all.  Then they might've not made the pool play.  Instead, over a four-game stretch, they dominated against supposedly level competition.  The announcers during the UNC series couldn't stop talking about how UVA looked like a team ready for the postseason while UNC looked flat and uncompetitive.

It's a mindset, perpetuated by a coach who knows how, when, and why to push the buttons, and enabled by veterans with expectations.  There will be 16 regional hosts.  UVA will not be one, but one of them will be awfully chagrined to see the Hoos come to town.  And that doesn't mean UVA will be the favorite to come out of whatever regional, but if someone else does, they'll feel just a little like they dodged one.

There are, of course, obstacles, starting with that aforementioned bullpen.  It's thin because there are two starters laid up with injury and thus two guys who, in a four-game (or God forbid, five-game) regional, will be starting when ordinarily they wouldn't have.  The best shot we have is to just go 3-0; if it stretches out against the 1 seed, we'll run out of depth before they do.  But even in a down year, UVA commands respect with its play.

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

Contrast that to everyone's favorite facepalm inducer.  Remember, the football team went 5-7 last year.  That's bad, but on the surface, it's not that bad.  It's not like, Duke-under-Ted-Roof levels of walking, talking incompetence.  But that's what it feels like.

Normally a team with a pretty good share of upperclassmen coming off a 5-win season would be expected to improve and go bowling.  But if UVA's not picked last again in the Coastal by every observer from Boston to Miami, it'll be an upset.  This is a team that doesn't know how to succeed, coached by someone who just mashes the buttons randomly hoping to land a hit.  As you might've learned from playing Mortal Kombat growing up, that works just often enough to have you keep trying it.  Unless you're going against someone who knows what they're doing.  Then it just becomes a slaughter.

This week the dysfunction came erupting to the surface when two - two! - quarterbacks announced their intention to take the hell off.  One eventually stayed after a meeting with the coaches to "clear the air," or beg him to come back, or whatever.  The aftermath of all this saw two incredibly sobering facts come to light.  I can't take credit for either, but I repeat them here anyway:

-- 2011-2012 was the last time the UVA quarterback who started the last game of one season also started the first game of the next season.  It won't happen this year, making three offseasons in a row UVA has either benched or lost its previous starter.

-- Not one quarterback recruited by Mike London has finished his career at UVA as a quarterback.  Michael Strauss, Mike Rocco, David Watford, Phillip Sims, and Greyson Lambert all transferred out.  Brendan Marshall and Miles Gooch switched positions.  Jake McGee switched positions and transferred out.**  And Corwin Cutler had to be convinced to stay.

We'll see if Matt Johns can last two more years.  Nobody else left on the roster has ever thrown a college pass.

It's not really worth wasting much more time on the whole situation.  I had plans for a much longer diatribe, but there's no point anymore.  Either you already know Mike London is a complete drooling bungler when it comes to the subject of developing and managing quarterbacks, or you've got denial issues sort of the way Hitler insisted the war was still winnable in April 1945.  Some men you just can't reach.

Cutler's about-face doesn't really fix anything.  It's certainly helpful.  Johns has two years, free and clear, to do something with the job, after which Cutler will be badly needed if he fends off Nick Johns and Sonny Abramson.  Patience on Cutler's part gives him a chance to be The Future.  Assuming any or all of them stick around, which is no guarantee.  But Cutler is essentially a tool in the toolbox.  For a man who needs an instruction manual for a hammer, that's not much use.  Cutler stays, but so does the dysfunction, until the broom finally comes out.

**That might not be fair since he was never really recruited as a QB, but hey, while we're piling on, let's just point out that the only really good tight end London recruited did in fact transfer, which is not exactly a sign of a healthy program.

what the hell happened

That title could easily refer to the lacrosse debacle Sunday, but truth is, figuring that out would be a waste of words.  The same things that were wrong with UVA lacrosse all season (including, by the way, a seeming lack of interest from the coaching staff in fixing fundamental mistakes) were also wrong on Sunday, plus Matt Barrett made less than one save.  Barrett had been keeping the Hoos in games all season.  When headstands from the goalie were absent, the whole house of cards plopped to the ground ignominiously.

Nope, this is about baseball, which I've set a record for not talking about this year.  It's a little harder to follow this year because I refused to fork out real money for the amateurish production that is Cavaliers Live.  On the occasions when they've been on real TV, it's been painful to watch.  A team that was comfortably in the preseason top five now is not even a lock to be top ten in the 14-team conference - which would put them outside the ACC tournament.

It's very flattering that UVA has the kind of program where as long as you return enough players, your replacements are assumed to be good enough to carry you to the elite ranks again.  All the same, given the questions faced by the bullpen and the outfield this preseason, ultra-lofty expectations probably shouldn't have been thrust onto this team.  A top-25 selection would've made sense.

