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.
Showing posts with label bernardino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bernardino. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2014
Monday, July 15, 2013
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.
-- 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.
Monday, July 1, 2013
the school: Syracuse
Today is July 1, 2013. If you've temporarily forgotten the importance of the day, it's the first of a Brave New ACC that includes three new members: Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame. (If you wanted to forget, apologies. Understandable, but realities demand that a Brave New World requires a Brave New ACC.)
Since recruit profiles are a standard around here, I thought it only fitting to do the same for the new conference recruits as well. This week, we'll take a detailed look at each of the new additions to the conference and how well they'll compete in each sport that they sponsor. And since we always do the recruit ones in order that they committed, the same is true of the schools. Syracuse and Pitt "committed" on the same day, but then, Syracuse actually was set to join eight or nine years ago, when the ACC "pulled their offer" and invited VT instead. So we do the Orange first.
Overall profile
Enrollment (undergrad):
1. Florida State: 31,800
2. Maryland: 26,800
3. NC State: 26,200
4. Virginia Tech: 23,900
5. North Carolina: 18,600
6. Pittsburgh: 18,400
7. Clemson: 16,600
8. Virginia: 15,800
9. Syracuse: 14,800
10. Georgia Tech: 14,500
11. Miami: 10,300
12. Boston College: 9,100
13. Notre Dame: 8,400
14. Duke: 6,500
15. Wake Forest: 4,800
Academic rank (USN&WR):
1. Duke (#8)
2. Notre Dame (#17)
3. Virginia (#24)
4. Wake Forest (#27)
5. North Carolina (#30)
6. Boston College (#31)
7. Georgia Tech (#36)
8. Miami (#44)
9(t). Syracuse (#58)
9(t). Maryland (#58)
9(t). Pittsburgh (#58)
12. Clemson (#68)
13. Virginia Tech (#72)
14. Florida State (#97)
15. NC State (#106)
Director's Cup average:**
1. North Carolina: 6.2
2. Florida State: 9
3. Virginia: 10.6
4. Duke: 12
5. Notre Dame: 18.4
6. Maryland: 28.8
7. Virginia Tech: 40
8. Clemson: 50.8
9. Syracuse: 54
10. Miami: 56.4
11. Georgia Tech: 59.6
12. NC State: 60.2
13. Boston College: 67.6
14. Wake Forest: 70.8
15. Pittsburgh: 115.6
**average finish in the last five years, including 2013.
Overall, Syracuse fits very neatly into the average ACC profile, which is likely part of the reason they were originally a prime candidate for invitation in the first round of expansion. In terms of size, UVA is the median school in the conference; Syracuse is just slightly below. They're also just slightly below the median in the academic rankings, a spot of no shame really, and the same is true for their Director's Cup placement. Come to think of it, these guys are 9th out of 15 in all three categories, which should hold roughly true when Maryland is swapped out for Louisville as well. They're sort of the like the least-interesting-number paradox in their rankings here.
Sports we play that they don't
Men:
Baseball
Golf
Swimming
Tennis
Wrestling
Women:
Golf
Swimming
Sports they play that we don't
Men:
Rowing
Women:
Ice hockey
Men's rowing isn't really an NCAA sport, but the Cuse does lend more support to their men's club than UVA does. At least as far as giving them a space on the official website. Syracuse is quite a bit Title IX-skewed, with only seven men's programs and eleven for women - and really, six men's programs because rowing isn't NCAA-sponsored.
In particular, there are three things that we do particularly well that they don't at all: baseball, swimming, and men's tennis. The women's ice hockey program is fairly new, despite the fact that upstate New York is as much a hockey hotbed as a lacrosse one. Anyway, hockey isn't an ACC sport.
Common sports
(The number after each year shows how many Director's Cup points were earned by that sport in that year.)
Men's basketball
2008-2009: 64 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 64 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 50 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 73 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 0)
Total: 334 (UVA 25)
Syracuse's hoops team needs little introduction. Under Jim Boeheim, who's coached there since 1976, that's been one of that school's major calling cards. Actually, the five-year cutoff here just misses out on a two-season NIT run, but whatever. Since then they've earned two #1 seeds in the tournament and made the Final Four this year - ironically, in their worst-seeded year of any of these five (a 4 seed.) Their addition makes the ACC significantly tougher. The Orange are simply on a higher plane here than UVA is, until proven otherwise.
Women's basketball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 25)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 25 (UVA 0)
Totals: 25 (UVA 75)
On the other hand, the women's teams ought to compete on a much more even keel. Perhaps to drive home the point, UVA and Cuse played in San Juan, PR, this past season, and the final score was a one-point Cuse win. UVA hasn't sniffed the NCAA tournament in three years, while Cuse just got there for the first time in quite a while this season. Before that they were WNIT-level, though almost always with a strong performance there. It's fair to say, though, that the Syracuse team is on the upswing while UVA's has some recovery work to do, as the Hoos didn't play after the ACC tournament this year.
Men's cross country:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 48)
2009-2010: 48 (UVA 45)
2010-2011: 48 (UVA 40)
2011-2012: 45 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 60 (UVA 61.5)
Totals: 201 (UVA 194.5)
This is one of the sports that the NCAA sets up with regional qualifiers (golf being another example) and Syracuse is in a different one than UVA. So, while they'll be new faces at the ACC meets, the road to NCAA qualification is different. Syracuse won the Big East championship here in their final year and went on to finish 15th at the NCAAs; UVA was a place above them at 14th. Like UVA, the Orange should be a tough competitor in the ACC, but again like UVA, might have trouble getting over the hump to earn a conference championship.
Women's cross country:
2008-2009: 18 (UVA 22)
2009-2010: 38 (UVA 45)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 32)
2011-2012: 40 (UVA 34)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 156 (UVA 133)
Similar to UVA, the women's program is a little less strong than the men's. Both teams can usually send runners to the national meet, but not as many as the men do, and both failed to make it there this year.
Field hockey:
2008-2009: 83 (UVA 60)
2009-2010: 60 (UVA 83)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 83)
2011-2012: 60 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 60)
Totals: 346 (UVA 286)
In terms of Director's Cup points, field hockey is typically a cash cow sport for both schools. Syracuse's addition makes this a seven-team conference, added to UVA, Wake, BC, Duke, Maryland, and UNC. The latter two are the thorn in our side, having shared most of the recent national championships between themselves, while Wake had a three-year run from 2002-2004. UVA typically always makes the four-team ACC tournament and then loses to either Maryland or UNC, having never won an ACC championship. Syracuse will join the conference at just about that level, and while that'll make it hard for Wake, BC, and Duke to find their way into the tournament, UVA will find the tournament an even tougher road than before.
