Dom Starsia's formula for success has never really been a secret. Recruit the most athletic players he can find, emphasize hard work and effort, and give them copious freedom to operate. When it works, it's dynamic and entertaining.
Alas for Starsia's less-talented squads, "play smart" isn't a top priority.
This has been eminently on display the past couple weeks. UVA had three times as many turnovers as goals against UNC, and over twice as many against Duke. When we got a peek into the timeout huddle during the Duke game, I thought Dom might suggest, just once, that a handy trick for winning the game might be to observe the fundamentals of passing and catching. He didn't. He did exhort his team to have an extended possession, which might have been a roundabout way of doing so. They must've decided 30 seconds was extended enough, because about that much game time later Duke was merrily clearing the ball and finding a nice easy path to the goal.
Observing the fundamentals of passing and catching has been awfully damn elusive of late. Simply put, this is some horsecrap sloppy-ass lacrosse they're playing. I'd like to blame it on youth, but there was Owen Van Arsdale lazily reaching toward a lazy pass, and missing. There was Tyler German with a laser focus on reaching the corner of the box to complete a clear and no plan at all upon arriving, coughing up the ball as a result. There was Ryan Tucker dodging his way straight into a double-team and freezing, paralyzed with indecision at the gall of the defenders to be defending.
Of course this team went 0-4 in the ACC; it's unrealistic to expect any wins when the offense, supposedly the highly efficient hallmark of this team, keeps shooting itself in the head. I could deal with it if opposing defenses were taking the ball, or their goalie was putting up a stone wall, but what's really frustrating to watch is when two former weaknesses stop being weaknesses, and the strength of the team suddenly turns into brainless mush.
This team will still make the tournament and will probably host a game. For all its irritating foibles, it's still one of the top eight teams in the country. That's pretty amazing after losing to the whole ACC in ugly fashion, but it's taken really good teams to expose UVA's flaws enough to beat them. I mean, at least we're not Hopkins, which just needed two overtimes to beat 3-8 Penn State. The angst here is rooted in not being much of a national title contender. At least if we're gonna be angsty about lacrosse, it's the right kind of emo.
Notes and stuff:
-- Matt Barrett, man. UVA just wasted two of the best performances by a UVA goalie in I don't even know how long. Very often in lacrosse, good goalie play is indistinguishable from bad goalie play until after the fact. It's not like hockey where a bad goal sticks out like a sore thumb; you just sort of start coming to the realization that your goalie has let in too many shots. If that realization doesn't happen, you've been getting good goalie play. That's what Adam Ghitelman was like. That's not what Matt Barrett has been like; he's made stops goalies have no business making. My personal favorite was having his pass intercepted from a foot and a half away - very bad - then making the save from the same distance - even better.
-- Remember how Matt White kept playing midfield when he should've been playing attack and everyone was all "WHY??" It's almost like having Greg Coholan at attack is balancing that out. The only difference is everyone knows why Coholan is playing attack. (No Pannell.) Frankly, though, it's a shame the depth at attack is such that it's preferable to cannibalize the midfield.
-- Stupidball, by the way, has not been limited to these last two games. UVA won the Hopkins game despite taking multiple pages out of the Mike London Textbook of Personnel Management. This included but was not limited to a player entirely forgetting that he was supposed to be on the field and wasting most of an EMO as a result. I bring this old news up to illustrate what a season-long struggle this has been. And the announcers, by the way, made a habit of pointing out a number of bad substitutions on UVA's part against Duke.
-- At least UVA gets a moral victory by not pulling off the Duke game's worst moment. No, that was Duke's befuddling clear attempt in the second quarter, forgetting entirely about the 30-second clock. It was a hell of a lot of fun to watch Duke piddle the whole time limit away for absolutely no reason, spoiled only by the announcers completely ignoring it and carrying on their talk-show conversation about something totally unrelated. You want to know why people don't watch lacrosse as much as you'd like? It's because when little-used rules come into play, the announcers are too busy blathering to explain the odd situation on the field.
-- I said it as part of bracketology yesterday, but it bears repeating: Beat Georgetown and a tourney home game is a lock.
Showing posts with label tucker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tucker. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2015
Saturday, April 6, 2013
game preview: North Carolina
Date/Time: Saturday, April 6; 3:30
TV: ESPN3
Record against the Heels: 48-24
Last meeting: UNC 11, UVA 9; 4/20/12, Charlottesville - ACC tournament
Last game: Md. 9, UVA 7 (3/30); UNC 11, JHU 10 (3/30)
Rankings: UVA #19/#18, UNC #6/#4
Efficiency stats:
Faceoffs:
UVA: 53.6% (#17)
UNC: 52.5% (#22)
Clearing (offense):
UVA: 92.7 (#2)
UNC: 87.2 (#24)
Clearing (defense):
UVA: 83.6% (#19)
UNC: 85.4% (#33)
Scoring % (offense):
UVA: 32.8% (#28)
UNC: 37.0% (#13)
Scoring % (defense):
UVA: 32.2% (#29)
UNC: 31.0% (#22)
O-rating:
UVA: 16.25 (#17)
UNC: 18.87 (#9)
D-rating:
UVA: 13.12 (#17)
UNC: 12.77 (#14)
(Ratings are my KenPom-esque measures of efficiency for lacrosse. Numbers are schedule-adjusted. National average is about 15.1.)
Not gonna waste a lot of time blowing flowers up your ass here. This is gut-check time for the laxers, because a loss here all but destroys UVA's tournament hopes. I'm beginning to think this season is simply the lacrosse gods' way of devising a new way for Duke to torture UVA lacrosse, since losing to both UNC and Duke would 99.9% officially end those tourney wishes, with Duke doing the dirty work. But first we have to lose to Carolina.
-- UVA on offense
I've already partly gone over UVA's offensive woes. They don't have a dynamic playmaker, they have less athleticism than we're used to seeing, and they don't have the ability to break up the packed-in defenses opponents are deploying that have made settled-situation offense so damn difficult this year. I'd like to see them turn Ryan Tucker's shot loose - Tucker has the hardest shot on the team by far and if he just indiscriminately slings it in the direction of the net, the worst that can happen is that it bounces off some defender, whose new welt makes him think twice about standing in the way next time. (This is mostly a joke. Tucker's shot is hard but hasn't been any more effective than anyone else's; goalies have a .613 save percentage against him, second only to Charlie Streep.)
Failing that, the coaches have got to find a working lineup combination. I don't think having Owen Van Arsdale out there as much as they do is helping, as he doesn't make up for his small size with quickness. It might be worse than usual against Carolina; Kieran McDonald is 6'4" and if UNC gets Jake Bailey back from injury, he's 6'5". That makes a fairly formidable-sized back line of defense that 5-foot-not-much OVA - and the rest of the offense, really - will have trouble with.
Carolina is godawfully thin at goalie, with every netminder but freshman Kieran Burke injured in some way or another. Burke has started every game and acquitted himself decently with a .538 save percentage. He's playing well enough to give UVA trouble, anyway, as we have made a habit of firing some truly stoppable shots this year.
Overall UNC is a little less stout on defense than the opposition we've seen recently, but not much. Hopkins and Maryland have better D-ratings (12.20 and 11.50, respectively) but the difference is small enough that I don't think it'll make a major dent. It's possible that UNC's shifting lineups may help us some; injuries have thinned out their defense a little and forced changes to their starting three. Still, UVA's hopes, as usual, lie in transition, and the chances of scoring drop dramatically once the play settles down.
-- UVA on defense
It's kind of a shame the goalies haven't been playing well, because the defenders deserve some kudos for their play. The long-stick guys have been more or less the team's strong point all season. They broke down against Hopkins but did a nice job keeping Maryland in check. We need more of that Maryland stuff and less of the Hopkins stuff, because UNC, as usual, has an excellent offense.
UNC is constructed somewhat like Hopkins (uh-oh) in that the offense is mostly generated by the attackmen, with midfielders playing only a supporting role. Marcus Holman is a top playmaker and scorer (24 G, 23 A); Joey Sankey (26 G, 10 A) is the finisher. This is a small group; Sankey stands a mere 5'6" and third attackman Jimmy Bitter at 5'9". Holman towers over them both at 5'11". Small but very quick, all of them. The top midfield threats are Davey Emala and Chad Tutton, both decent scorers.