Once the injury bug got its hooks into this team, though, it never let go.  And it kept on biting during the season.  Joe McCarthy and Nathan Kirby are arguably the team's biggest star power.  McCarthy missed a huge chunk of the season with a back injury and has not at all returned to form since picking up a bat again.  Kirby was humming along very nicely (though not quite dominant, which was contributing a bit to the team's swoon) when his lats said "screw you buddy" and shut him down for the season.  Add John LaPrise - a .348 hitter last year - to that mix.  What that left us was just four of last year's starters - counting the pitching rotation - that didn't either get hurt or go pro.  Kenny Towns, Daniel Pinero, Brandon Waddell, and Josh Sborz.  That's it.

And then all the replacements got hurt, too.  Jack Gerstenmaier was on track for a starting job until his hamstring said nah.  Derek Casey had settled very nicely into the weekday starter's role when that went south on him, too.  Casey, in fact, was slated to move into the weekend job with Kirby just recently out of the lineup, and his start against Longwood on a Tuesday was supposed to be a shortish one so he could be ready that Sunday.  Ernie Clement, the usual starter at second base, missed a handful of games, and Matt Thaiss hasn't been able to help out with the catching, being limited to playing first base by a wonky hip.  (That said, Thaiss has been unquestionably the MVP at the plate this year.)

Here's the wacky little secret, though: This team isn't hitting that much worse than last year.  Last year's team?  Not overwhelming at the plate.  Good enough to win in front of the absurdly good pitching that propped it up.  It really feels like they're hitting worse, and maybe the better pitching in the postseason takes your numbers down some.  (That said, that's not really the case last year, not so's you'd notice.)

But, runs per game in 2015 is 5.39; in 2014 it was 5.48.  This year's slash line: .273/.360/.381.  Last year: .280/.375/.377.  Those aren't real differences.  A real difference would be as compared to 2013, where the bats pushed across 10.9 runs a game and batted .312/.408/.463.

Thing is, 2013 had that amazing hitting and decent pitching.  2014 had amazing pitching and decent hitting.  Both were enough to carry the team a long, long way.  This team has decent hitting and decent pitching.  Add a dash of not being so good in the clutch - real big surprise for a team relying much more heavily than usual on freshmen - and you get a team whose record is.... decent.

This all puts UVA in a funny place: the bubble.  For both the ACC and NCAA tournaments.  I'm not sure they can make the latter if they miss the former; the Hoos are trying to fend off Wake Forest for the final spot, although the conference is so tight this year that a whole bunch of higher seeds are in play.  (Which don't much matter, because 7 through 10 are all in the same boat.  They'll play one game to try and get to the pool play.)  Should the Hoos win their way into the ACC tourney, they ought to hear good news from the NCAA committee as well - though it'd come in the form of a 3 seed somewhere.  We'll take it.  Freshman experience and all that.  Next year, when the team has to stop putting a bunch of guys in roles they weren't meant to play (all those injuries wreaked absolute havoc on the rotation and bullpen, for example, and not just on the guys who can't go) things should be back to normal.

underneath a rock

That's where this comes to you from, if I had my way about it.  This will probably be short, which you don't deserve after two days of radio silence caused by me hanging on to the CWS finals and neurotically pausing the DVR for like 30 minutes at a time, racing forward, racing backward, and generally watching the games in a way totally unenvisioned by live TV viewers of 15 years ago.

It'll be short because I've never wanted to write anything less in my life**, and because my usual style is useless here.  Simply put, I haven't been so stung by a loss since the '09 Stanley Cup Finals, and that one sapped all hockey interest from me for months.  It lasted almost to the next year's playoffs.

It's the knowledge that it is incredibly damn hard to get back to this spot.  That's what haunted me then and that's what haunts me now.  And this: this was a team that absolutely deserved to win a national championship.  So much resilience, so many gritty performances, gone to waste for the want of any one of a thousand things that all went the wrong way.  And that's stinger #3 - knowing that UVa played so well that you could literally change just one event in either of two games and today would be a celebration.

Fact is, UVa generated five times the opportunities that Vanderbilt did.  And Vanderbilt cashed in on 100% of the chances they had, which makes all the difference when you only convert about 25% of your own - and makes it sting knowing you could've won by converting 26%.

Everybody hates hearing the losers say, "the better team lost," and especially anything about the officiating, but it's just so damn hard not to sometimes.  All it took to lose this series was one inning from hell, two rinky-dink garbage runs, and a well-timed towering blast.  Win 3/4 of the battles, lose the war.