Football:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 45 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 45 (UVA 0)
Totals: 90 (UVA 25)
Part of the reason football is so frustrating is that it's not that hard to earn Director's Cup points. All you have to do is make a bowl game. You don't even have to win it. Half the teams in the country are earning a cool and easy 25 points and half of those teams are breezing their way to 45 points and we're playing in la-la loser land. The other thing is, though, that making a bowl might be harder for Syracuse now that their schedule will get a degree of difficulty boost. Tying for the Big East title this past year was worth the Pinstripe Bowl, which is a pretty good indicator of the conference's quality, Louisville aside. The Pinstripe, in fact, is where the Cuse has gone in the two recent years they've been to a bowl - the fruits of Doug Marrone's efforts in reviving the program after the disastrous Greg Robinson tenure. With Marrone off to coach the Buffalo Bills, though, the program under Scott Shafer may or may not continue to gain ground. It'll be tough, playing FSU and Clemson every year.
Men's lacrosse:
2008-2009: 100 (UVA 83)
2009-2010: 25 (UVA 83)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 100)
2011-2012: 25 (UVA 60)
2012-2013: 90 (UVA 0)
Totals: 300 (UVA 326)
I mean, do you really need this part explained to you? The only thing worth mentioning here that you shouldn't already know is that UVA was the only ACC team to put Syracuse on their regular schedule, so as good as Syracuse is at this stuff, their addition is actually a net plus for us, since we're the only team that doesn't have to add them to the schedule.
Women's lacrosse:
2008-2009: 60 (UVA 25)
2009-2010: 83 (UVA 60)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 25)
2011-2012: 90 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 70)
Totals: 316 (UVA 205)
They're almost as good at this, too. And the gap between our men's team and our women's is larger than theirs. DC scores of 83 represent years a team went to the final four, and 90s mean they lost in the championship game. So other than the one year where they klutzed out of the NCAA tournament without an invite (which can happen to anyone amirite?) the women's team at Syracuse is a formidable opponent with a formidable history.
Rowing:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 80)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 100)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 63)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 100)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 75)
Totals: 0 (UVA 418)
Syracuse crew is not a major player on the national scene, having last been invited to the NCAA championships in 2005. They're not a threat to UVA's ACC dominance in this sport.
Men's soccer:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 100)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 25)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 64 (UVA 50)
Totals: 64 (UVA 250)
Historically, Syracuse's soccer team has been from mediocre to total garbage. From 2009-2011, the team amassed an 8-37-6 record. Awful. Then this year, they went on a surprise NCAA tournament run, upsetting 15-1 Cornell in the first round and 14th-seeded VCU in the second before losing to eventual national runner-up Georgetown on penalty kicks. Whether they can continue that kind of showing remains to be seen, but this is really the reverse of basketball: until Cuse proves otherwise, UVA will be the higher-echelon team.
Women's soccer:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 64)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 64)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 64)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 73)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 64)
Totals: 0 (UVA 329)
The ACC is a quality conference in both the men's and women's version of this sport, and at present, the top of the conference is viciously competitive on the women's side. Seeds 2 through 5 in the women's ACC tournament had conference records of 6-3, and seed 6 was 5-3. Syracuse women's soccer, which is slowly clawing its way from lousy to medium-lousy, is walking into a lion's den. They won't be tipping the balance of power in the ACC any time soon.
Softball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 25 (UVA 25)
2010-2011: 25 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 50 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 100 (UVA 25)
They're better than UVA, usually, and get to the tournament more often than not, but it's going to be hard for them as a northern team to walk into a mostly southern conference (after playing in an almost entirely northern one) and compete immediately for championships. They'll be another hurdle for a UVA team that doesn't usually perform very well, though.
Women's tennis:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 50)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 64)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 64)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 64)
Totals: 0 (UVA 192)
Cuse tends to perform very well in conference tennis play but has been decent at best outside of Big East opponents, and usually not quite decent. They often got steamrolled by ACC opponents whenever they met. While the women's tennis team at UVA isn't the powerhouse the men's team is, they're a higher-level team within the ACC and good enough that Syracuse won't be a major obstacle.
Men's track and field (outdoor):
2008-2009: 5 (UVA 24.5)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 49.5)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 46)
2011-2012: 15 (UVA 15)
2012-2013: 13 (UVA 0)
Totals: 33 (UVA 135)
Women's track and field (outdoor):
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 36.5)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 44)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 9 (UVA 0)
Totals: 9 (UVA 80.5)
The men's track team can usually scrape together a couple qualifiers for the NCAAs; the women usually cannot. Neither are threats to win the ACC championship any time soon, and UVA, despite this being one of our more up-and-down sports, will almost always be a better team.
Women's volleyball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 0 (UVA 0)
Our volleyball team is typically awful, and the Director's Cup goose eggs that Syracuse puts up right next to ours shouldn't be construed as them being just as bad. They're better; just never, it seems, quite good enough to get an NCAA bid. The top of the ACC has some good teams, but Cuse should be able to find their way to the upper half of the standings in this conference.
Syracuse celebrated their first-ever finish in the top 40 of the Director's Cup standings this year. They're highly competitive in a few sports (hoops and lax coming to mind, as well as field hockey) but only marginally competitive at best in others, and their soccer and rowing programs are lame. Fielding only six NCAA men's sports hurts them in the standings, too. About two-thirds of the difference between UVA and Cuse in the Director's Cup is accounted for by us being good to great in several sports they're missing.
******************************************************
Were there going to be a weekend review this week, this item would've been there, but since there isn't one, Mark Bernardino's retirement will have to crowd this space a little. That is a huge bummer for one of UVA's elite programs. The swim team hasn't won any national titles under Bernardino, but that's sort of praise by faint damnation. They've owned the ACC for over a decade now. Possibly the best line I saw in the article announcing his retirement is that UVA has sent a swimmer to the Olympics for every Olympics since 1996, four of them gold medalists. Craig Littlepage has done a nice job selecting coaches for the most part, but whoever replaces Bernardino has some enormous shoes to fill.