The matchup should be a good one for UVA, since it's the short-sticks who've been much more porous this year than the long-sticks, even accounting for the obvious. Part of that is because we've seen a lot more cases of guys caught playing defense who shouldn't be. It's been much harder to sub in short-stick defenders, which keeps Blake Riley and Bobby Hill on the bench more than they should be. Perhaps Dom Starsia was onto something when he said he'd be using Chris LaPierre on offense more. Use him on offense so you can use him on defense. Anyway, I said "should be" good. In theory, since guys like Scott McWilliams and Greg Danseglio are having solid years. In practice, Maryland is a much more midfield-heavy team, and UVA did alright, whereas Hopkins is an attack-heavy team and smoked us.
Anyway, here's where I get all existential and depressing: it won't matter unless we can score. If the offense goes like it has, the defense will only determine whether it's a close one or a blowout.
-- Outlook
Not so good, as usual. Magic 8-ball says we don't make the tournament this year. It's possible, given the schedule we play, that a win here could move us into the field in this week's bracketology, but even then remember the odds will be against us. But unless something has really changed in practice this week, I don't see the offense having the ability to pull out of its malaise.
Final score: UNC 12, UVA 8
Monday, April 2, 2012
weekend review
Sunday's baseball game was a marathon producing a very disappointing result. But never mind that. It was a good weekend because it's always a good weekend when we beat Maryland, which doesn't lose to Virginia, except for most of the time. So yes, lacrosse is this week's top subject of conversation.
UVA looked great at either end of the game and not so good in the middle. And I think I know why: they didn't listen when I said "patience" and then they did. You might've noticed by now that this team is really good at finding open guys five feet from the net, because Steele Stanwick is good at finding open guys five feet from the net and Chris Bocklet is really good at being that open guy. Sometimes these goals they score are just, things of beauty.
But sometimes they try and force the beauty into ugly spots. And that's where the turnovers happen. The defense isn't always screwed-up and out of position, and when the defense is nice and tight around the net, you can't force passes in there no matter your talent level. Regardless, they try, sometimes, and that's one reason we lost the Hopkins game and why Maryland was up two goals midway through the third on Saturday.
That said, excluded from the forcing-it category is Stanwick's twisting, falling-down, double-teamed goal in the fourth, which is the kind of play that sticks in the mind of a Tewaaraton voter when it's time to fill out the ballot. Oh yes, he's in the running again, there's no doubt about that. Colgate's Peter Baum already has 42 goals and could finish the season with 60-some, but Colgate has to make the tourney - as we've seen, the voters care about your postseason exploits. Stanwick leads the country in assists with 33 and has 14 goals as well, which lands him fourth in the country in PPG. If Stanwick won, he'd be the first men's recipient to win the award two years in a row; Cuse's Mike Powell was the first to win two but sandwiched in between was our own Chris Rotelli.
Folks are also saying the fourth-quarter run was precipitated by inserting Matt White into the lineup and that hopefully it means White will get more playing time in favor of Owen Van Arsdale, whose hot start has cooled considerably. And yeah they're not wrong, but then again White has started all ten games. It's not like he's not out there. He's just playing midfield, when his natural spot is really attack. If you want a real suggestion: Move White to attack, OVA to the bench, and put Ryan Tucker on the first-line midfield. Tucker's got a gun. So does Rob Emery, and they'll be playing together in next year's midfield so might as well get them some quality time on the same field.
Next week is North Carolina, who I was rooting for last night against Hopkins so they'd be all fat, happy, and content this coming Saturday. Two weeks from now is Duke, and then the ACC tourney, and by the way here are your tourney scenarios now that we've gotten past Maryland:
-- Beat both UNC and Duke: #1 seed (which would be appropriate and correct as we are the hosts), play either UNC or Duke, I don't know what the tiebreakers are past goal differential and those two teams would be #3 and #4 in some order.
-- Beat UNC, lose to Duke: #2 seed, play Carolina, which beat Maryland and would earn the tiebreaker over them.
-- Lose to UNC, beat Duke: #2 seed, play Maryland, who beat Duke and so would be the #3 seed.
-- Lose both games: #3 seed, play Carolina, who lost to Duke and so would be the #2 seed.
**********************************************************
So baseball also happened. What else happened is that UVA fans are officially going to sweat any lead in the late innings that's smaller than seven runs. After taking a 3-0 lead on Sunday, the Hoos gradually pissed away the whole thing until they were down 5-3; a ninth-inning comeback made it 6-5, and then, one half-inning away from finally winning a series in Raleigh, UVA did not even register one out en route to handing the game back to the Wolfpack. (OK, technically, they did. It was a sacrifice bunt. It's not like the pitching actually caused that to happen.)
I think it proved me rather prophetic, actually; these two teams are so closely matched it's unreal. It just so happens NC State has a better bullpen. As do most teams these days, unfortunately.
The best game - and not just because we won it - was definitely Saturday's, where the teams' two actual best pitchers matched up. Carlos Rodon is gonna be scary. He's scary now. And Branden Kline matched up pitch for pitch, except for a couple mistakes that ended up in the trees. It was the State bullpen that collapsed on Saturday; they were handed a tie game after a lightning delay forced out the starters, and UVA came through.
Friday was really only notable for Brian O'Connor's ejection, which was a surprise because BOC always brings his indoor voice to umpire arguments. It started off that way on Friday, too, until a button was pushed someway, somehow, and O'Connor went all Earl Weaver on the guy, except for the dust-kicking. If it was an effort to fire up the team, it didn't work, but I haven't gotten the impression BOC is the kind of guy to resort to that kind of trick. I think the umpire said something he didn't like.
So I had yet to see that happen, until this weekend, and I got to see something else I hadn't yet seen with my own eyes: Keith Werman behind the plate. He's got kind of a Peter Rowen thing going on:
He's also a pretty natural-looking catcher (except for the build), although I didn't see his basestealer-nabbing skills. NC State didn't run on him. (They scurred.)
Next week is a home series against Wake Forest, which is a halfway decent team. Even so, we should be disappointed with anything less than a series win. No moral victories there.
**********************************************************
In the world of basketball, it's a dead period right now until Thursday, so no contacting recruits, which also means no contacting all those potential transfers we're trying to bring in. T.J. McConnell, formerly of Duquesne, is officially down to either Arizona or UVA, and will check out Tucson pretty soon. The downside: McConnell's family supposedly knows Arizona's coach Sean Miller from small times. The plus side: Arizona is located in Tucson.
McConnell would be a prize catch. Another possibility: Rice transfer Dylan Ennis, who made the CUSA all-freshman team. In the big-man theater, Anthony Gill will request his release** (or has done so) from South Carolina, and this is obviously a thing because of this line from his official bio at South Carolina: "Choose (sic) South Carolina over Virginia and Wake Forest."
**Pay no attention to the line about tampering; it's a throwin by a pissed-off SC fan angry that we might take one of their best players.
Edit: RRRGGHHHH DAMMMMITTT I completely forgot to even mention this, which is loooonnngg overdue.
UVA looked great at either end of the game and not so good in the middle. And I think I know why: they didn't listen when I said "patience" and then they did. You might've noticed by now that this team is really good at finding open guys five feet from the net, because Steele Stanwick is good at finding open guys five feet from the net and Chris Bocklet is really good at being that open guy. Sometimes these goals they score are just, things of beauty.
But sometimes they try and force the beauty into ugly spots. And that's where the turnovers happen. The defense isn't always screwed-up and out of position, and when the defense is nice and tight around the net, you can't force passes in there no matter your talent level. Regardless, they try, sometimes, and that's one reason we lost the Hopkins game and why Maryland was up two goals midway through the third on Saturday.
That said, excluded from the forcing-it category is Stanwick's twisting, falling-down, double-teamed goal in the fourth, which is the kind of play that sticks in the mind of a Tewaaraton voter when it's time to fill out the ballot. Oh yes, he's in the running again, there's no doubt about that. Colgate's Peter Baum already has 42 goals and could finish the season with 60-some, but Colgate has to make the tourney - as we've seen, the voters care about your postseason exploits. Stanwick leads the country in assists with 33 and has 14 goals as well, which lands him fourth in the country in PPG. If Stanwick won, he'd be the first men's recipient to win the award two years in a row; Cuse's Mike Powell was the first to win two but sandwiched in between was our own Chris Rotelli.