And, by the way, no help from the umpires.  When you complain about the umpires, people usually jump in and say, "that's not why we lost," proceed to lament missed opportunities, and the argument goes on as if the two positions are mutually exclusive.  They're not.  Yes, not scoring on uncountable RISP opportunities is pretty much the reason for all this - that doesn't make the umpires suddenly good.  I don't have the stomach or patience for this kind of exercise - at least not right now - but it wouldn't be hard to put together a video of the apparently octopus-shaped strike zone from home plate blue last night.  Josh Sborz left after one inning in large part because he didn't get the shin-high, three-foot-wide strike zone that Carson Fulmer did.  And then the zone got even less consistent as time went on.  Did you notice ESPN's "K Zone" at all from about the 6th inning onward?  You did not.  And - I'm aware of the "transfer rule" but that was one of the most egregiously bad applications of it that ever existed.  Had Derek Fisher been called safe - well, you always have to be careful about declaring what would've happened afterwards, because then some coach or pitcher or someone would've made a different decision.  But the sequence that followed - a balk and a hit - at least makes it more likely that you can say it made a difference.  The announcers were unanimous in calling that a huge break.

I know we'll have most of this pitching staff back next year, but seriously - it's gonna take a little while before I care.  This team is the one that got away.  There's only one thing that can fix this - you know what that is, but it's a fan luxury to just be able to reset every year and hope for it.  There's a few pro careers beginning soon for guys that missed their one chance.

**Though I've also rarely felt so obligated.

de-frogger

The new park in Omaha, I think somewhat purposefully, was built to encourage pitchers' duels.  Low-scoring games offer the best drama baseball has to offer, and that means ratings and so on.  So it came as a little bit of a surprise to me that 2012 and 2013 produced no walk-off wins in the College World Series.  The last walk-off win belongs to South Carolina, against, you'll probably remember, UVa.

Armed with that knowledge, I may have been incorrect when I said Vengeance Tour '14 would have to come to a quick end for UVa to do anything worth doing in Omaha.  Having been the victim of the last CWS walk-off, the Hoos appear bound and determine to wreak that emotional havoc upon all who get in their way.  They toyed with Ole Miss, leaving runner after runner stranded in scoring position just to give the one-hit Rebels a fighting chance; then, TCU fans no doubt thinking (not incorrectly) that they had a great shot by throwing their ace starter, shutdown closer, and best middle reliever, the Hoos yanked the rug out again.  No doubt this is all out of long-simmering rage over being booted out of the 13th inning the last time we saw this city.

Baseball becomes the second UVa team this year to reach heights it's never achieved, following in the footsteps of women's tennis.  The Hoos will finish no worse than tied for third in the CWS, as two more teams will be shown the door before UVa plays its next game.  This is not to focus on the negative, though; this team has positioned itself to play for the national championship, and has three more wins to the dogpile.  They've taken the best shots that two of the best teams in the country had to offer; they one-hit the best-hitting team in the tourney and outpitched the (supposedly) best-pitching team in it.  Perhaps it was no accident that UVa was the highest-seeded team in town.  The story of the underdog favorite is a hackneyed one, but it's still fun if it's your own boys.

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

-- TCU's Cody Jones got the lion's share of the highlights for his diving catch, and it was a really nice one, but clearly, Brandon Downes had the more important web gem.  Runners at the corners and one down for TCU could've been devastating.  Instead the threat was snuffed out.  And by the way, I don't actually disagree with the TCU baserunner's decision to try for third.  "Never make the first or third out at third base" is a maxim that also implies the second out is forgivable.  And I'm usually a fan of the idea of forcing the outfielder to make a really good throw.  Usually they can't.

-- Whit Mayberry's outing was vintage Whit Mayberry.  He doesn't have the stuff that Howard or Lewicki have, and he doesn't have the control that Waddell has, but Jeebus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker does that dude battle.  Branden Kline is the only guy in recent memory I can think of who brought that much of an "I don't care how but I'm'a get this mufka out" mindset to the mound.  Nobody's gonna get this analogy, but he reminds me a little bit of a right-handed Mike Maroth.  That's a compliment even though I just compared Mayberry to the last 20-game loser in the majors.  I think he could make a really good pitching coach once his pro career is over.

-- UVa actually has a little bit of an advantage that Vanderbilt - the other 2-0 team - does not have.  Both UVa and Vandy next play on Friday.  Irvine and Texas are playing tonight, and the winner will have a day of rest before playing Vandy.  All four elimination-game teams got a rest day before that game, but TCU and Ole Miss will have to play us the day after their game.  It goes without saying that we're looking for another marathon.