Since recruit profiles are a standard around here, I thought it only fitting to do the same for the new conference recruits as well. This week, we'll take a detailed look at each of the new additions to the conference and how well they'll compete in each sport that they sponsor. And since we always do the recruit ones in order that they committed, the same is true of the schools. Syracuse and Pitt "committed" on the same day, but then, Syracuse actually was set to join eight or nine years ago, when the ACC "pulled their offer" and invited VT instead. So we do the Orange first.
Overall profile
Enrollment (undergrad):
1. Florida State: 31,800
2. Maryland: 26,800
3. NC State: 26,200
4. Virginia Tech: 23,900
5. North Carolina: 18,600
6. Pittsburgh: 18,400
7. Clemson: 16,600
8. Virginia: 15,800
9. Syracuse: 14,800
10. Georgia Tech: 14,500
11. Miami: 10,300
12. Boston College: 9,100
13. Notre Dame: 8,400
14. Duke: 6,500
15. Wake Forest: 4,800
Academic rank (USN&WR):
1. Duke (#8)
2. Notre Dame (#17)
3. Virginia (#24)
4. Wake Forest (#27)
5. North Carolina (#30)
6. Boston College (#31)
7. Georgia Tech (#36)
8. Miami (#44)
9(t). Syracuse (#58)
9(t). Maryland (#58)
9(t). Pittsburgh (#58)
12. Clemson (#68)
13. Virginia Tech (#72)
14. Florida State (#97)
15. NC State (#106)
Director's Cup average:**
1. North Carolina: 6.2
2. Florida State: 9
3. Virginia: 10.6
4. Duke: 12
5. Notre Dame: 18.4
6. Maryland: 28.8
7. Virginia Tech: 40
8. Clemson: 50.8
9. Syracuse: 54
10. Miami: 56.4
11. Georgia Tech: 59.6
12. NC State: 60.2
13. Boston College: 67.6
14. Wake Forest: 70.8
15. Pittsburgh: 115.6
**average finish in the last five years, including 2013.
Overall, Syracuse fits very neatly into the average ACC profile, which is likely part of the reason they were originally a prime candidate for invitation in the first round of expansion. In terms of size, UVA is the median school in the conference; Syracuse is just slightly below. They're also just slightly below the median in the academic rankings, a spot of no shame really, and the same is true for their Director's Cup placement. Come to think of it, these guys are 9th out of 15 in all three categories, which should hold roughly true when Maryland is swapped out for Louisville as well. They're sort of the like the least-interesting-number paradox in their rankings here.
Sports we play that they don't
Men:
Baseball
Golf
Swimming
Tennis
Wrestling
Women:
Golf
Swimming
Sports they play that we don't
Men:
Rowing
Women:
Ice hockey
Men's rowing isn't really an NCAA sport, but the Cuse does lend more support to their men's club than UVA does. At least as far as giving them a space on the official website. Syracuse is quite a bit Title IX-skewed, with only seven men's programs and eleven for women - and really, six men's programs because rowing isn't NCAA-sponsored.
In particular, there are three things that we do particularly well that they don't at all: baseball, swimming, and men's tennis. The women's ice hockey program is fairly new, despite the fact that upstate New York is as much a hockey hotbed as a lacrosse one. Anyway, hockey isn't an ACC sport.
Common sports
(The number after each year shows how many Director's Cup points were earned by that sport in that year.)
Men's basketball
2008-2009: 64 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 64 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 50 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 73 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 0)
Total: 334 (UVA 25)
Syracuse's hoops team needs little introduction. Under Jim Boeheim, who's coached there since 1976, that's been one of that school's major calling cards. Actually, the five-year cutoff here just misses out on a two-season NIT run, but whatever. Since then they've earned two #1 seeds in the tournament and made the Final Four this year - ironically, in their worst-seeded year of any of these five (a 4 seed.) Their addition makes the ACC significantly tougher. The Orange are simply on a higher plane here than UVA is, until proven otherwise.
Women's basketball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 25)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 25 (UVA 0)
Totals: 25 (UVA 75)
On the other hand, the women's teams ought to compete on a much more even keel. Perhaps to drive home the point, UVA and Cuse played in San Juan, PR, this past season, and the final score was a one-point Cuse win. UVA hasn't sniffed the NCAA tournament in three years, while Cuse just got there for the first time in quite a while this season. Before that they were WNIT-level, though almost always with a strong performance there. It's fair to say, though, that the Syracuse team is on the upswing while UVA's has some recovery work to do, as the Hoos didn't play after the ACC tournament this year.
Men's cross country:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 48)
2009-2010: 48 (UVA 45)
2010-2011: 48 (UVA 40)
2011-2012: 45 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 60 (UVA 61.5)
Totals: 201 (UVA 194.5)
This is one of the sports that the NCAA sets up with regional qualifiers (golf being another example) and Syracuse is in a different one than UVA. So, while they'll be new faces at the ACC meets, the road to NCAA qualification is different. Syracuse won the Big East championship here in their final year and went on to finish 15th at the NCAAs; UVA was a place above them at 14th. Like UVA, the Orange should be a tough competitor in the ACC, but again like UVA, might have trouble getting over the hump to earn a conference championship.
Women's cross country:
2008-2009: 18 (UVA 22)
2009-2010: 38 (UVA 45)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 32)
2011-2012: 40 (UVA 34)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 156 (UVA 133)
Similar to UVA, the women's program is a little less strong than the men's. Both teams can usually send runners to the national meet, but not as many as the men do, and both failed to make it there this year.
Field hockey:
2008-2009: 83 (UVA 60)
2009-2010: 60 (UVA 83)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 83)
2011-2012: 60 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 60)
Totals: 346 (UVA 286)
In terms of Director's Cup points, field hockey is typically a cash cow sport for both schools. Syracuse's addition makes this a seven-team conference, added to UVA, Wake, BC, Duke, Maryland, and UNC. The latter two are the thorn in our side, having shared most of the recent national championships between themselves, while Wake had a three-year run from 2002-2004. UVA typically always makes the four-team ACC tournament and then loses to either Maryland or UNC, having never won an ACC championship. Syracuse will join the conference at just about that level, and while that'll make it hard for Wake, BC, and Duke to find their way into the tournament, UVA will find the tournament an even tougher road than before.
