season preview: North Carolina

North Carolina Tar Heels

Media prediction: 3rd

Last season:

Record: 20-17 (5-11); 10th in ACC
Postseason: NIT runners-up
KenPom: 60th of 347

Returning scoring: 45.3%
Returning rebounding: 33.3%
Returning assists: 61.9%

2009-'10 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
Rookie: none
Defensive: none

Starters:

PG: Larry Drew II (Jr.)
SG: Dexter Strickland (So.)
SF: Harrison Barnes (Fr.)
PF: John Henson (So.)
C: Tyler Zeller (Jr.)

Bench:

G Leslie McDonald (So.)
G Reggie Bullock (Fr.)
F Justin Knox (Sr.)
G Kendall Marshall (Fr.)
G Justin Watts (Jr.)

Coach: Roy Williams (8th season)

Schedule:

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

You'd think a team that was shut out of all-conference honors, bowed out in the first round of the ACC tournament as a 10 seed, and returns less than half its scoring would be all set for another dreary cellar-dwelling season. No luck - this is Carolina. And they're good.

As we've already seen this season, there's been no drop-off in athleticism. Carolina's still big, quick, and they've made huge strides on defense from last season to this. It helps that Tyler Zeller is healthy; last year he missed time with a broken foot. Zeller and John Henson, who's practically a second center on the floor, bring the size. Henson, despite being listed as a forward, really does a lot more of the center's work - more rebounding, more shot blocking. This is because he's a total mismatch for anyone trying to guard or be guarded by him. Zeller, though, is still your standard seven-foot tree, able to simply drop the ball in over top of most defenders. Harrison Barnes is the scoring punch from the wing, and he's made clear and noticeable strides since the beginning of the season. Barnes is the guy that scouts were pimping as the #1 pick in the draft even before the season, but he looks like a player who will really benefit from a year in college. Duke's Kyrie Irving grabbed the headlines early on as Barnes struggled, but by the ACC tournament Barnes will be the guy in the spotlight.

The interesting thing is that while the ACC is supposedly a guard's league, UNC's guard play is only somewhat better than average. Point guard Larry Drew is a horrible shooter and almost entirely a distributor. Most of UNC's guards, while still more athletic than most in the ACC, are fairly interchangeable and very young. When the second group goes in, UNC turns anonymous, and beatable. There's a lot of playable depth, but Reggie Bullock and Leslie McDonald aren't going to blow your doors off.

The bottom line is that Carolina is almost Carolina, but not quite. Barnes should get better and better as the season goes on and give UNC one of the best frontcourts in the nation. The value of their backcourt, though, lies mostly on defense, where they excel. If the frontcourt isn't scoring and the opponent is a good one, the guards aren't going to be able to pick them up. UNC's resume bears this out: they're capable of beating just about anyone when firing on all cylinders (Kentucky is a notable example) but their record against really good teams is tilted toward the L side of the ledger. Illinois, Vandy, Minnesota, and Texas comprise UNC's loss column. This should be good enough to sweep handily through the ACC in a down season, with probably no more than three losses, and a tournament berth is just about definite. Should they fail to make the Sweet 16, though, that too will come as no surprise.

the recruit: Tim Cwalina

Name: Tim Cwalina
Position: OT
Hometown: Mt. Lebanon, PA
School: Mt. Lebanon
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 295

ESPN: 74; two stars; #139 OT
Rivals: 5.5; three stars; PA #29
Scout: two stars

Other offers: Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Boston College

We're finally at the end of the summer commitment wave. Unless you count Clifton Richardson making it officially official in September-ish, Tim Cwalina committed in July on a visit to Charlottesville and that was the last verbal to Mike London until November.

And when the news came out, UVA fans reacted with a unanimous "wut?"