Folks are also saying the fourth-quarter run was precipitated by inserting Matt White into the lineup and that hopefully it means White will get more playing time in favor of Owen Van Arsdale, whose hot start has cooled considerably. And yeah they're not wrong, but then again White has started all ten games. It's not like he's not out there. He's just playing midfield, when his natural spot is really attack. If you want a real suggestion: Move White to attack, OVA to the bench, and put Ryan Tucker on the first-line midfield. Tucker's got a gun. So does Rob Emery, and they'll be playing together in next year's midfield so might as well get them some quality time on the same field.
Next week is North Carolina, who I was rooting for last night against Hopkins so they'd be all fat, happy, and content this coming Saturday. Two weeks from now is Duke, and then the ACC tourney, and by the way here are your tourney scenarios now that we've gotten past Maryland:
-- Beat both UNC and Duke: #1 seed (which would be appropriate and correct as we are the hosts), play either UNC or Duke, I don't know what the tiebreakers are past goal differential and those two teams would be #3 and #4 in some order.
-- Beat UNC, lose to Duke: #2 seed, play Carolina, which beat Maryland and would earn the tiebreaker over them.
-- Lose to UNC, beat Duke: #2 seed, play Maryland, who beat Duke and so would be the #3 seed.
-- Lose both games: #3 seed, play Carolina, who lost to Duke and so would be the #2 seed.
**********************************************************
So baseball also happened. What else happened is that UVA fans are officially going to sweat any lead in the late innings that's smaller than seven runs. After taking a 3-0 lead on Sunday, the Hoos gradually pissed away the whole thing until they were down 5-3; a ninth-inning comeback made it 6-5, and then, one half-inning away from finally winning a series in Raleigh, UVA did not even register one out en route to handing the game back to the Wolfpack. (OK, technically, they did. It was a sacrifice bunt. It's not like the pitching actually caused that to happen.)
I think it proved me rather prophetic, actually; these two teams are so closely matched it's unreal. It just so happens NC State has a better bullpen. As do most teams these days, unfortunately.
The best game - and not just because we won it - was definitely Saturday's, where the teams' two actual best pitchers matched up. Carlos Rodon is gonna be scary. He's scary now. And Branden Kline matched up pitch for pitch, except for a couple mistakes that ended up in the trees. It was the State bullpen that collapsed on Saturday; they were handed a tie game after a lightning delay forced out the starters, and UVA came through.
Friday was really only notable for Brian O'Connor's ejection, which was a surprise because BOC always brings his indoor voice to umpire arguments. It started off that way on Friday, too, until a button was pushed someway, somehow, and O'Connor went all Earl Weaver on the guy, except for the dust-kicking. If it was an effort to fire up the team, it didn't work, but I haven't gotten the impression BOC is the kind of guy to resort to that kind of trick. I think the umpire said something he didn't like.
So I had yet to see that happen, until this weekend, and I got to see something else I hadn't yet seen with my own eyes: Keith Werman behind the plate. He's got kind of a Peter Rowen thing going on:
He's also a pretty natural-looking catcher (except for the build), although I didn't see his basestealer-nabbing skills. NC State didn't run on him. (They scurred.)
Next week is a home series against Wake Forest, which is a halfway decent team. Even so, we should be disappointed with anything less than a series win. No moral victories there.
**********************************************************
In the world of basketball, it's a dead period right now until Thursday, so no contacting recruits, which also means no contacting all those potential transfers we're trying to bring in. T.J. McConnell, formerly of Duquesne, is officially down to either Arizona or UVA, and will check out Tucson pretty soon. The downside: McConnell's family supposedly knows Arizona's coach Sean Miller from small times. The plus side: Arizona is located in Tucson.
McConnell would be a prize catch. Another possibility: Rice transfer Dylan Ennis, who made the CUSA all-freshman team. In the big-man theater, Anthony Gill will request his release** (or has done so) from South Carolina, and this is obviously a thing because of this line from his official bio at South Carolina: "Choose (sic) South Carolina over Virginia and Wake Forest."
**Pay no attention to the line about tampering; it's a throwin by a pissed-off SC fan angry that we might take one of their best players.
Edit: RRRGGHHHH DAMMMMITTT I completely forgot to even mention this, which is loooonnngg overdue.
Monday, November 9, 2009
guess what? it's hoops season!
And that is a blessing and a half. Our season doesn't actually open up til Friday, but in symbolic celebration, I'm once again eschewing the usual weekend review, which is typically very football-heavy, in favor of a leetle something I've been tossing around in my head for a while. (Though I did update the recruiting board so you could look at it with Khalek Shepherd included.)
Anyway, you might be asking yourself - well, no, you're probably not, so I'll ask for you: how come I haven't done any season previews of any teams like I do for football and did last year? To tell you the truth, last year about two weeks ago I slapped myself on the head, having fully intended to do a full set of previews and not having started. So I got cranking and didn't finish for quite a while. And when I got to the end, the season had already started and I found that these things were a lot easier to write when I had the benefit of a few nonconference games to work from. So that's the plan this year. Our last game before the break for finals is December 7; right around there is when the season preview series will kick off. This plan is almost certain to fail miserably given that all the trappings of a football coaching search will probably occupying all our thoughts, but that's life. And this post will serve as our own season preview, though the rest of them won't follow this format.
This format being, I'll go through the roster, roughly in numerical order, and offer up my thoughts on best-case and worst-case scenarios for each player. Oh, and it'll be a two-part series. Without further ado, then:
#0 - Doug Browman
#10 - Tom Jonke
#11 - Thomas Kody
#22 - Will Sherrill
Best-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout wins.
Worst-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout losses.
Walk-ons, yo. And I don't remember ever having more than three, but such is the way of the Bennett, apparently. Sherrill is the only one with experience on the team, although Jonke is an old team manager and apparently Bennett decided to reward him with a uniform. Which is kinda cool, actually. Now, the real worst-case scenario - no offense to walk-on types - is that we have to actually rely on them for non-garbage minutes. You know you're in serious rebuilding mode when that happens.
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case scenario: Is every bit the feisty on-ball defender of his reputation. Backup point guard, but the kind whose minutes don't fluctuate wildly up and down because so do his turnover numbers. Not lighting up the score sheet, but dependable.
Worst-case scenario: Is every bit the freshman that he is. Gets benched midseason for entire games because his decision-making is driving Bennett to distraction.
Evans is going to be one of the absolute most critically important guys on the team this year. No exaggeration. This team will be at its most effective if Baker and Landesberg don't have to pick up all kinds of minutes at the 1 because we don't have a decent backup point guard. Quality play - or not - from Evans is going to be one of the biggest factors making up the difference between scratching and clawing for the CBI or - in my wildest fantasies - having Selection Day matter. We don't need Evans to score in double digits all the time, and he won't whether or not he's getting significant minutes. We just need him to play nasty defense and put the ball in the right person's hands at the right time on offense.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case scenario: Reliable three-point shooter off the bench.
Worst-case scenario: Carbon copy of last year.
Mu is one of those guys who no offense but if he's in the starting lineup too frequently, we're in trouble. He had a couple really spectacular games last year. In just 12 minutes against Virginia Poly in January, he bombed home 17 points and shot 4-of-5 from three-land. Very nicely done. That's the kind of thing that earns you major minutes the next game, which he got against UNC (led the team with 27, actually) and proceeded to hoist up 15 shots, only four of which found their way through. Eww. Story of the season for Farrakhan. He had a few other really good games, but too many of them ended up with lines like 1-for-5 or 0-for-7 and spawned a chicken-or-the-egg debate about whether his ridiculously inconsistent shooting was the result of his ridiculously inconsistent spot in the rotation, or vice versa.
He actually was second on the team in 3PT%, however, behind the maddening Jamil Tucker. If he can kind of harness those same numbers and improve his two-point shooting (it can't be too hard to improve on .347 - that's awful) and play with some consistency, he'll be extremely useful as a guy who can rotate in, knock down a shot or two, and generally ensure that the offense doesn't go off a cliff when the starters go out. I have confidence that Bennett's rotations will be less magic-8-ball-inspired than Leitao's were last year ("Should Mustapha play tonight?" "Outlook not so good.") and we'll find out if consistent minutes = consistent shooting, or if Farrakhan shoots his way right out of the rotation entirely.