Football:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 45 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 45 (UVA 0)
Totals: 90 (UVA 25)
Part of the reason football is so frustrating is that it's not that hard to earn Director's Cup points. All you have to do is make a bowl game. You don't even have to win it. Half the teams in the country are earning a cool and easy 25 points and half of those teams are breezing their way to 45 points and we're playing in la-la loser land. The other thing is, though, that making a bowl might be harder for Syracuse now that their schedule will get a degree of difficulty boost. Tying for the Big East title this past year was worth the Pinstripe Bowl, which is a pretty good indicator of the conference's quality, Louisville aside. The Pinstripe, in fact, is where the Cuse has gone in the two recent years they've been to a bowl - the fruits of Doug Marrone's efforts in reviving the program after the disastrous Greg Robinson tenure. With Marrone off to coach the Buffalo Bills, though, the program under Scott Shafer may or may not continue to gain ground. It'll be tough, playing FSU and Clemson every year.
Men's lacrosse:
2008-2009: 100 (UVA 83)
2009-2010: 25 (UVA 83)
2010-2011: 60 (UVA 100)
2011-2012: 25 (UVA 60)
2012-2013: 90 (UVA 0)
Totals: 300 (UVA 326)
I mean, do you really need this part explained to you? The only thing worth mentioning here that you shouldn't already know is that UVA was the only ACC team to put Syracuse on their regular schedule, so as good as Syracuse is at this stuff, their addition is actually a net plus for us, since we're the only team that doesn't have to add them to the schedule.
Women's lacrosse:
2008-2009: 60 (UVA 25)
2009-2010: 83 (UVA 60)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 25)
2011-2012: 90 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 83 (UVA 70)
Totals: 316 (UVA 205)
They're almost as good at this, too. And the gap between our men's team and our women's is larger than theirs. DC scores of 83 represent years a team went to the final four, and 90s mean they lost in the championship game. So other than the one year where they klutzed out of the NCAA tournament without an invite (which can happen to anyone amirite?) the women's team at Syracuse is a formidable opponent with a formidable history.
Rowing:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 80)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 100)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 63)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 100)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 75)
Totals: 0 (UVA 418)
Syracuse crew is not a major player on the national scene, having last been invited to the NCAA championships in 2005. They're not a threat to UVA's ACC dominance in this sport.
Men's soccer:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 100)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 25)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 25)
2012-2013: 64 (UVA 50)
Totals: 64 (UVA 250)
Historically, Syracuse's soccer team has been from mediocre to total garbage. From 2009-2011, the team amassed an 8-37-6 record. Awful. Then this year, they went on a surprise NCAA tournament run, upsetting 15-1 Cornell in the first round and 14th-seeded VCU in the second before losing to eventual national runner-up Georgetown on penalty kicks. Whether they can continue that kind of showing remains to be seen, but this is really the reverse of basketball: until Cuse proves otherwise, UVA will be the higher-echelon team.
Women's soccer:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 64)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 64)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 64)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 73)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 64)
Totals: 0 (UVA 329)
The ACC is a quality conference in both the men's and women's version of this sport, and at present, the top of the conference is viciously competitive on the women's side. Seeds 2 through 5 in the women's ACC tournament had conference records of 6-3, and seed 6 was 5-3. Syracuse women's soccer, which is slowly clawing its way from lousy to medium-lousy, is walking into a lion's den. They won't be tipping the balance of power in the ACC any time soon.
Softball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 25 (UVA 25)
2010-2011: 25 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 50 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 100 (UVA 25)
They're better than UVA, usually, and get to the tournament more often than not, but it's going to be hard for them as a northern team to walk into a mostly southern conference (after playing in an almost entirely northern one) and compete immediately for championships. They'll be another hurdle for a UVA team that doesn't usually perform very well, though.
Women's tennis:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 50)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 50)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 64)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 64)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 64)
Totals: 0 (UVA 192)
Cuse tends to perform very well in conference tennis play but has been decent at best outside of Big East opponents, and usually not quite decent. They often got steamrolled by ACC opponents whenever they met. While the women's tennis team at UVA isn't the powerhouse the men's team is, they're a higher-level team within the ACC and good enough that Syracuse won't be a major obstacle.
Men's track and field (outdoor):
2008-2009: 5 (UVA 24.5)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 49.5)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 46)
2011-2012: 15 (UVA 15)
2012-2013: 13 (UVA 0)
Totals: 33 (UVA 135)
Women's track and field (outdoor):
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 36.5)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 44)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 9 (UVA 0)
Totals: 9 (UVA 80.5)
The men's track team can usually scrape together a couple qualifiers for the NCAAs; the women usually cannot. Neither are threats to win the ACC championship any time soon, and UVA, despite this being one of our more up-and-down sports, will almost always be a better team.
Women's volleyball:
2008-2009: 0 (UVA 0)
2009-2010: 0 (UVA 0)
2010-2011: 0 (UVA 0)
2011-2012: 0 (UVA 0)
2012-2013: 0 (UVA 0)
Totals: 0 (UVA 0)
Our volleyball team is typically awful, and the Director's Cup goose eggs that Syracuse puts up right next to ours shouldn't be construed as them being just as bad. They're better; just never, it seems, quite good enough to get an NCAA bid. The top of the ACC has some good teams, but Cuse should be able to find their way to the upper half of the standings in this conference.
Syracuse celebrated their first-ever finish in the top 40 of the Director's Cup standings this year. They're highly competitive in a few sports (hoops and lax coming to mind, as well as field hockey) but only marginally competitive at best in others, and their soccer and rowing programs are lame. Fielding only six NCAA men's sports hurts them in the standings, too. About two-thirds of the difference between UVA and Cuse in the Director's Cup is accounted for by us being good to great in several sports they're missing.
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Were there going to be a weekend review this week, this item would've been there, but since there isn't one, Mark Bernardino's retirement will have to crowd this space a little. That is a huge bummer for one of UVA's elite programs. The swim team hasn't won any national titles under Bernardino, but that's sort of praise by faint damnation. They've owned the ACC for over a decade now. Possibly the best line I saw in the article announcing his retirement is that UVA has sent a swimmer to the Olympics for every Olympics since 1996, four of them gold medalists. Craig Littlepage has done a nice job selecting coaches for the most part, but whoever replaces Bernardino has some enormous shoes to fill.
Monday, February 21, 2011
sweeps weekend
It must be spring when UVA fans get a whole weekend full of good news. Never happens otherwise. Hardly a Wahoo took the court, or field, or starting block, without leaving victoriously. Best of all: completing the hardcourt sweep of Virginia Tech in front of a sold-out JPJ Arena.