The word "sleeper" is overused in recruiting; every time everyone's team gets a verbal from some two-star that didn't have any other offers, he's a "sleeper." No, he's a decent-ish football player that nobody else really wanted. Tim Cwalina is a sleeper. He called the recruiting process "hectic and annoying" and I will submit that for galactic understatement of the year because I would guess that Tim Cwalina hates the whole thing. For one thing, that plus a single Rivals article are the only places on the whole googletubes to find an actual thing Cwalina said. Most everything else comes from his coach, some of which are articles for which Cwalina declined to be interviewed.

I don't think he ever went to any combines, either, because all the recruiting sites (which usually get their height/weights from combine measurements) have different statistics on the guy. 295 sounds right since it comes from his high school coach. He could easily be 300 by the time he shows up at UVA, since he packed on 25 pounds during the last offseason.

Despite the dearth of information, football programs know who he is. Cwalina pretty definitely had offers from Boston College and his hometown Pitt, and probably Wisconsin too, as well as a couple maybe-no-one-will-notice-him offers from places like Buffalo. He also made second-team all-state in Pennsylvania (and Mt. Lebanon plays at Quad-A, the highest level, so the competition is stiff) so if they didn't know before the season, they'd have known afterwards.

UVA has four offensive line commits for 2011. Kelby Johnson is from DeMatha, Ross Burbank is from Virginia Beach, and Jay Whitmire is probably the star of the group and played at T.C. Williams. High-profile places for followers of UVA recruiting, to be sure. And Cwalina has, overall, the lowest ratings of the bunch. But it'd be a mistake to ignore him; other than Whitmire, Cwalina has the best offer list. Any lineman that Wisconsin offered is a damn good lineman. He's got long arms and a "prototypical tackle body", so based on a couple paragraphs by the gurus or semi-gurus I'm willing to say he'll stay at tackle. Mike London and his offensive staff are doing a good job of reestablishing the O-line pipeline, and younger players like Morgan Moses and Sean Cascarano are stepping into their roles, so Cwalina and his classmates probably won't get to the two-deep for a couple years. (Moses leaving early for the NFL, as he could do if his talents live up to the hype, could help speed that timeline along.) But there's good reason to believe that this class of linemen, Cwalina included, will make a good successor group when the current core group has moved on.

now what?

The weekend brought two pretty significant clarifiers to the next two months of basketball. First, a loss to UNC that could easily have been a win, and second, the thoroughly unsurprising news that Mike Scott will undergo surgery and seek a medical redshirt.

Scott's news is barely even news, really. The longer he was out the more likely it became that he and the operating table would enter the ring for round two. It did come as a surprise that UVA held an 11-point lead in the second half against UNC. We learned that if we'd had Mike Scott, and if the refs ever called UNC for the moving screens and over-the-backs they commit, and if our guys really gut up and play nasty defense, and if they hit shots, and if they have a good, sold-out crowd at their back, they can almost win a game against a really good team.

Which naturally is a useless lesson on a team consisting of freshmen and Mustapha Farrakhan. I promise you there will be at least one game later this season where the team looks they have no idea why someone hung an iron circle over the pretty wooden playground, and they'll try to knock it right off its pegs. But it's nice, at least, to know what they're capable of when they play defense.

I do feel pretty confident in saying that would have been a win with Mike Scott. Once UNC figured out what we were up to on offense, they were able to use their superior athleticism to harass our guards on the perimeter and effectively put a stop to it. Hell, simply having Scott's five fouls would have been a plus; our bigs shuffled in and out all day with foul trouble. Will Regan and Akil Mitchell simply don't have the strength to consistently nullify the height disadvantage they had, and Will Sherrill is a gimp. (His effort in this game, and probably the rest of the games going forward, should not be overlooked. I refuse to go the the gym for an hour if my muscles are too damn sore from the day before; Sherrill's leg bone still isn't all in one proper piece and he goes diving onto the floor for loose balls. Then he asks to come out of the game because his tibia just bit him in the shin and gimps right back in a minute later because someone picked up a fourth foul.) Given these obstacles, the quality of defense played on the interior was astoundingly good. Regan and Mitchell are in for a baptism by fire these next two months, but that was a good start and matchup-wise they won't have it much rougher than that going forward.