-- Baseball generates all kinds of really interesting facts.  UVa has now played in the two longest games in TD Ameritrade CWS history.  Nine whole innings were played without a run, spanning over three hours; the equivalent of a full scoreless game.  UVa didn't have a single runner in between the two that scored to bookend that stretch.  It was tied for the longest game in CWS history in any stadium.

-- Bring on the Friday rematch.  You know I'm gonna like our pitching depth against anything either the Rebs or Frogs will have.

acc you later

Maryland has some competitors in the upcoming women's track and field NCAA championships, but, whatever.  They'll run or jump or whatever they do and it won't make a ripple.  For all real intents and purposes, UVA just closed the book on 60-ish years of Maryland and the ACC.  You can leave the exit fee right there in the clubhouse.  Cash only, please, no checks.

Last time the Hoos tripped out to Omaha, major drama was involved.  No such doings this time.  UVA took Maryland's best shot, reeled a tiny bit, and then let slip the dogs of war.  The most meaningful run Maryland would score in games 2 and 3 was a single scratch-out against Brandon Waddell on Sunday, tying game 2 at 1 run each; UVA got that one right back the next chance they got and the Terps would from then on score only too late.  I guess going from 6-0 to 6-2 counts as a miniature rally, but Nick Howard needed exactly one pitch to snuff it and by the time he returned to the hill, he'd been given five more runs to work with.  Not that he needed it; just a little something to put the home crowd in a good mood.

It should worry UVA's Omaha opponents that the Hoos won these games without major contributions from their best players.  Nathan Kirby pitched very eh on Friday, and was still almost bailed out.  Nick Howard didn't even throw until game 3, then threw one pitch of any import and then, well, it's not like he was the only guy who could've protected that nine-run lead.  Mike Papi came to the plate in the 8th on Monday, with his team already ridiculously comfortable in their lead, and the announcers pointed out he was the only one not to reach base that night.  (And then he hit a double.)

The CWS field is now set, of course, with UVA learning their opponent about 15 minutes after getting up from the dogpile.  That will be Ole Miss.  Vengeance Tour '14 is now flipped on its head, with Mississippi awaiting in Omaha and UC-Irvine on the other side of the bracket, and let's hope the revenge trail has gone cold.  The Rebs are several steps up from the kind of competition UVA has faced so far.  That game will be Sunday in prime time.  Halfway there, folks.

More stuff:

-- The CWS schedule meshes just beautifully with the World Cup.  UVA plays on the 15th; USA vs. Ghana is a day later.  USA vs. Portugal is the 22nd, which happens to be the day in between the "if necessaries" for the double-elimination round and the start of the best-of-three; USA vs. Germany is the day after Game 3.

-- I absolutely need to single out Joe McCarthy because his 3rd-inning base hit was pure hit-and-run perfection.  The ball skipped merrily through the exact spot that had been recently vacated by the base-covering shortstop.

-- Last weekend the regional announcer said that this was a much more athletic UVA team than ones he'd seen in the past.  After seeing some of the leaps to the top of the dogpile, I believe it.

-- Is there a worse feeling in baseball than leaving your glove on the wrong side of the fence and then having to chase down an eventual triple?   That has to be even worse than if the ball had landed over the fence too.

-- I don't know whether 17 hits is the more amazing stat, or 15 singles.

-- Omaha and a basketball title (and the Sweet 16) in one year; not too shabby.

weekend review

Well, that turned out to be not so hard.  It was no great shock that Bucknell presented little challenge, but even knowing about Arkansas's struggles at the plate it was a little surprising the ease with which UVA dispatched them.  It was the blueprint of a regional weekend from start to finish: Hold back your ace and let him dominate a Saturday pitching battle after you blow out the 4 seed on Friday.  Then force the one-loss survivor to stretch their pitching just past the breaking point.  Arkansas starter Zach Jackson broke down exactly at the point where he'd reached his single-game maximum pitches and innings count.

UVA outscored their opponents 22-3 on the weekend, which you can't do unless the bats get off the schneid some.  Hallelujah.  Much was helped, to be sure, by the frying-pan mitts on the left side of Arky's infield, both Saturday and Sunday.  (Irrelevant side note: the Razorback shortstop shares both a name and some facial resemblence with the villain in my favorite episode of NCIS.)  It's often said, though, that you can't give a good team like UVA four or five outs an inning, and the Hoos sniffed blood and pounced like a championship team should.

Even so, pitching carried the day.  The starters went more than 20 innings - I forget the exact amount but, y'know, a lot - without allowing a run.  Not even an unearned one.  What a tremendous advantage that is.  It'd take a really unusual set of circumstances to lose the regional after that.  I mean, Nathan Kirby.  This guy, man.  Be honest: did you ever feel like his three-run lead was anything less than perfectly safe?