Did I say sweep? I said sweep. Of Tech. Barring a semi-miraculous run to the NIT (which would likely require winning the next three games in a row) or a thoroughly miraculous tournament run to the ACC championship, that's probably the highlight of the season. It's not a minor deal; regaining our identity as Virginia Basketball requires, among other things, putting Tech back in their place. In the future this needs to be the norm.
I must be the only person who cares enough to write about this stuff to have seen this coming, though. The rest of the media - and certainly just about every Hokie in existence - is all surprised and shit. The excuses are flying. I'm not surprised, because I told you before the game: UVA matches up very well with Tech. We're bigger. We're either deeper, or Seth Greenberg is insane for never playing anyone but his starters. We're smarter. With Mike Scott out, Tech does have the two and maybe three best players on the court (Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, and maybe Erick Green) but otherwise, the point is this: Basketball is a game of matchups, and that can sometimes overcome a sizable talent deficit. And you won't find many other ACC teams that UVA is as well-equipped to beat as Tech. The reason for the sweep doesn't go much beyond that, and to whatever extent it does, it sure as hell wasn't fatigue on Tech's part, as has been suggested. Anyone who thinks that ought to be embarrassed.
Another thing that's been made a big deal of, and shouldn't be, is that UVA outrebounded Tech. By one, but that's not the reason it shouldn't be a big deal. It's true that we usually get outrebounded, because somebody will launch a three and most of the team will be on the other side of halfcourt by the time it hits the rim. That's Tony Bennett's way. On the defensive end, though, guess who the best rebounding team in the conference is? If you guessed "not Virginia," you're wrong, and you're making the same mistake everyone else does, by using raw, non-tempo-adjusted rebounding averages. The fact is, UVA has the best defensive rebounding percentage in the ACC, and 36th best in the country. File under "another reason I'm not surprised we won."
So yes, Akil Mitchell had a nice game with seven rebounds, but I'll wait to throw his debutante party til he double-doubles one of these days. Stats-wise the player of the game really is Sammy Z, who should never be allowed to shoot until thirty seconds of the shot clock have elapsed, but if you want to make a case for "blossoming potential" from that game, Assane Sene and Jontel Evans are your guys. Jontel actually can shoot, and when he realizes it he'll be that much better. Sene can score when he catches the ball. We just have to figure out how to optimize the transition from someone else's hands to his, and we're set.
The future holds three winnable games, and I'd allow you to get excited about the possibility of winning them all except the moment I do, we'll lose by 30 in Atlanta. So as far as the fates are concerned, it's one-game-at-a-time mode from here on out. Just to be on the safe side, try and give 110% too. It is what it is.
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Sweeps weekend continued in Auburn, where Danny Hultzen, in between striking out 10 UAB Blazers and driving in seven runs for the weekend, also took a leak on Toomer's Corner and healed the trees. Chuck Norris has nothing on Danny. The opponents for the weekend were UAB, Auburn, and Arkansas State, in that order; UAB and ASU are fringe top-100 types in the RPI, while Auburn isn't SEC royalty like LSU but is a borderline top-25 team. Tyler Wilson shut down their powerful lineup, and UVA nickel-and-dimed their way around the basepaths for 13 runs against Auburn and 27 on the weekend in sweeping the tournament.
It's certainly refreshing to see that Hultzen is in his usual form. Enjoy it; the man will be a first-rounder this year. It's even better to see Tyler Wilson pitch six innings of shutdown baseball as the new Saturday starter, and Cody Winiarski did the same on Sunday. It makes me giddy. Winiarski, even at his best last season (and he certainly got better as the year went on) was never a strikeout pitcher, barely averaging one every two innings. He posted six on Sunday in six innings of work. Branden Kline also proved worthy of the closer role, slamming the door on a UAB rally on Friday. Six pitches, six strikes, and a one-out situation became Kline's first save of the year.
The wins bump UVA a few spots in most of the polls. East Carolina comes to town next weekend, with a home game against VMI in between. The ECU series won't have the same stature it did last year when ECU was considered the up-and-comer on the baseball scene, and a sweep there would open up the possibility of being undefeated heading into the ACC season in about three weeks.
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The lax team started its season with its usual solid, if slightly uninspiring, win over Drexel. Drexel's a half-decent team, so the margin of victory - 12-9 - is no cause for worry. As per usual, though, the game offered some reasons for optimism and some for worry. UVA won the faceoff battle, which they did not last year, and maintained its usual dominance in clearing the ball, successfully clearing all but one opportunity. This was without Adam Ghitelman (who is one of the nation's top goalies at starting a clear) in net, who didn't dress because of a mystery suspension. Rob Fortunato played, and played reasonably well.
On the other hand, ground balls, normally an area of UVA dominance, tilted only slightly in UVA's favor, at 46-43. (That's a lot of ground balls to begin with.) Nothing's perfect, though.
Ghitelman will hopefully be back in net tomorrow against Mount St. Mary's; it'd certainly be ideal to have him see game action before Saturday's dangerous matchup against Stony Brook.
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For the fourth straight year, the women's swim and dive team is ACC champions, and for the second straight year, it's sprinter Lauren Perdue taking home the honors as the meet's most outstanding swimmer. Perdue sets records like it's her job, but freshman butterflier Rachel Naurath gave her a run for her money for the top-swimmer title. This was, as suggested by the psych sheet scoring, a close meet - our girls were behind UNC by 37 points (not quite a virtual dead heat but close) going into the final day, and the meet was in doubt until the 200 yard butterfly - the second-to-last event. UVA swimmers went 1-2-3-5, seizing the lead and putting UNC far enough behind that they could afford a safe-start relay in the final event; they went ahead and won the relay regardless. You have to love the championship attitude Mark Bernardino has instilled into his swim teams, as well as the talent he's brought to UVA.
This week, it's the men's turn. Psych sheet scoring, with all the caveats of last week's exercise, is as follows:
UVA - 844
UNC - 764
FSU - 500
VT - 314
NCSt. - 190
Clem. - 186
Md. - 177
Duke - 160
GT - 150
BC - 70
Wake Forest doesn't have any swim teams, and Miami doesn't have a men's one.