The goal for the season, simply put, should be a winning record, for which we'll need to go 6-8 the rest of the way. Easily done if Mike Scott was in the lineup; a scratch-and-claw battle without. The lesson from UNC is that continuing to play like that will probably make it happen; the lesson from last season is there's no telling how many times we'll see it.

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A quick recruiting board update is in order, with two removals due to commitments: QB Gary Nova to Rutgers and WR Demetri Knowles to Tech. Knowles is blazing fast, and the UVA staff probably would have accepted his commitment in the summer when UVA was his only offer, but he dawdled. It became clear as time went on that guys like Darius Jennings and Dominique Terrell were keeping UVA in their minds, and the class started filling up for serious, so the bus left the station. When's the last time Tech was picking up UVA's leftovers and not the other way round?

A 2012 recruiting board is in the works and should debut soonish.

season preview: Miami

Miami Hurricanes

Media prediction: 8th

Last season:

Record: 20-13 (4-12), 12th in ACC
Postseason: none
KenPom: 46th of 347

Returning scoring: 69.6%
Returning rebounding: 63.9%
Returning assists: 82.9%

2009-'10 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
Rookie: G Durand Scott
Defensive: none

Starters:

PG: Malcolm Grant (Jr.)
SG: Durand Scott (So.)
G: Garrius Adams (So.)
F: DeQuan Jones (Jr.)
C: Reggie Johnson (So.)

Bench:

F Adrian Thomas (6Sr.)
G Rion Brown (Fr.)
C Julian Gamble (Jr.)
F Donnavan Kirk (Fr.)
F Erik Swoope (Fr.)

Coach: Frank Haith (7th season)

Schedule:

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

Is there a more anonymous team in the ACC than Miami? Certainly there's not one that was harder to figure in the preseason. What do you make of a team that lost their top two scorers but returns basically the entire roster otherwise, has just one senior, finished dead last in the ACC, and proceeded to upset two heavily favored opponents in the ACC Tournament and almost bumped off the eventual national champion, too? Are they dead last or major contenders?

Despite a lack of big-name firepower, the answer is probably closer to the latter. And even the lack of "big-name" firepower suggests a problem with the media, not Miami. The Canes are one of the few teams in the conference blessed with the two things that every ACC coach would give their left nut for: a combo of excellent scoring guards and a big true center who scores and rebounds.

The guards in question are Malcolm Grant and freshman honoree Durand Scott. They've taken to a newfound starting and leadership role like Ralph Friedgen to the Twinkie buffet. Grant is a perimeter shooter and a distributor; Scott is a bit larger and chips in on the boards. Reggie Johnson is the biggest guy in the league, listed at over 300 pounds, and not only does he average 12 points a game and does all those things centers do, he shoots free throws like a guard so you can't hack him to death.

After those three, though, Miami runs out of big-time players awfully fast. Frank Haith has shuffled his lineup all season looking for a good starting five combination. Miami relies heavily on Adrian Thomas, the old man of the team in his sixth season after losing the last two to injury. Garrius Adams is sometimes the first option to spell Grant and Scott off the bench, but Haith also likes three-guard lineups and Adams gets his share of starts, too.

Still, it's a major drop-off in talent from the top three, and most of Haith's bench options are freshmen yet. This is a very young team: one senior, three juniors, and a host of underclassmen. And Johnson is very foul-prone, as much so as this blog's favorite lazy-assed whipping boy, Jeff Allen; thus, a weapon that should be tearing up the ACC doesn't see as many minutes as Miami would probably like.