#4 - Calvin Baker
Best-case scenario: Quality veteran leadership from the two, and a steadying presence on both ends of the floor. Learns when to take the shot and when not to.
Worst-case scenario: Pressed into point-guard duty and continues to play the position as a CAA-level player.
The first year after Baker's transfer from William & Mary, he was sort of a pleasant surprise. The second year, last year, the flaws in his game seemed more apparent, along with the reason he wasn't an ACC player in the first place. But the basic fact is, we pretty much know what we're getting with Baker. About eight points a game, three assists, and a couple rebounds. His stats didn't really change from year to year. What changed was his percentages. He seemingly forgot how to shoot and his shooting percentages, both from two and from three, plummeted. What really changed was his position. Forced to play a lot of point guard after Sean Singletary graduated, Baker didn't really prove himself the man for that job, hoisting up some majorly ill-advised shots at times and passing up good ones.
Calvin's one of the team's undisputed leaders and generally one of the more fundamentally sound players, and he's going to get his minutes. But we will have a much better team - and Baker will be a much better player - if he is manning the two on the second unit rather than the one. We'll need his scoring and leadership, but we can live without his point-guard decision-making.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case scenario: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case scenario: Can't overcome whatever academic and/or disciplinary problems led to his suspension and stays in the doghouse all season. Transfers.
We have, like, kiddie-pool depth in the frontcourt, so the news that Sene would be suspended for the first three games of the season was not happy time. We really could have used John Brandenburg this year - Sene is now the only guy we have that's legitimately a big man and a center. No, Meyinsse is not a center, he's a 4 pressed into 5 duty. Along with Evans, Sene will be critical to our success. With Sene, we have a center. Without him, we have a lineup that's charitably described as "small-ball." The last thing we need is him in the doghouse, and the second-to-last thing we need is him in constant foul trouble like he was last year. When he's not on the bench with too many fouls, he's an offense-altering shot blocker and a pretty good rebounder, and in the latter department he should only improve. But he is also one of the biggest enigmas, and outside of the two freshmen, I don't think anyone knows where his development is leading him right now. With as few options as we have in the frontcourt, the answer to that question is program-altering.
#12 - Jamil Tucker
Best-case scenario: Figures out the non-shooting aspects of the game enough to provide steady rotation minutes and become an indispensable scorer.
Worst-case scenario: Doesn't bother. Gets benched.
Jamil Tucker is maddening. Other than Landesberg, he was the only guy last season who consistently, game in and game out, could fill up the bucket. He was the top three-point shooter last year and one of only three on the team to top a .400 shooting percentage - a very respectable .442, actually. But his defense makes you go RRRGH and for a guy his size, he shows very little interest in rebounding. When people say they want to see improved fundamentals from this team, Tucker is the guy they're thinking of most. Neither Bennett nor Leitao suffer non-defense-playing fools gladly, which is why an offensively starved team last year kept one of its most offensively productive players on the bench so much. Bennett will do the same if Tucker refuses to defend. We will be very much improved on offense this year if Tucker earns himself a lot of meaningful minutes, because his ability to score isn't in question. But Bennett's not going to let Tucker slough off the other end of the floor, and guys like Baker and Spurlock will absorb his minutes. Tucker's probably too good on offense to shut entirely out of the rotation, but don't let yourself be surprised if Bennett does it anyway should Tucker continue ignoring everything about basketball but scoring.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case scenario: Puts the starting point guard job on lockdown. Is first-half Sammy from last year.
Worst-case scenario: Puts starting point guard job up for grabs. Is second-half Sammy from last year.
Last year, this team looked fairly respectable early, in part because Sammy was proving himself a very pleasant surprise. He didn't look like a freshman who'd just missed almost a full year because of an ankle injury. He ran the point smoothly, and shot the ball well. In two moral-victory losses in hostile arenas, he really gave everyone hope that we'd be respectable going forward. Something traumatic and scary must have happened during final exams, though, because after that break, his shot was gone, and a month or so later, so was his starting gig (though he still saw significant minutes off the bench.) He had his moments; the win over Clemson was a gem as far as Z was concerned - 6-for-6 from the field, 15 points, 6 assists, it was brilliant. Mostly, though, Sammy was a freshman point guard and it showed during the ACC half of the season.
Myself, I think we'll see improvement this season. Now that Sammy's got a full season of bringing the ball up the court against ACC competition, my guess is we'll see a lot more of Good Sammy this year. Bad Sammy won't disappear, but as Tony Bennett works his magic and Z's conditioning improves, his development curve will go the other way this year, which is to say, the way it's supposed to. He'll be the default starter at the point this year, and we're going to have to get ready to live or die by his play because, basically, he's what we got.
That's Part 1. Part 2: tomorrow. Oh look, I stopped just before I got to the number one honcho. That's what they call a cliffhanger, isn't it? Actually, we just basically happen to be halfway through the roster if you count all those walk-ons as one player. But still. Tune in tomorrow to see what I think of Sylven Landesberg (hot tip: he's pretty good) and also, our prize recruit.
Anyway, you might be asking yourself - well, no, you're probably not, so I'll ask for you: how come I haven't done any season previews of any teams like I do for football and did last year? To tell you the truth, last year about two weeks ago I slapped myself on the head, having fully intended to do a full set of previews and not having started. So I got cranking and didn't finish for quite a while. And when I got to the end, the season had already started and I found that these things were a lot easier to write when I had the benefit of a few nonconference games to work from. So that's the plan this year. Our last game before the break for finals is December 7; right around there is when the season preview series will kick off. This plan is almost certain to fail miserably given that all the trappings of a football coaching search will probably occupying all our thoughts, but that's life. And this post will serve as our own season preview, though the rest of them won't follow this format.
This format being, I'll go through the roster, roughly in numerical order, and offer up my thoughts on best-case and worst-case scenarios for each player. Oh, and it'll be a two-part series. Without further ado, then:
#0 - Doug Browman
#10 - Tom Jonke
#11 - Thomas Kody
#22 - Will Sherrill
Best-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout wins.
Worst-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout losses.
Walk-ons, yo. And I don't remember ever having more than three, but such is the way of the Bennett, apparently. Sherrill is the only one with experience on the team, although Jonke is an old team manager and apparently Bennett decided to reward him with a uniform. Which is kinda cool, actually. Now, the real worst-case scenario - no offense to walk-on types - is that we have to actually rely on them for non-garbage minutes. You know you're in serious rebuilding mode when that happens.
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case scenario: Is every bit the feisty on-ball defender of his reputation. Backup point guard, but the kind whose minutes don't fluctuate wildly up and down because so do his turnover numbers. Not lighting up the score sheet, but dependable.
Worst-case scenario: Is every bit the freshman that he is. Gets benched midseason for entire games because his decision-making is driving Bennett to distraction.
Evans is going to be one of the absolute most critically important guys on the team this year. No exaggeration. This team will be at its most effective if Baker and Landesberg don't have to pick up all kinds of minutes at the 1 because we don't have a decent backup point guard. Quality play - or not - from Evans is going to be one of the biggest factors making up the difference between scratching and clawing for the CBI or - in my wildest fantasies - having Selection Day matter. We don't need Evans to score in double digits all the time, and he won't whether or not he's getting significant minutes. We just need him to play nasty defense and put the ball in the right person's hands at the right time on offense.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case scenario: Reliable three-point shooter off the bench.
Worst-case scenario: Carbon copy of last year.
Mu is one of those guys who no offense but if he's in the starting lineup too frequently, we're in trouble. He had a couple really spectacular games last year. In just 12 minutes against Virginia Poly in January, he bombed home 17 points and shot 4-of-5 from three-land. Very nicely done. That's the kind of thing that earns you major minutes the next game, which he got against UNC (led the team with 27, actually) and proceeded to hoist up 15 shots, only four of which found their way through. Eww. Story of the season for Farrakhan. He had a few other really good games, but too many of them ended up with lines like 1-for-5 or 0-for-7 and spawned a chicken-or-the-egg debate about whether his ridiculously inconsistent shooting was the result of his ridiculously inconsistent spot in the rotation, or vice versa.