This is eerily similar to the women's results, no? UVA and UNC will duke it out for the title, and it'll definitely be close. We are nasty strong in distance events - all strokes - and a little thin on sprinters - all strokes. FSU is a factor, but probably not a threat for the title, VT is a comfortable fourth, and the peasants will have themselves a really stirring chase to line up fifth through ninth. (Except BC - as with the women's events, the only points they'll garner will come from placing last in every relay.)
This is even closer than it looks thanks to the general lack of points we'll get from diving. The women didn't get any - the men might scrape a couple but we'll take a bath here. Figuratively. Frankly, this meet should be considered just about neck and neck, just like the women.
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Speaking of four straight championships, and national-wise this time, it's the men's tennis team's turn for championship glory. This is indoor tennis, so before you get too excited - it still doesn't count in the NCAA tally. Not once in this run has UVA managed to win an outdoor tennis title. Why so different? Beats me. They'll have another shot this spring. This championship was a 4-0 win over Tennessee - yup, another sweep - and that's the kind of dominating fashion they've been using this winter, so with any luck this is a stronger team than years past and they can finally bring home an NCAA title in a couple months.
That finishes the good news weekend. Hope it wasn't too much all at once. They say starving people shouldn't pig out the moment they see food, it's not healthy. Unfortunately for your health, there's a recruiting board update in the hopper for tomorrow and you'll probably like what you see there, too.
Did I say sweep? I said sweep. Of Tech. Barring a semi-miraculous run to the NIT (which would likely require winning the next three games in a row) or a thoroughly miraculous tournament run to the ACC championship, that's probably the highlight of the season. It's not a minor deal; regaining our identity as Virginia Basketball requires, among other things, putting Tech back in their place. In the future this needs to be the norm.
I must be the only person who cares enough to write about this stuff to have seen this coming, though. The rest of the media - and certainly just about every Hokie in existence - is all surprised and shit. The excuses are flying. I'm not surprised, because I told you before the game: UVA matches up very well with Tech. We're bigger. We're either deeper, or Seth Greenberg is insane for never playing anyone but his starters. We're smarter. With Mike Scott out, Tech does have the two and maybe three best players on the court (Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, and maybe Erick Green) but otherwise, the point is this: Basketball is a game of matchups, and that can sometimes overcome a sizable talent deficit. And you won't find many other ACC teams that UVA is as well-equipped to beat as Tech. The reason for the sweep doesn't go much beyond that, and to whatever extent it does, it sure as hell wasn't fatigue on Tech's part, as has been suggested. Anyone who thinks that ought to be embarrassed.
Another thing that's been made a big deal of, and shouldn't be, is that UVA outrebounded Tech. By one, but that's not the reason it shouldn't be a big deal. It's true that we usually get outrebounded, because somebody will launch a three and most of the team will be on the other side of halfcourt by the time it hits the rim. That's Tony Bennett's way. On the defensive end, though, guess who the best rebounding team in the conference is? If you guessed "not Virginia," you're wrong, and you're making the same mistake everyone else does, by using raw, non-tempo-adjusted rebounding averages. The fact is, UVA has the best defensive rebounding percentage in the ACC, and 36th best in the country. File under "another reason I'm not surprised we won."
So yes, Akil Mitchell had a nice game with seven rebounds, but I'll wait to throw his debutante party til he double-doubles one of these days. Stats-wise the player of the game really is Sammy Z, who should never be allowed to shoot until thirty seconds of the shot clock have elapsed, but if you want to make a case for "blossoming potential" from that game, Assane Sene and Jontel Evans are your guys. Jontel actually can shoot, and when he realizes it he'll be that much better. Sene can score when he catches the ball. We just have to figure out how to optimize the transition from someone else's hands to his, and we're set.
The future holds three winnable games, and I'd allow you to get excited about the possibility of winning them all except the moment I do, we'll lose by 30 in Atlanta. So as far as the fates are concerned, it's one-game-at-a-time mode from here on out. Just to be on the safe side, try and give 110% too. It is what it is.
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Sweeps weekend continued in Auburn, where Danny Hultzen, in between striking out 10 UAB Blazers and driving in seven runs for the weekend, also took a leak on Toomer's Corner and healed the trees. Chuck Norris has nothing on Danny. The opponents for the weekend were UAB, Auburn, and Arkansas State, in that order; UAB and ASU are fringe top-100 types in the RPI, while Auburn isn't SEC royalty like LSU but is a borderline top-25 team. Tyler Wilson shut down their powerful lineup, and UVA nickel-and-dimed their way around the basepaths for 13 runs against Auburn and 27 on the weekend in sweeping the tournament.
It's certainly refreshing to see that Hultzen is in his usual form. Enjoy it; the man will be a first-rounder this year. It's even better to see Tyler Wilson pitch six innings of shutdown baseball as the new Saturday starter, and Cody Winiarski did the same on Sunday. It makes me giddy. Winiarski, even at his best last season (and he certainly got better as the year went on) was never a strikeout pitcher, barely averaging one every two innings. He posted six on Sunday in six innings of work. Branden Kline also proved worthy of the closer role, slamming the door on a UAB rally on Friday. Six pitches, six strikes, and a one-out situation became Kline's first save of the year.
The wins bump UVA a few spots in most of the polls. East Carolina comes to town next weekend, with a home game against VMI in between. The ECU series won't have the same stature it did last year when ECU was considered the up-and-comer on the baseball scene, and a sweep there would open up the possibility of being undefeated heading into the ACC season in about three weeks.
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The lax team started its season with its usual solid, if slightly uninspiring, win over Drexel. Drexel's a half-decent team, so the margin of victory - 12-9 - is no cause for worry. As per usual, though, the game offered some reasons for optimism and some for worry. UVA won the faceoff battle, which they did not last year, and maintained its usual dominance in clearing the ball, successfully clearing all but one opportunity. This was without Adam Ghitelman (who is one of the nation's top goalies at starting a clear) in net, who didn't dress because of a mystery suspension. Rob Fortunato played, and played reasonably well.
On the other hand, ground balls, normally an area of UVA dominance, tilted only slightly in UVA's favor, at 46-43. (That's a lot of ground balls to begin with.) Nothing's perfect, though.
Ghitelman will hopefully be back in net tomorrow against Mount St. Mary's; it'd certainly be ideal to have him see game action before Saturday's dangerous matchup against Stony Brook.