Essentially, Miami will go as far as their big three will take them. The rest of the roster shouldn't scare teams with ACC-caliber talent. But even though they currently sit at the bottom of the conference at 0-2, that should change. This is a team that will contend for a much better finish than their 8th-place prediction, and should be a bubble team come March.

game preview: North Carolina

Date/Time: January 8; 12:00 PM

TV: ACC Network; ESPN3

History against the Tar Heels: 47-112

Last matchup: UVA 75, UNC 60; 1/31/10 (video highlights!)

Last game: UVA 84, Howard 63 (1/4); UNC 103, SFPA 54 (1/2)

Opposing blogs: Tar Heel Fan, Carolina March

KenPom stats:

National rank: UVA #100; UNC #18
Offense rank: UVA #83; UNC #40
Defense rank: UVA #123; UNC #11

Finally it's ACC time. That probably won't be as awesome as it should. 15 games in, 15 games to go, starting with Carolina on Saturday. The goal should probably be just to keep our head above water and finish with 16 wins and a winning record; I wanted to shoot for higher, but Mike Scott's ankle told me I couldn't. Finding a way to beat UNC will be a big challenge, and last year's game won't provide many lessons because the lineups will be almost totally different.

HOW WE CAN WIN

- Clog the lane, if we can. UNC had superior athletes last year and they will have them this year. They were beaten by impeccable execution of the pack-line defense. They couldn't slash to the hoop and entry passes were effectively denied. This year, without Mike Scott, there may not be the necessary size and experience for that, but it would be just the thing to slow down the Heels and make them jack from outside.

- Get hot. Nobody has, lately, except for the Howard game in which everyone did all at once. But Howard is among the worst of the worst. Last year, Sammy Zeglinski couldn't throw a brick if he tried - he went 5 of 8 from three and even hit a desperation, shot-clock-beating fadeaway from the wing with a hand glued to his nose. Sometimes you have those days where you just can't miss. UVA will not beat Carolina unless someone has a night like that.

- Take it slooowww, and play disciplined transition defense. They'll go hand in hand on Saturday. Carolina's one of the fastest-paced teams in the country, which is typical of Carolina. They love to run and blow you out with athleticism. Always have. Get back on defense must be the mantra - the moment the shot leaves the shooter's hand, UVA's players must be thinking instant defense. Find your guy, don't admire the shot, make UNC burn shot clock before they shoot.

HOW WE CAN LOSE

- Get dominated inside. This is likely to happen no matter what we try. UNC's best scorers are all bigs, and we fortunately missed out on seven-footer Tyler Zeller last year after he broke his foot. Freshman John Henson is a shot-blocking machine. Zeller is the team's scoring leader. Harrison Barnes has gotten a little lost in the shuffle, but he's still as freakishly athletic as he was before the season when he was considered the future #1 pick. This is absolutely an inside-out offense, with point guard Larry Drew existing to find ways to get the ball to someone big. We counter with beanpole Assane Sene and wet paper towel Will Sherrill, who's not even 100%. I expect UNC to have a field day inside, and for proper footwork and positioning to be of little use.

- Lack of discipline anywhere, at any time. The win last year came from 40 minutes of good, disciplined play, which didn't always manifest itself through the course of the season. Had that broken down in, say, the 13th minute, the game likely would have been a loss. This is the kind of game where one big run will submarine the whole thing. Could happen right out of the gate or at any other time.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

I hate to be this way but I'm'a be this way: Badly. UNC is washing off the stink from last year. They've had a few losses, but all to quality teams, and they beat Kentucky. They don't let teams ranked outside the top 300 hang around, they go for the jugular and send in Real Blue Steel - the best walk-ons since that guy at Ohio State who started Club Trillion. They probably won't have Reggie Bullock but their guards are mostly interchangeable parts anyway. The real action happens in the paint. They'll kill us in the paint. If we're to win the only time the ball will enter the paint is from directly above, via the net. Keeping this one inside ten points would go a long way toward some optimism, but I'm already preparing myself to shrug it off and focus on....ah shit....Duke.

too-late review, too-early preview: offense

Despite the ugly finish to the football season, enough time has passed to make me think it's a good idea to give self-flagellation one more try. So this week and next, I'll offer up a final obituary on the offense and defense and a way-too-early look at what next year holds.