He actually was second on the team in 3PT%, however, behind the maddening Jamil Tucker. If he can kind of harness those same numbers and improve his two-point shooting (it can't be too hard to improve on .347 - that's awful) and play with some consistency, he'll be extremely useful as a guy who can rotate in, knock down a shot or two, and generally ensure that the offense doesn't go off a cliff when the starters go out. I have confidence that Bennett's rotations will be less magic-8-ball-inspired than Leitao's were last year ("Should Mustapha play tonight?" "Outlook not so good.") and we'll find out if consistent minutes = consistent shooting, or if Farrakhan shoots his way right out of the rotation entirely.
#4 - Calvin Baker
Best-case scenario: Quality veteran leadership from the two, and a steadying presence on both ends of the floor. Learns when to take the shot and when not to.
Worst-case scenario: Pressed into point-guard duty and continues to play the position as a CAA-level player.
The first year after Baker's transfer from William & Mary, he was sort of a pleasant surprise. The second year, last year, the flaws in his game seemed more apparent, along with the reason he wasn't an ACC player in the first place. But the basic fact is, we pretty much know what we're getting with Baker. About eight points a game, three assists, and a couple rebounds. His stats didn't really change from year to year. What changed was his percentages. He seemingly forgot how to shoot and his shooting percentages, both from two and from three, plummeted. What really changed was his position. Forced to play a lot of point guard after Sean Singletary graduated, Baker didn't really prove himself the man for that job, hoisting up some majorly ill-advised shots at times and passing up good ones.
Calvin's one of the team's undisputed leaders and generally one of the more fundamentally sound players, and he's going to get his minutes. But we will have a much better team - and Baker will be a much better player - if he is manning the two on the second unit rather than the one. We'll need his scoring and leadership, but we can live without his point-guard decision-making.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case scenario: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case scenario: Can't overcome whatever academic and/or disciplinary problems led to his suspension and stays in the doghouse all season. Transfers.
We have, like, kiddie-pool depth in the frontcourt, so the news that Sene would be suspended for the first three games of the season was not happy time. We really could have used John Brandenburg this year - Sene is now the only guy we have that's legitimately a big man and a center. No, Meyinsse is not a center, he's a 4 pressed into 5 duty. Along with Evans, Sene will be critical to our success. With Sene, we have a center. Without him, we have a lineup that's charitably described as "small-ball." The last thing we need is him in the doghouse, and the second-to-last thing we need is him in constant foul trouble like he was last year. When he's not on the bench with too many fouls, he's an offense-altering shot blocker and a pretty good rebounder, and in the latter department he should only improve. But he is also one of the biggest enigmas, and outside of the two freshmen, I don't think anyone knows where his development is leading him right now. With as few options as we have in the frontcourt, the answer to that question is program-altering.
#12 - Jamil Tucker
Best-case scenario: Figures out the non-shooting aspects of the game enough to provide steady rotation minutes and become an indispensable scorer.
Worst-case scenario: Doesn't bother. Gets benched.
Jamil Tucker is maddening. Other than Landesberg, he was the only guy last season who consistently, game in and game out, could fill up the bucket. He was the top three-point shooter last year and one of only three on the team to top a .400 shooting percentage - a very respectable .442, actually. But his defense makes you go RRRGH and for a guy his size, he shows very little interest in rebounding. When people say they want to see improved fundamentals from this team, Tucker is the guy they're thinking of most. Neither Bennett nor Leitao suffer non-defense-playing fools gladly, which is why an offensively starved team last year kept one of its most offensively productive players on the bench so much. Bennett will do the same if Tucker refuses to defend. We will be very much improved on offense this year if Tucker earns himself a lot of meaningful minutes, because his ability to score isn't in question. But Bennett's not going to let Tucker slough off the other end of the floor, and guys like Baker and Spurlock will absorb his minutes. Tucker's probably too good on offense to shut entirely out of the rotation, but don't let yourself be surprised if Bennett does it anyway should Tucker continue ignoring everything about basketball but scoring.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case scenario: Puts the starting point guard job on lockdown. Is first-half Sammy from last year.
Worst-case scenario: Puts starting point guard job up for grabs. Is second-half Sammy from last year.
Last year, this team looked fairly respectable early, in part because Sammy was proving himself a very pleasant surprise. He didn't look like a freshman who'd just missed almost a full year because of an ankle injury. He ran the point smoothly, and shot the ball well. In two moral-victory losses in hostile arenas, he really gave everyone hope that we'd be respectable going forward. Something traumatic and scary must have happened during final exams, though, because after that break, his shot was gone, and a month or so later, so was his starting gig (though he still saw significant minutes off the bench.) He had his moments; the win over Clemson was a gem as far as Z was concerned - 6-for-6 from the field, 15 points, 6 assists, it was brilliant. Mostly, though, Sammy was a freshman point guard and it showed during the ACC half of the season.
Myself, I think we'll see improvement this season. Now that Sammy's got a full season of bringing the ball up the court against ACC competition, my guess is we'll see a lot more of Good Sammy this year. Bad Sammy won't disappear, but as Tony Bennett works his magic and Z's conditioning improves, his development curve will go the other way this year, which is to say, the way it's supposed to. He'll be the default starter at the point this year, and we're going to have to get ready to live or die by his play because, basically, he's what we got.
That's Part 1. Part 2: tomorrow. Oh look, I stopped just before I got to the number one honcho. That's what they call a cliffhanger, isn't it? Actually, we just basically happen to be halfway through the roster if you count all those walk-ons as one player. But still. Tune in tomorrow to see what I think of Sylven Landesberg (hot tip: he's pretty good) and also, our prize recruit.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
the recruit: Akil Mitchell
Name: Akil Mitchell
Position: SF
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
School: Charlotte Christian
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 210
Rivals: three stars
ESPN: 91, #35 SF
Scout: two stars
How big a sleeper is Akil Mitchell? How much information is out there on the Internet about him? Put it this way: when you Google up his name, this very blog - which up til now has had no information on Mitchell beyond "I dunno" - is third in the results list. Mitchell wasn't even showing up in all the databases until he committed a few weeks ago. (It really seems like a lot longer than that.)
Anyway. Tony Bennett, having stocked the cupboard for 2010 with four fairly-well known quantities (yes, even Harrell), had the luxury of going a little deeper into the well and picking out someone based more on their showing at camps and such rather than their track record. A project. And you won't find many players that fit the definition of a project better than Mitchell.
For starters, nobody can quite agree whether he's better suited for the three or the four. Right now, the answer is three for sure, where he says he feels most comfortable. And the scouting report here reads exactly like a three ought to read. Plus, he's a little short for the four. Right now our options at power forward are basically Scott, Meyinsse, and Tucker, and they're all taller. Mitchell might get taller his own self, though. He's skinny and certainly not done growing outwards - once he gets to UVA, Mike Curtis will set him to work bulking up. He might not be done growing upwards, either, and if he does that he'll be just right for the four.
The other term that keeps popping up for Mitchell is "late bloomer." I'm not sure if that's quite as fair. Mitchell was injured his freshman year of high school and so got a bit of a late start. Last year, his junior year, he was simply overshadowed by talented seniors on his team. Digging up old boxscores shows that Mitchell really wasn't the go-to guy most nights; the leading scorer for Charlotte Christian last year was usually a kid named Willis Hall, who this year will be a freshman at College of Charleston. So Mitchell wasn't the guy everyone was intending to see when they went to a CC game. And why should they notice the skinny kid who hadn't had much of a growth spurt yet?
It's hard not to like the scouting reports that have trickled down the pipe about Mitchell, but at the same time it's hard to know what to make of them. I mean, when's the last time an ACC team signed a player, whether in college he was a superstar or a yutz, whose scouting reports out of the camps said, "too slow, too small, won't rebound, can't shoot"? They're all the same sort of shining write-ups that often just seem to rearrange the words from player to player. But that in itself is encouraging - that Tony Bennett can run out and dig up one of these sorts of players (and ESPN has given him a pretty good grade) that can legitimately be called an ACC-caliber guy and yet hadn't had any looks from ACC teams. Plus, y'know, he's smart. Got that 4+ GPA at a tough school. Can't complain about that.