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For the fourth straight year, the women's swim and dive team is ACC champions, and for the second straight year, it's sprinter Lauren Perdue taking home the honors as the meet's most outstanding swimmer. Perdue sets records like it's her job, but freshman butterflier Rachel Naurath gave her a run for her money for the top-swimmer title. This was, as suggested by the psych sheet scoring, a close meet - our girls were behind UNC by 37 points (not quite a virtual dead heat but close) going into the final day, and the meet was in doubt until the 200 yard butterfly - the second-to-last event. UVA swimmers went 1-2-3-5, seizing the lead and putting UNC far enough behind that they could afford a safe-start relay in the final event; they went ahead and won the relay regardless. You have to love the championship attitude Mark Bernardino has instilled into his swim teams, as well as the talent he's brought to UVA.
This week, it's the men's turn. Psych sheet scoring, with all the caveats of last week's exercise, is as follows:
UVA - 844
UNC - 764
FSU - 500
VT - 314
NCSt. - 190
Clem. - 186
Md. - 177
Duke - 160
GT - 150
BC - 70
Wake Forest doesn't have any swim teams, and Miami doesn't have a men's one.
This is eerily similar to the women's results, no? UVA and UNC will duke it out for the title, and it'll definitely be close. We are nasty strong in distance events - all strokes - and a little thin on sprinters - all strokes. FSU is a factor, but probably not a threat for the title, VT is a comfortable fourth, and the peasants will have themselves a really stirring chase to line up fifth through ninth. (Except BC - as with the women's events, the only points they'll garner will come from placing last in every relay.)
This is even closer than it looks thanks to the general lack of points we'll get from diving. The women didn't get any - the men might scrape a couple but we'll take a bath here. Figuratively. Frankly, this meet should be considered just about neck and neck, just like the women.
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Speaking of four straight championships, and national-wise this time, it's the men's tennis team's turn for championship glory. This is indoor tennis, so before you get too excited - it still doesn't count in the NCAA tally. Not once in this run has UVA managed to win an outdoor tennis title. Why so different? Beats me. They'll have another shot this spring. This championship was a 4-0 win over Tennessee - yup, another sweep - and that's the kind of dominating fashion they've been using this winter, so with any luck this is a stronger team than years past and they can finally bring home an NCAA title in a couple months.
That finishes the good news weekend. Hope it wasn't too much all at once. They say starving people shouldn't pig out the moment they see food, it's not healthy. Unfortunately for your health, there's a recruiting board update in the hopper for tomorrow and you'll probably like what you see there, too.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
meet preview: ACC swimming championships
This was my sport in high school, so I take a little extra pride in the fact that this is a sport in which UVA is more or less the undisputed ACC lord and ruler. (Little personal note: my mom tried to convince me to try and walk on to the team at UVA, but....well, my senior season 50-yard freestyle time - which was the result of the most perfect race I have ever swam - would have seeded me 84th in the ACC finals. The women's finals. I might as well have tried to walk my 150-pound self on to the football team.)
Anyway, in the doing awesome things department, the women had a little catching up to do to the men this decade; the men's team won eight straight ACC titles until a slight hiccup in 2007, and then won two more in '08 and '09. It's only been recently that the ladies returned to their rightful place atop the ACC, and the men have a few more championships to their name, but back they are, and ready to go for a third straight year of simultaneous championships. Coach Mark Bernardino has built himself a true dynasty, and ought to be considered among UVA's greatest coaches in any sport.
Tomorrow, the womens' championship gets underway for four days of a swimming extravanganza, hosted by UNC, and the men follow next week, same time same place. How dominant are the UVA squads? Take a look for yourself on the psych sheet.
(For the non-initiated, the psych sheet lists all the seed times for all events, which are a swimmer's best time over the course of the season in each event they swam in. You have to swim an event at least once in the season to be allowed to swim it in the finals. Why is it called a psych sheet? Because you're supposed to psych yourself up by looking at how close you are to moving up in the seedings. What if you're the top seed? I never had to deal with that issue, I don't know.)
Anyway, that's the women's psych sheet - the men's isn't posted yet. So this post will deal with this week's women's meet. To summarize, UVA is seeded first in all five relays and a UVA swimmer is seeded first in 9 of 13 individual events. Some of these top seeds belong to backstroker extraordinaire Mei Christensen, whose unbelievable performance last year led to, among other honors, a nomination on this blog for Cavalier of the Year. She got votes, too. Christensen is a senior and already set to represent UVA at the NCAA championships. But lest you think our domination is graduating, three of the top seeds belong to freshman sprinter Lauren Perdue, a good bet to knock down a few ACC records maybe even as soon as this year.
But the most dominant event we'll have is the 800-yard freestyle relay, where we are seeded almost eight seconds ahead of the second-place team. Eight seconds is a bloody eternity in swimming. That's two seconds per swimmer, and to put that in perspective, two seconds in the 200-yard freestyle (the distance each swimmer will have to go in that relay) is the difference between being seeded 17th and out of the finals (top 16 score points) and being seeded fifth. Two seconds in that event is worth a full 14 points. This is the event to really pay attention to as you peruse the scoresheet. Last year our girls had a seed time of 7:15.81 and swam a 7:05.72 to smash the ACC record. This year the seed time is 7:12.80.
So what teams do we have to be concerned about? Who's a threat to knock UVA off the first-place stand where we belong? I took the liberty of scoring out the psych sheet - a highly unscientific exercise for reasons which I'll get into in a minute - and these are the results (Wake Forest doesn't compete, by the way):
Virginia - 914
UNC - 529
FSU - 457
VT - 306
Md. - 303
Clemson - 228
NC State - 191
Duke - 164
GT - 147
Miami - 116
BC - 60
Poor BC. You get 12 points for coming in last in a relay, so if you've been paying close attention, you'll realize they earned their points only by virtue of finishing last in all the relays.
That's what the scoreboard would look like if everyone on the psych sheet swam exactly their seed times in every event they're listed for. This won't happen, obviously, for quite a number of reasons:
- I excluded the diving; the psych sheet is horribly unreliable as not even all the teams are seeded with scores. There are three diving events - add points as you feel appropriate. UVA doesn't have a real strong diving contingent, but it doesn't matter.