UVA advances to take on Maryland, and in doing so becomes the bad guy in a feel-good story about a plucky little underdog trying to do things it's never done before.  Maryland knocked off regional host South Carolina in extremely convincing fashion, making this guy look incredibly stupid in the process.  Well, even stupider than you would when your only argument for why teams are bad is that they used to be.  At any rate, if the Hoos eliminate the Terps this weekend,

More bullety stuff:

-- Nate Irving had one of the oddest at-bats in recent memory.  First a "foul ball" that actually glanced off the catcher's glove (it wasn't the best weekend for umpiring, to be honest) and then a real and very unlucky foul ball that flew to the wrong side of the hitter and somehow hit the upraised bat.

-- I really do not know how the same shortstop can make a Web Gem-nominated play in between two utterly pitiful ones.  But I'll take it.  The pitiful ones led to runs and the brilliant stop was worth the out just to watch it.

-- The camera crew only showed Zach Jackson twice after his removal from the game, which is a step in the right direction - away from the usual puzzling desire to soak up as much despair from losing athletes as possible.  I don't like the gleeful broadcasting of some poor guy's misery.  But was it necessary to follow BOC's teenaged daughter all around the stadium?  Yes, I'm sure she's a nice girl and happy birthday and all, now leave her be, once is plenty.  The production truck could theoretically be called a windowless van, but you don't have to act like it.

-- I like that if we're going to bunt, we play a little Irvine baseball and hold the bat in bunting position even before the pitcher winds up.  The whole point of a pitcher is to not let the hitter do what he wants to do, so I honestly think that holding the bat like that makes the pitcher subconsciously want to miss the bat with his pitch.... which means missing the strike zone too.

-- Arkansas brought in their sidearm pitcher and it's a shame we didn't have some righties to face him because he seemed to think the strike zone was about two feet north and east of where it really was, and would've plunked the bases loaded if the hitters hadn't been lefties.

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

-- The ACC unveiled its new logo last week.  I don't hate it; I might even start to like it.  I just think it's funny that they're still ganking the Big East's assets.

The booklet is a little silly, though.  Actually, it's a lot silly.  "The ACC brand simplifies purchase decision for fans and partners of the ACC."  Is that even English?  They're English words, I'm sure of that, but they don't fit together to make an English sentence.  "The lettering is accentuated by a bold, silver underline that symbolizes the ACC’s journey toward a bright future."  All the schools have the logo rendered in their own colors, though, and Duke's and NC State's underlines are black.  Should those schools be worried about the future?  I know this, though: the sentence "The ACC's future is really bright, and you can tell because their logo has a silver underline" is one that has never been uttered or written in human history and never will again.**

It's a frickin' logo, man.  It's nice.  But it's just a logo.  Your brand is what other people think you are (they even admit as much in the little book) so you can't just go telling people what it is and expect it to stick.  I wish they'd put half the effort into fixing the website; right now, "clueless about technology" is more a part of their brand than "confident yet humble."

**Unless someone gets smartassy in the comments.

-- I've parsed this article about the SEC's "Division IV" threat several times and cannot for the life of me figure out the difference between this Division IV thing and the autonomy the five conferences want.  The message seems to be "Let us do what we want, or we'll do what we want."  Actually, the timing of this public airing, and its message, what it really seems to say is "we're close to locking up the support we need for this autonomy thing, but we need to scare a few more people into compliance."

charlottesville regional preview

So approaches one of the best weekends of the year.  It's hard to top Thanksgiving weekend, and the first two rounds of the basketball tournament make a strong case too, but this one has a few huge advantages over the basketball one:

-- Better weather
-- More games
-- UVA always gets to host

I guess not always, but this is, what, like, the fifth year in a row?  It's cool if you lost count.  The last time UVA didn't was 2009, which itself was considered a down year or would have been if it didn't put figurative banners on the outfield fences.

UVA drew a revenge tour of sorts, with Arkansas coming to Charlottesville as a regional 2 seed and South Carolina in the opposite regional.  The Arkansas loss was a while ago - yup, 2009 - and it still stirred the pot on the Sabre boards when some asshole of a Tigers fan pointed out that Drew Smyly was pitching for the Tigers opposite Sean Doolittle, in last years ALDS.  (Who on earth would do that, I wonder.)  And if South Carolina doesn't make it out of their region, the two seed is Maryland.