So Mitchell probably won't be the kind who comes in right away and jumps right into the rotation. As much as anything it'll be because the coaches will be figuring out where he best fits. Even now we know about what kind of players we're expecting Joe Harris and James Johnson and such to be. What I'm hoping for out of Mitchell is that he can develop into being a really versatile and really valuable bench guy that can be put in the game as either the small guy in a big lineup or the big guy in a small lineup, depending on the situation. Someone who might not be able to go toe-to-toe with the ACC heavyweight starters, but does a little bit of everything well enough to create matchup nightmares for other teams' bench guys. In other words, what Jamil Tucker might be if he could defend anyone.
Position: SF
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
School: Charlotte Christian
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 210
Rivals: three stars
ESPN: 91, #35 SF
Scout: two stars
How big a sleeper is Akil Mitchell? How much information is out there on the Internet about him? Put it this way: when you Google up his name, this very blog - which up til now has had no information on Mitchell beyond "I dunno" - is third in the results list. Mitchell wasn't even showing up in all the databases until he committed a few weeks ago. (It really seems like a lot longer than that.)
Anyway. Tony Bennett, having stocked the cupboard for 2010 with four fairly-well known quantities (yes, even Harrell), had the luxury of going a little deeper into the well and picking out someone based more on their showing at camps and such rather than their track record. A project. And you won't find many players that fit the definition of a project better than Mitchell.
For starters, nobody can quite agree whether he's better suited for the three or the four. Right now, the answer is three for sure, where he says he feels most comfortable. And the scouting report here reads exactly like a three ought to read. Plus, he's a little short for the four. Right now our options at power forward are basically Scott, Meyinsse, and Tucker, and they're all taller. Mitchell might get taller his own self, though. He's skinny and certainly not done growing outwards - once he gets to UVA, Mike Curtis will set him to work bulking up. He might not be done growing upwards, either, and if he does that he'll be just right for the four.
The other term that keeps popping up for Mitchell is "late bloomer." I'm not sure if that's quite as fair. Mitchell was injured his freshman year of high school and so got a bit of a late start. Last year, his junior year, he was simply overshadowed by talented seniors on his team. Digging up old boxscores shows that Mitchell really wasn't the go-to guy most nights; the leading scorer for Charlotte Christian last year was usually a kid named Willis Hall, who this year will be a freshman at College of Charleston. So Mitchell wasn't the guy everyone was intending to see when they went to a CC game. And why should they notice the skinny kid who hadn't had much of a growth spurt yet?
It's hard not to like the scouting reports that have trickled down the pipe about Mitchell, but at the same time it's hard to know what to make of them. I mean, when's the last time an ACC team signed a player, whether in college he was a superstar or a yutz, whose scouting reports out of the camps said, "too slow, too small, won't rebound, can't shoot"? They're all the same sort of shining write-ups that often just seem to rearrange the words from player to player. But that in itself is encouraging - that Tony Bennett can run out and dig up one of these sorts of players (and ESPN has given him a pretty good grade) that can legitimately be called an ACC-caliber guy and yet hadn't had any looks from ACC teams. Plus, y'know, he's smart. Got that 4+ GPA at a tough school. Can't complain about that.
So Mitchell probably won't be the kind who comes in right away and jumps right into the rotation. As much as anything it'll be because the coaches will be figuring out where he best fits. Even now we know about what kind of players we're expecting Joe Harris and James Johnson and such to be. What I'm hoping for out of Mitchell is that he can develop into being a really versatile and really valuable bench guy that can be put in the game as either the small guy in a big lineup or the big guy in a small lineup, depending on the situation. Someone who might not be able to go toe-to-toe with the ACC heavyweight starters, but does a little bit of everything well enough to create matchup nightmares for other teams' bench guys. In other words, what Jamil Tucker might be if he could defend anyone.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
game preview: Miami
So the lax team went out and did its thing again last night. After peppering Stony Brook with 62 shots, Mt. St. Mary's got the same treatment as the team racked up another 60. Garrett Billings, fresh off a record-tying goal-scoring performance at Stony Brook, didn't score at all and took only four shots. Chad Gaudet won 11 of 16 faceoffs, which is pretty excellent stuff, but like I said earlier, I'll get excited after I see how we do at Syracuse. That should be a great game and I'm looking forward to watching it and....oh. Right - it's not televised. Well, that's awesome. When I turn my TV to channel 134 on Friday night, Siena vs. Niagara will be on. I know its basketball season, and it's great to give a little exposure to a team like Siena which is quietly having a fine season, but what does ESPNU exist for if not to broadcast the marquee matchup of the year of the #1 and #2 teams in what is arguably the East Coast's most popular non-revenue sport?
Preview time, anyway. Basketball, that is.
Virginia Cavaliers (9-14, 3-9) vs. Miami Hurricanes (16-10, 5-8)
Possible starting lineups:
UVA:
PG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Calvin Baker (7.8 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Sylven Landesberg (18.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 2.9 apg)
F: Solomon Tat (0.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.3 apg - but mad hustle, yo)
C: Assane Sene (2.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.7 bpg)
Miami:
G: Jack McClinton (20.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.0 apg)
G: James Dews (8.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Brian Asbury (7.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Dwayne Collins (11.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.5 apg)
C: Jimmy Graham (3.7 ppg, 6.1 apg, 0.6 apg)
Hope we like the number 11, because we're just about locked into that seed for the ACC tournament. Georgia Tech isn't going to run the table, and we're not bloody likely to overtake Miami or NC State, even with a win tomorrow night. For now, that means an opening-round game against Boston College.
Anyway, you and I both know about Dave Leitao's wackity rotations, with rhyme and reason not always clear. If he wants to continue baffling UVA fans and changing things up, this would be a great time to reinsert Jerome Meyinsse. You remember him - he got minutes all the way up until the BC game (the no-subs-in-the-second-half one) and inexplicably played 20+ in a few games without much indication as to why. Since then he hasn't sniffed the court.
Miami, however, has a whole bunch of guys that measure up between 6'7" and 6'9" and weigh 230 pounds or more. More so than most teams, and certainly more than us. Lord only knows how many minutes Mike Scott is going to get from game to game - he hasn't been in the starting lineup lately - and Jamil Tucker is 6'8" 240 and plays like he's 6'3" 215. We tried the small-and-quick thing against NC State's bigger guys and it failed miserably. We're gonna get run over by Miami's bigs - Graham, McGowan, Collins, Thomas, Asbury - if we can't run out some size of our own. Given the matchups, Meyinsse would be a good candidate to get some of these minutes that have been going to Solomon Tat lately.
The other problem we're going to have is Jack McClinton, who leads the league in threes made and shoots them at almost 48%. Of late we've done a good job at limiting our own three attempts, which is nice because we suck at shooting them. What concerns me is that when you combine a hot hand for the opponent, and a bunch of big guys defending that don't let you into the lane, the temptation is to launch away and hope for the best. Bottom line: I don't like the way we match up with these guys, and I think the best chance we have is to press, turn defense into transition offense, and generally run the floor and try to do everything faster than they do. Because we're going to get killed if it turns into a halfcourt game.
Preview time, anyway. Basketball, that is.
Virginia Cavaliers (9-14, 3-9) vs. Miami Hurricanes (16-10, 5-8)
Possible starting lineups:
UVA:
PG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Calvin Baker (7.8 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Sylven Landesberg (18.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 2.9 apg)
F: Solomon Tat (0.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.3 apg - but mad hustle, yo)
C: Assane Sene (2.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.7 bpg)
Miami:
G: Jack McClinton (20.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.0 apg)
G: James Dews (8.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Brian Asbury (7.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Dwayne Collins (11.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.5 apg)
C: Jimmy Graham (3.7 ppg, 6.1 apg, 0.6 apg)
Hope we like the number 11, because we're just about locked into that seed for the ACC tournament. Georgia Tech isn't going to run the table, and we're not bloody likely to overtake Miami or NC State, even with a win tomorrow night. For now, that means an opening-round game against Boston College.