- You can only bring so many swimmers to the meet and they can only swim in a limited number of events. The psych sheet seeds swimmers in events they won't be swimming in. As just one example, Liz Shaw is seeded and earning megapoints in both the 400-yard IM and 100-yard butterfly; it's highly unlikely she'll do both as they're back-to-back events. This is where coaches make their money, by the way - if you could just chuck all your swimmers in all their events, where would the strategy be? These limits prevent a team like, ohhhh say, Virginia, from crowding out all the other teams from the finals and blowing you away with sheer numbers.
- Obviously, not everyone is gonna swim these times. Swimmers at the championship meet tend to outperform their seed times - the interesting part is always by how much? And then there will be disqualifications. The psych sheet is highly unreliable as a predictor of actual scores, but it's also quick and easy. Here is something a little more scientific and probably more accurate.
But, though it doesn't get the scores quite right, it's probably going to be pretty close to the end results anyway. Because when it comes down to it, faster swimmers are faster swimmers. Swimming doesn't lend itself to upsets very much. Your top swimmer might DQ, and that would suck because you don't get those points, but that's not the same thing as throwing an interception on the game-winning drive. It's perfectly plausible that Will Sherrill would go off for 18 points and 6 rebounds after scoring 15 over a two-year career, but a lower-end swimmer isn't suddenly going to shave 30 seconds off her 500-yard freestyle time, and even if she did, it doesn't make her teammates do it too. When you dominate, you dominate. So unless Bernardino has turned into a complete and total lunkhead and forgotten how to fill out a lineup card (he hasn't) or the team wakes up tomorrow with a sudden and debilitating case of the 120-hour flu, Saturday will bring our second ACC championship of the '09-'10 season.
Anyway, in the doing awesome things department, the women had a little catching up to do to the men this decade; the men's team won eight straight ACC titles until a slight hiccup in 2007, and then won two more in '08 and '09. It's only been recently that the ladies returned to their rightful place atop the ACC, and the men have a few more championships to their name, but back they are, and ready to go for a third straight year of simultaneous championships. Coach Mark Bernardino has built himself a true dynasty, and ought to be considered among UVA's greatest coaches in any sport.
Tomorrow, the womens' championship gets underway for four days of a swimming extravanganza, hosted by UNC, and the men follow next week, same time same place. How dominant are the UVA squads? Take a look for yourself on the psych sheet.
(For the non-initiated, the psych sheet lists all the seed times for all events, which are a swimmer's best time over the course of the season in each event they swam in. You have to swim an event at least once in the season to be allowed to swim it in the finals. Why is it called a psych sheet? Because you're supposed to psych yourself up by looking at how close you are to moving up in the seedings. What if you're the top seed? I never had to deal with that issue, I don't know.)
Anyway, that's the women's psych sheet - the men's isn't posted yet. So this post will deal with this week's women's meet. To summarize, UVA is seeded first in all five relays and a UVA swimmer is seeded first in 9 of 13 individual events. Some of these top seeds belong to backstroker extraordinaire Mei Christensen, whose unbelievable performance last year led to, among other honors, a nomination on this blog for Cavalier of the Year. She got votes, too. Christensen is a senior and already set to represent UVA at the NCAA championships. But lest you think our domination is graduating, three of the top seeds belong to freshman sprinter Lauren Perdue, a good bet to knock down a few ACC records maybe even as soon as this year.
But the most dominant event we'll have is the 800-yard freestyle relay, where we are seeded almost eight seconds ahead of the second-place team. Eight seconds is a bloody eternity in swimming. That's two seconds per swimmer, and to put that in perspective, two seconds in the 200-yard freestyle (the distance each swimmer will have to go in that relay) is the difference between being seeded 17th and out of the finals (top 16 score points) and being seeded fifth. Two seconds in that event is worth a full 14 points. This is the event to really pay attention to as you peruse the scoresheet. Last year our girls had a seed time of 7:15.81 and swam a 7:05.72 to smash the ACC record. This year the seed time is 7:12.80.
So what teams do we have to be concerned about? Who's a threat to knock UVA off the first-place stand where we belong? I took the liberty of scoring out the psych sheet - a highly unscientific exercise for reasons which I'll get into in a minute - and these are the results (Wake Forest doesn't compete, by the way):
Virginia - 914
UNC - 529
FSU - 457
VT - 306
Md. - 303
Clemson - 228
NC State - 191
Duke - 164
GT - 147
Miami - 116
BC - 60
Poor BC. You get 12 points for coming in last in a relay, so if you've been paying close attention, you'll realize they earned their points only by virtue of finishing last in all the relays.
That's what the scoreboard would look like if everyone on the psych sheet swam exactly their seed times in every event they're listed for. This won't happen, obviously, for quite a number of reasons:
- I excluded the diving; the psych sheet is horribly unreliable as not even all the teams are seeded with scores. There are three diving events - add points as you feel appropriate. UVA doesn't have a real strong diving contingent, but it doesn't matter.
- You can only bring so many swimmers to the meet and they can only swim in a limited number of events. The psych sheet seeds swimmers in events they won't be swimming in. As just one example, Liz Shaw is seeded and earning megapoints in both the 400-yard IM and 100-yard butterfly; it's highly unlikely she'll do both as they're back-to-back events. This is where coaches make their money, by the way - if you could just chuck all your swimmers in all their events, where would the strategy be? These limits prevent a team like, ohhhh say, Virginia, from crowding out all the other teams from the finals and blowing you away with sheer numbers.
- Obviously, not everyone is gonna swim these times. Swimmers at the championship meet tend to outperform their seed times - the interesting part is always by how much? And then there will be disqualifications. The psych sheet is highly unreliable as a predictor of actual scores, but it's also quick and easy. Here is something a little more scientific and probably more accurate.
But, though it doesn't get the scores quite right, it's probably going to be pretty close to the end results anyway. Because when it comes down to it, faster swimmers are faster swimmers. Swimming doesn't lend itself to upsets very much. Your top swimmer might DQ, and that would suck because you don't get those points, but that's not the same thing as throwing an interception on the game-winning drive. It's perfectly plausible that Will Sherrill would go off for 18 points and 6 rebounds after scoring 15 over a two-year career, but a lower-end swimmer isn't suddenly going to shave 30 seconds off her 500-yard freestyle time, and even if she did, it doesn't make her teammates do it too. When you dominate, you dominate. So unless Bernardino has turned into a complete and total lunkhead and forgotten how to fill out a lineup card (he hasn't) or the team wakes up tomorrow with a sudden and debilitating case of the 120-hour flu, Saturday will bring our second ACC championship of the '09-'10 season.
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