Here's what the Hoos face at Davenport this fine season:

Arkansas Razorbacks

Conference: SEC
Record: 38-23 (16-14)
RPI: 33

Lineup:

C: Alex Gosser (.273-0-2)
1B: Eric Fisher (.265-9-43)
2B: Brian Anderson (.311-6-49)
3B: Bobby Wernes (.225-0-17)
SS: Michael Bernal (.251-2-18)
LF: Joe Serrano (.299-0-21)
CF: Andrew Benintendi (.282-1-26)
RF: Tyler Spoon (.258-3-36)
DH: Clark Eagan (.311-2-11)

Lineup notes:

-- DH Eagan, a lefty hitter, platoons with the right-handed Krisjon Wilkerson (.255-1-11.)

-- Gosser is a very-late-season replacement for Arkansas's top two catchers, Jake Wise and Blake Baxendale.  Wise is the regular catcher but suffered a concussion a few weeks ago, and Baxendale hurt his hamstring.  Gosser was supposed to be redshirting this year but was forced into action just before the SEC tournament.  It's possible Wise gets back into the game this weekend; he's an utterly horrendous hitter but also a senior at a position where Arkansas otherwise has only freshmen.

Starting rotation:

RHP Chris Oliver (8-4, 2.45, 55 Ks)
RHP Trey Killian (4-8, 2.18, 61 Ks)
LHP Colin Poche (3-1, 3.00, 28 Ks)
RHP Alex Phillips (3-0, 3.52, 17Ks)

Bullpen:

LHP Michael Gunn (4-2, 0.84, 31 Ks, 7 saves)
RHP Jacob Stone (4-0, 0.99, 29 Ks)
RHP Zach Jackson (2-2, 1.80, 39 Ks)
LHP Jalen Beeks (5-4, 2.11, 59 Ks)
RHP Jackson Lowery (1-1, 4.55, 30 Ks)
RHP Dominic Taccolini (2-0, 5.81, 16 Ks)

No doubt about it: Arkansas is a team a lot like ours.  Great pitching, good solid fielding, questionable bats.  More questionable than our own, actually, accounting for their middling record in-conference and their ace's poor win total.  Not many bats that you worry about hurting you.

The top name in that regard is 2B Brian Anderson, who brings a very good combination of skills to the plate that has the big leagues reasonably interested.  He can hit for power and average and has decent speed as well.  1B Eric Fisher is more of a boom or bust hitter, with more strikeouts than Anderson and a middling average, but nearly as many total bases.  Other names of some note: CF Andrew Benintendi has 15 SBs in 19 attempts and possesses six more walks than strikeouts (24 to 18); RF Tyler Spoon is only batting .258 but has some pop when he connects, and hasn't made an error all season.

It's the Razorback pitching staff that will carry them, though.  Arkansas will use Saturday pitcher Chris Oliver against Liberty, so, if they're UVA's Saturday opponent, the Hoos will almost certainly face sophomore ace Trey Killian.  Killian isn't an overpowering strikeout pitcher, but he does get his share; he has excellent control and pitches deep into games, averaging 7 innings a start and turning in four CGs this year.

Arkansas also has a very deep bullpen; their top three options (Gunn, Stone, and Jackson) have opponent BAs of .177 or less.  They may add former starter Jalen Beeks there; Beeks held down Sundays for the Razorbacks this year but ran into elbow troubles, scratching him from the rotation and shutting him down the past three weeks.  If he returns it's expected to be in the pen, thinning out the rotation slightly should Arkansas require four or five games.  Colin Poche and Alex Phillips have mainly been weekday starters until Beeks's injury.  Arkansas also tried Dominic Taccolini as a starter near the end of the season, but he got knocked around some.

If UVA plays Arkansas on Saturday, expect a low-scoring affair, obviously.  It's the kind of game that's the reason why Brian O'Connor wants his team to be able to bunt.  Nathan Kirby will pitch for UVA on Saturday, most likely, and Kirby vs. Killian would be a heck of a matchup.

Liberty Flames

Conference: Big South
Record: 41-16 (23-3)
RPI: 30

Lineup:

C: Danny Grauer (.262-7-40)
1B: Alex Close (.324-8-45)
2B: Ryan Seiz (.362-12-42)
3B: Dylan Allen (.258-0-15)
SS: Dalton Britt (.300-0-34)
LF: Nick Lacik (.234-0-20)
CF: Ashton Perritt (.273-2-23)
RF: Will Shepherd (.281-1-23)
DH: Becker Sankey (.222-2-26)

Lineup notes:

-- It's a pretty consistent lineup, the only interloper being OF Andrew Yacyk (.250-4-18) who, when he starts, is generally in left field but can also play right field and first base.