Anyway, you and I both know about Dave Leitao's wackity rotations, with rhyme and reason not always clear. If he wants to continue baffling UVA fans and changing things up, this would be a great time to reinsert Jerome Meyinsse. You remember him - he got minutes all the way up until the BC game (the no-subs-in-the-second-half one) and inexplicably played 20+ in a few games without much indication as to why. Since then he hasn't sniffed the court.
Miami, however, has a whole bunch of guys that measure up between 6'7" and 6'9" and weigh 230 pounds or more. More so than most teams, and certainly more than us. Lord only knows how many minutes Mike Scott is going to get from game to game - he hasn't been in the starting lineup lately - and Jamil Tucker is 6'8" 240 and plays like he's 6'3" 215. We tried the small-and-quick thing against NC State's bigger guys and it failed miserably. We're gonna get run over by Miami's bigs - Graham, McGowan, Collins, Thomas, Asbury - if we can't run out some size of our own. Given the matchups, Meyinsse would be a good candidate to get some of these minutes that have been going to Solomon Tat lately.
The other problem we're going to have is Jack McClinton, who leads the league in threes made and shoots them at almost 48%. Of late we've done a good job at limiting our own three attempts, which is nice because we suck at shooting them. What concerns me is that when you combine a hot hand for the opponent, and a bunch of big guys defending that don't let you into the lane, the temptation is to launch away and hope for the best. Bottom line: I don't like the way we match up with these guys, and I think the best chance we have is to press, turn defense into transition offense, and generally run the floor and try to do everything faster than they do. Because we're going to get killed if it turns into a halfcourt game.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
basketblogpoll ballot 3
So that was exciting yesterday, huh? I defer to Mahini here, because I couldn't say it better myself:
Part of the problem yesterday was having no answer for the NC State bigs. Ben McCauley's contributions don't show much on the stat sheet (except for the 10 rebounds) but defensively, our guys were clearly afraid to take it to the rack with him patrolling the post. He and Tracy Smith just killed us inside, which is obnoxious because they're not really that big. More of Mike Scott yesterday, and more of Jamil Tucker playing like his size, would have been really nice. Instead we just looked like a team desperately wishing it still had Lars Mikalauskas to bang people around, and since we don't, let's just give up and dribble around til a shot opens up.
Anyway, 'nuff bitching. Ballot time:
- I really really really wanted to include teams like Dayton, Butler, and Siena. Mid-majors definitely got the shaft this week. But it's impossible to ignore the absurdly low formula rankings of teams like Dayton and Siena, and more importantly it's also tough to ignore that Butler and Dayton suffered some bad losses this week.
- I was really afraid I'd have to do some major shaking-up of the top echelon of the ballot, but it turns out everybody lost, so it's not like you can drop them all a spot. Pitt gets to be #1 by default for not losing, and knocking off UConn helps too. I see absolutely no reason anyone else should be first, frankly.
- I didn't leave #'s 4 through 11 untouched on purpose. Last week's ballot is something I take into account only at the very, very end of the process, so as to avoid having to answer questions like "why did Gonzaga drop eight spots after their two games this week were 40-point blowouts?"
- As always, you're more than encouraged to set me straight if something looks off.
And, I guess the Hoos missed starting slow and clawing their way back to a close defeat so much that they decided to do it twice in the same game. Awesome.It would have been nice to find out the outcome of that game without spotting the 'Pack huge leads at the beginning of each half. Actually it would be nice to find out the outcome of this whole season without spotting everyone we play huge leads.
Part of the problem yesterday was having no answer for the NC State bigs. Ben McCauley's contributions don't show much on the stat sheet (except for the 10 rebounds) but defensively, our guys were clearly afraid to take it to the rack with him patrolling the post. He and Tracy Smith just killed us inside, which is obnoxious because they're not really that big. More of Mike Scott yesterday, and more of Jamil Tucker playing like his size, would have been really nice. Instead we just looked like a team desperately wishing it still had Lars Mikalauskas to bang people around, and since we don't, let's just give up and dribble around til a shot opens up.
Anyway, 'nuff bitching. Ballot time:
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh |  2 |
| 2 | Connecticut |  1 |
| 3 | North Carolina | 1 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | |
| 5 | Duke | |
| 6 | Memphis | |
| 7 | Michigan St. | |
| 8 | Louisville | |
| 9 | Clemson | |
| 10 | Missouri | |
| 11 | Kansas | |
| 12 | Marquette | 4 |
| 13 | Villanova | 2 |
| 14 | Purdue | |
| 15 | Wake Forest | 1 |
| 16 | Gonzaga | 1 |
| 17 | Xavier | 5 |
| 18 | Arizona St. | 2 |
| 19 | Washington | 1 |
| 20 | Illinois | 7 |
| 21 | Florida St. | |
| 22 | Utah St. | |
| 23 | Louisiana St. | 2 |
| 24 | Utah | 1 |
| 25 | Brigham Young | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Butler (#19), Davidson (#23), Dayton (#24).
- I really really really wanted to include teams like Dayton, Butler, and Siena. Mid-majors definitely got the shaft this week. But it's impossible to ignore the absurdly low formula rankings of teams like Dayton and Siena, and more importantly it's also tough to ignore that Butler and Dayton suffered some bad losses this week.
- I was really afraid I'd have to do some major shaking-up of the top echelon of the ballot, but it turns out everybody lost, so it's not like you can drop them all a spot. Pitt gets to be #1 by default for not losing, and knocking off UConn helps too. I see absolutely no reason anyone else should be first, frankly.
- I didn't leave #'s 4 through 11 untouched on purpose. Last week's ballot is something I take into account only at the very, very end of the process, so as to avoid having to answer questions like "why did Gonzaga drop eight spots after their two games this week were 40-point blowouts?"
- As always, you're more than encouraged to set me straight if something looks off.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
in which we are basically the Charlotte Bobcats
The frustrating thing about trying to make any sense of what's going to happen in the next basketball game is that I tend to think in terms of what our players are capable of, instead of what's likely to happen or taking into account the extreme freshmanitude of this lineup. Inside my own head I'm guilty of occasionally taking this to absurd extremes, as in, "well, Sammy and Tucker can each bring about 12 points to the table, and Mike Scott seems like he's good for 12 as well, and Sylven is Sylven, so, 20," and by the time I'm done with the lineup I've given us about 120 points. This is pure fantasy and doesn't make it through the still-developing filter between brain and keyboard when I'm trying to do Serious Writer Stuff.
But I still take certain things for granted. Like Sammy Zeglinski. I did not even consider the possibility, let alone the effects, of a really bad game from him when I wrote up the Maryland preview, but, duh, he's a freshman, and played a total stinker of a game last night. I make this bold prediction now: we will never win a basketball game when our point guard scores no points and has one assist. Sammy has been visited during these last two games by the Bad Decision Fairy and the assist-to-turnover ratio takes a beating because of it.
He's not alone. Just when I think (and write) that certain players need to have more minutes, they get them - and one (Tucker) totally vindicates me and the other (Farrakhan) goes thhpppbbbtttt. And we wonder why Dave Leitao can't settle on a rotation.
Here's the problem with this team. Kris at TheSabre writes today asking us to try looking at this season (and specifically, Dave Leitao) with Year One goggles on. Good article - doesn't go far enough. It's not just Dave Leitao - everyone's in Year One. The leading scorer is a freshman. The point guard is a freshman. The leading defender is a freshman. Scott is playing 10 more minutes a game than he did last year. By season's end, Meyinsse will have doubled his minutes played over last year's total and Farrakhan will have tripled his. Over 57% of the minutes played last year were played by someone no longer on the team, and Diane and Jones struggled so badly early on that they've lost minutes, too.
The closest thing I can think of to describe this team is an expansion team. It looks like an expansion team. Plays like one. So many brand-new pieces all thrown onto the same court. There are 10 players in what you might call our rotation, and on the face of it the breakdown looks like this:
3 freshmen (Landesberg, Zeglinski, Sene)
3 sophomores (Scott, Farrakhan, Jones)
3 juniors (Meyinsse, Tucker, Baker)
1 senior (Diane)
Which is a young enough group as it is - how many other ACC teams are starting three freshmen? But in practice, it's more like 5 freshmen (Meyinsse and Farrakhan are in their first year with actual responsibilities), 3 sophomores (Baker's second year on the team - one year at W&M and one year sitting doesn't really prepare you for the ACC), and two upperclassmen, both of whom come off the bench.