Starting rotation:

RHP Trey Lambert (11-2, 2.10, 66 Ks)
RHP Parker Bean (7-2, 2.71, 77 Ks)
LHP Blake Fulghum (4-3, 3.16, 40 Ks)
LHP Jared Lyons (2-4, 3.29, 55 Ks)

Bullpen:

RHP Ashton Perritt (1-2, 1.58, 22 Ks, 12 saves)
LHP Shawn Clowers (9-0, 0.89, 46 Ks)
RHP Matt Marsh (2-0, 0.54, 41 Ks)

Any hope Liberty had of hosting a regional disappeared for good when they couldn't make it through the conference tournament, and the Big South became a two-bid league but Liberty likely dropped at least one regional seed.  This team is still a tough out, though, and ought to provide a good test for Arkansas in the Friday evening game.

You always have to account for mid-major quality of play when looking at mid-major statistics, but it's a little amazing Louisville couldn't find a place for Ryan Seiz, who transferred to Liberty after not being able to get on the field much in two seasons for the Cardinals.  (Then again, Louisville is also hosting a regional, so it's not like they have an unfillable hole in their lineup.)  Seiz is a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy (baseball's Heisman) because he's a fearsome hitter, slugging .612 on the season with 12 homers and 16 doubles.

Liberty also has plenty of power residing in Alex Close (8 HRs) and Danny Grauer (7 HRs.)  Close and Seiz form the heart of the lineup.  Based on the competition level it's probably a safe bet that lesser-hitting players such as Becker Sankey really aren't much of a threat, or that Andrew Yacyk's tendency to swing at every damn pitch will carry over (2 walks, 25 Ks) but overall this still might be a better lineup than Arkansas's; they'll have probably the best two hitters on the field.

The Flames also have a pretty solid pitching staff.  Trey Lambert has been tabbed the starter against Arkansas, meaning UVA would probably face the freshman, Parker Bean.  Bean has pitched well; he doesn't go nearly as deep into the game as Lambert, but misses quite a few more bats.  Should UVA meet Liberty later on, the pitcher may be senior lefty Blake Fulghum, who's made it through with decent numbers despite being pretty hittable.  The bullpen has some excellent players but is short on depth.  Closer Ashton Perritt (who doubles as the Flames' regular center fielder), plus lefty Shawn Clowers and righty long reliever Matt Marsh, have combined to allow 12 ER in over 113 innings of work.  Beyond that, nobody's tossed more than 12 innings this season.

Some might complain that Liberty is too good of a regional 3 seed for the national 3 seed to have in their bracket, but partly this is due to geography (quite a bit, really) and then also, the better 1 seeds are supposed to have good 3 seeds if you follow the S-curve.  Liberty would be a tough out in the second game, but then, Arkansas will find them a tough out first.  It's interesting that this is the second year in a row where the 3 seed has brought a big mashing infielder to Charlottesville (Elon had Ryan Kinsella last year, he of the 20-homer season) and this Liberty-Arkansas game is precisely the advantage handed to the 1 seed.  Someone gotta lose, and if all goes well those two will get nice and familiar with each other.  

Bucknell Bison

Conference: Patriot League
Record: 30-19 (15-5)
RPI: 111

Lineup:

C: Justin Meier (.158-0-10)
1B: Rob Krentzman (.250-1-20)
2B: Joe Ogren (.324-0-28)
3B: Sam Clark (.223-0-15)
SS: Greg Wasikowski (.196-0-6)
LF: Danny Rafferty (.256-0-9)
CF: Brett Smith (.303-0-15)
RF: Anthony Gingerelli (.312-5-27)
DH: Jon Mayer (.229-2-23)

Lineup notes:

-- Those numbers above ought to convey how much Bucknell misses outfielder Corey Furman; he was hitting .388 before an injury ended his season, and he still leads the team in triples with five.

-- There's a lot of interchangeability there; Ogren could play the outfield as well as 2B, in which case Alex O'Neill (.217-0-9) would play second.  Either Mayer or Meier will catch.  Bucknell's other options at DH aren't any better, though.

Starting rotation:

RHP Bryson Hough (8-3, 4.37, 43 Ks)
LHP Dan Weigel (7-5, 2.94, 46 Ks)
RHP Andrew Andreychik (5-4, 3.56, 46 Ks)

Bullpen:

RHP Tucker Rekucki (0-1, 3.60, 18 Ks, 6 saves)
LHP Xavier Hammond (3-5, 3.34, 44 Ks)
RHP Max Kra (3-0, 3.19, 16 Ks)
LHP Mike Castellani (3-0, 1.61, 19 Ks)
RHP Tom Hrabchak (1-0, 1.57, 11 Ks)

I should've realized this game was coming; the last time the Patriot League champ wasn't UVA's Friday opponent in Charlottesville was 2010.  In fact, of all the regionals played in Charlottesville in the BOC era (which is also all the regionals UVA's ever hosted) only 2004 and 2010 brought in someone other than the PL champ as the 4 seed.  Bucknell is a relatively familiar opponent, too; UVA's hosted them for weekend series occasionally in the recent past, including 2009 and 2013.