Which means that patience is not only a virtue, it's a must, whether or not you think Leitao should be given more time. (And I do.) This team is not going to be much good all year. The experience they gain, every game, is going to be nullified by the grind of the long season as the extra minutes catch up to the players not used to playing so much. Leitao has generally been able to squeeze unexpectedly good results out of patchwork teams, so when this team is fully developed a couple years from now it's going to be a joy to watch. It's just, this year, you should mentally add the word "if" to any predictions of success.
But I still take certain things for granted. Like Sammy Zeglinski. I did not even consider the possibility, let alone the effects, of a really bad game from him when I wrote up the Maryland preview, but, duh, he's a freshman, and played a total stinker of a game last night. I make this bold prediction now: we will never win a basketball game when our point guard scores no points and has one assist. Sammy has been visited during these last two games by the Bad Decision Fairy and the assist-to-turnover ratio takes a beating because of it.
He's not alone. Just when I think (and write) that certain players need to have more minutes, they get them - and one (Tucker) totally vindicates me and the other (Farrakhan) goes thhpppbbbtttt. And we wonder why Dave Leitao can't settle on a rotation.
Here's the problem with this team. Kris at TheSabre writes today asking us to try looking at this season (and specifically, Dave Leitao) with Year One goggles on. Good article - doesn't go far enough. It's not just Dave Leitao - everyone's in Year One. The leading scorer is a freshman. The point guard is a freshman. The leading defender is a freshman. Scott is playing 10 more minutes a game than he did last year. By season's end, Meyinsse will have doubled his minutes played over last year's total and Farrakhan will have tripled his. Over 57% of the minutes played last year were played by someone no longer on the team, and Diane and Jones struggled so badly early on that they've lost minutes, too.
The closest thing I can think of to describe this team is an expansion team. It looks like an expansion team. Plays like one. So many brand-new pieces all thrown onto the same court. There are 10 players in what you might call our rotation, and on the face of it the breakdown looks like this:
3 freshmen (Landesberg, Zeglinski, Sene)
3 sophomores (Scott, Farrakhan, Jones)
3 juniors (Meyinsse, Tucker, Baker)
1 senior (Diane)
Which is a young enough group as it is - how many other ACC teams are starting three freshmen? But in practice, it's more like 5 freshmen (Meyinsse and Farrakhan are in their first year with actual responsibilities), 3 sophomores (Baker's second year on the team - one year at W&M and one year sitting doesn't really prepare you for the ACC), and two upperclassmen, both of whom come off the bench.
Which means that patience is not only a virtue, it's a must, whether or not you think Leitao should be given more time. (And I do.) This team is not going to be much good all year. The experience they gain, every game, is going to be nullified by the grind of the long season as the extra minutes catch up to the players not used to playing so much. Leitao has generally been able to squeeze unexpectedly good results out of patchwork teams, so when this team is fully developed a couple years from now it's going to be a joy to watch. It's just, this year, you should mentally add the word "if" to any predictions of success.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
first look at 'Hoos minus 44
OK, just for the record, and to get it out of the way, I don't yet buy into the rumors floating around TheSabre that Al Groh has been or will be bought out. I still think he's on his "on notice" year. Keep in mind: I am a loudmouth with access to a computer, just like 99.9% of the rest of the Internet population, and know shit for a fact. But I just don't get the impression yet that Littlepage would change his mind from what he said a couple weeks ago.
So, last night was the first chance I had to get a firsthand look at the basketball team....at least, as firsthand as a TV screen can be. I saw pretty much what you'd expect to see out of a team whose go-to guy is a freshman and who started two others besides. Let's forget about the final score for a second though, because we're going to have no shortage of those this year, and check out the positives. I saw plenty.
- The team played good defense for the most part. Minnesota got at least the winning margin's worth of points on fast breaks off of turnovers. Halfcourt defense was actually quite good.
- Three-point shooting, from those who are actually supposed to be taking them, was also good. Tucker and Sammy shot well. Baker doesn't have the range and probably shouldn't bother unless he's got plenty of time.
- Zero turnovers for Sylven Landesberg. OK, he had a bad shooting night. Shit happens. This is the guy who's going to have the ball in his hands more than just about anyone. It's a good sign that on a night when the rest of the team greased their hands, SL didn't get that memo and protected the rock.
Unfortunately, we just didn't have an answer for that big galoot Iverson, and Blake Hoffarber made some tough shots. He does that. Moral victories are for crappy teams, but we're kind of a crappy team, and I'll be happy to take solace in the fact that we just went on the road, twice, and played competitive games. We have a break for finals, then three extremely winnable home games before Christmas and the start of the ACC schedule in Atlanta. I'm encouraged by what I saw, and I think we'll see plenty of improvement between now and the end of the year.
OK, the recruiting board, since the Thanksgiving schedule kind of killed the usual weekend review. Now that football season is over, I don't really know whether I'll still be doing that, since I might just stop ignoring weekend news with no football or NASCAR or any of that jazz to watch. Chances are that's pretty much just gonna be a football season feature. But we'll see. Still a newish blog.
- Added QB Tajh Boyd. Boyd didn't decommit, Tennessee dropped him. So now he's out looking again and lists four favorites. Even though we're one of four, I'm keeping him in the red. What with rumors of possible academic struggles and us being directly on the bottom of the list, I don't really like our chances.
- Dropped OT Oday Aboushi and DE DeAntre Rhodes: BC and VT commits respectively.
- Bumped WR Terdema Ussery from blue to red after his last interview mentioned us never. ($) None of his five planned officials were to Charlottesville, and the kid's from Texas so it's not like he can just take a weekend jaunt up here any time he likes.
- Updated DE Will Hill's finalists - we're one of four and the announcement is supposed to be Friday, but I don't really dig our chances much. Just a hunch. So he's still in the yellow.
So, last night was the first chance I had to get a firsthand look at the basketball team....at least, as firsthand as a TV screen can be. I saw pretty much what you'd expect to see out of a team whose go-to guy is a freshman and who started two others besides. Let's forget about the final score for a second though, because we're going to have no shortage of those this year, and check out the positives. I saw plenty.
- The team played good defense for the most part. Minnesota got at least the winning margin's worth of points on fast breaks off of turnovers. Halfcourt defense was actually quite good.
- Three-point shooting, from those who are actually supposed to be taking them, was also good. Tucker and Sammy shot well. Baker doesn't have the range and probably shouldn't bother unless he's got plenty of time.
- Zero turnovers for Sylven Landesberg. OK, he had a bad shooting night. Shit happens. This is the guy who's going to have the ball in his hands more than just about anyone. It's a good sign that on a night when the rest of the team greased their hands, SL didn't get that memo and protected the rock.
Unfortunately, we just didn't have an answer for that big galoot Iverson, and Blake Hoffarber made some tough shots. He does that. Moral victories are for crappy teams, but we're kind of a crappy team, and I'll be happy to take solace in the fact that we just went on the road, twice, and played competitive games. We have a break for finals, then three extremely winnable home games before Christmas and the start of the ACC schedule in Atlanta. I'm encouraged by what I saw, and I think we'll see plenty of improvement between now and the end of the year.
OK, the recruiting board, since the Thanksgiving schedule kind of killed the usual weekend review. Now that football season is over, I don't really know whether I'll still be doing that, since I might just stop ignoring weekend news with no football or NASCAR or any of that jazz to watch. Chances are that's pretty much just gonna be a football season feature. But we'll see. Still a newish blog.
- Added QB Tajh Boyd. Boyd didn't decommit, Tennessee dropped him. So now he's out looking again and lists four favorites. Even though we're one of four, I'm keeping him in the red. What with rumors of possible academic struggles and us being directly on the bottom of the list, I don't really like our chances.
- Dropped OT Oday Aboushi and DE DeAntre Rhodes: BC and VT commits respectively.
- Bumped WR Terdema Ussery from blue to red after his last interview mentioned us never. ($) None of his five planned officials were to Charlottesville, and the kid's from Texas so it's not like he can just take a weekend jaunt up here any time he likes.
- Updated DE Will Hill's finalists - we're one of four and the announcement is supposed to be Friday, but I don't really dig our chances much. Just a hunch. So he's still in the yellow.
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