They might also be the weakest PL champ we've faced in recent memory.  Army last year had Chris Rowley to throw at us, who was able to keep the game close.  Bucknell has no such ace pitcher.  UVA is expected to face the righty, Bryson Hough.  They also have an anemic lineup.  There are three .300 hitters in it, which is more than Arkansas can say, but, Patriot League pitching.  And (leaving out Corey Furman) the gap between the third-best hitter (Brett Smith, .303) and the fourth-best (Danny Rafferty, .256) is huge.

UVA will send Artie Lewicki to the mound against Bucknell; Lewicki, since coming back from arm trouble, has breezed past weekday opponents and recorded a 1.99 ERA.  This is the same level of competition, if not worse.  I suspect BOC sees this as sending his third-best pitcher out, which is a terrific luxury; even teams that subscribe to the second-day-ace theory (which is many of them) usually put their Saturday guy on the hill to start things off.  We're casually tossing our weekday guy.

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

In the big picture, Bucknell is an extremely winnable game, but, it's also absolutely necessary to win, because you don't want to get into a loser's bracket with Arkansas or Liberty, both of whom represent a slightly higher degree of difficulty than the national three seed ought to have earned.  I don't expect much trouble on Friday though.  If UVA is going to lose this regional, it'll happen by losing on Saturday and then failing to claw back.  If (presumably) Kirby gets enough run support on Saturday, though, Brandon Waddell is better than anyone the other three teams can toss out there against us on Sunday.  I don't have a preference between the 2 and 3 seeds, and therefore no Friday evening rooting interest except for the obvious 50-inning game that finishes up with a 24-23 win for someone.  I just hope against hope, as does everyone, that the bats pick this weekend to break out of hibernation.

weekend review

Just bullets this week.  I didn't bother springing for a weekend's worth of Wake Forest's version of Cavaliers Live so I saw no baseball.  I'm not even sure if I'll spring for Cavaliers Live itself next year - the production was so utterly amateurish this year that paying $6.95 a month feels like a huge rip-off.  Why pay money to people who can't even be bothered to fix a camera that shakes unstoppably?  But I digress.

-- Baseball just missed the chance to go through the whole season never losing a series, dropping the rubber game against Wake Forest.  Bummer.  And it knocked the Hoos off their #1 ranking perch.  That cements us as the 3 seed in the ACC tournament - and for the record, no 3 seed has ever made the championship game since round-robin pool play began.  (Yes, it's still pool-play instead of the double-elimination they trumpeted - I guess they were too embarrassed to put out a release about the backtrack.)  UVA plays Maryland, UNC or NC State, and then Florida State.  No, there is no Virginia Tech.  Just puttin' that out there.

-- The ACC announced its all-conference teams, and the list of Hoos is extremely long.  Nate Kirby is co-pitcher of the year, and joining him on the first team are Brandon Cogswell, Nick Howard, Joe McCarthy, and Mike Papi.  Nate Irvin, Brandon Waddell, and Daniel Pinero are third team.  But the most interesting of all, I think, is Brian O'Connor's stranglehold on Coach of the Year.  Four times now in the last five seasons.  Impressive.

-- Tack on another ACC championship for the rowing team, their fifth in a row.  Swept all four races.  They aren't the favorite for the national title, but hey, you never know, and regardless they'll score a pile of Director's Cup points.

-- Speaking of NCAA titles, two of three UVA teams survived the weekend.  Women's tennis bowed out in the quarterfinals, but men's tennis is in the semis against top-seeded USC - always a tough team to beat - and women's lax upset 3rd-seeded UNC (woo) to get to the Final Four against 2-seed Syracuse.

-- Probably the most newsworthy event out of Amelia Island last week, besides that already covered last Monday, is the 30-second shot clock experiment that the conference will try.  I have mixed feelings on that.  On the plus side, people assume that a faster-paced game is bad for slowball teams like UVA, but it's really just the opposite.  If it's so hard to score on UVA in 35 seconds, it'll be even harder in 30.  But - the best thing about the college game is that it's different from the NBA game.  That sounds like damnation with faint praise, but it's not.  The shorter the shot clock, the greater the homogenization of styles, and it's that clash of styles that makes the college game so interesting.

-- Former swim & dive head coach Mark Bernardino is no longer unemployed, having found a job as "associate head coach" at South Carolina.  USC-e is a bottom-of-the-barrel program in the SEC and should stand to benefit quite a bit from the presence of such an accomplished coach.  Getting a job is a funny thing to do for a guy who retired; it lends credence to the folks insisting it wasn't his idea to leave.