This can't be done without a recruiting board update, and a depth-chart look too. So the depth chart is updated for your review - the notable change is Zane Parr's curious decision to bolt for the NFL draft. More about that next week when the defense gets its turn.

The recruiting board sees two very interesting changes:

- Darius Redman drops from orange to decommitted maroon.

- Added QB Gary Nova to green. Did I say he was the kind of guy there probably wouldn't be room for in the class? Whoops.

Redman becomes the class's second decommit after Matt Bailey way back when, and he's off to the Hokies for official now. (Redman denied most of what's in that report but it's since turned out to be more or less spot the hell on.) By most accounts it's an amicable parting; as I said earlier I have to believe the coaches played a role in decommitting him. We lose a tight end who had a decent chance to get on the field as a second tight end, but there are plenty of tight ends on the roster and a player or two already in the class who could be a tight end if necessary (Thompson Brown, for example); the trade-off is a much more talented pick-up in an area of greater need.

This explains why the coaches are able to recruit five or six player for what looks like two spots. Now it's three, and we're surely not done hearing about prep candidates.

An added bonus, by the way, of Redman's switch to VT is that if you ever hear a Hokie tell you the reason they failed to land Dominique Terrell was because of concern about his SAT scores, you can laugh in their ugly face.

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Now, time to go position by position......

QUARTERBACK

This year....

Marc Verica's play as the unquestioned starting quarterback drew complaints from all corners of the fanbase and constant calls to replace him with a freshman. This means that his play was.....not that damn bad, actually. Verica evened out his touchdowns and interceptions, throwing 14 of each, and almost 2800 yards. His passer rating landed him 84th out of starting quarterbacks in the nation, which isn't amazing. But it was better than:

- Jeremiah Masoli of Ole Miss
- Robert Bolden of Penn State, whose desire to transfer caused the obvious questions about whether his destination might possibly be UVA
- Kyle Parker of Clemson
- Jacory Harris of Miami
- John Brantley of Florida
- Garrett Gilbert of Texas
- two formerly highly-heralded players in B.J. Daniels of South Florida and Dwight Dasher of Middle Tennessee

So there's something to be said for slapping the next person who says "it can't be worse."

Verica's limitations are many, but during certain games he was able to thrive when offensive coordinator Bill Lazor called the right plays to get him into a rhythm. All in all, I'm willing to call it a successful year for Verica - he played better than a lot of bowl-bound quarterbacks and could have been one himself given a defense.

Next year....

We start all over again in a situation reminiscent of 2006. I went into the year thinking "we have three quarterbacks who could start, they can't possibly all suck." They all sucked, and the job fell to Jameel Sewell. So there's hope even for true freshman David Watford to snag the job in 2011.

That's not ideal, though. The team is better off if one of Ross Metheny, Mike Rocco, or Michael Strauss can put a clamp on the job. The sooner the better, though I hold little hope that it can be settled in spring camp. I refuse to handicap the race at this point. Sometimes you read that Strauss has made huge strides, sometimes you read that Rocco held the edge over Metheny on the season.....whatever. Nothing Rocco or Metheny did in their limited playing time separated themselves from each other as viewed from the bleachers, so we'll have to leave it to the coaches on this one. Somebody will be named a starting quarterback on September 3, and if the same guy finishes the Tech game some three months later, you'll know the season went reasonably well.

RUNNING BACK/FULLBACK

This year....

Oh, that's why we were so damn excited. Keith Payne either spent three and a half years being treated like ostrich shit by Al Groh and being shoehorned into an offense that had no idea how to take advantage of his skill set, or spent three and a half years thinking he was a 240-pound scatback and acting like a spoiled doo-doo head. Depends on who you listen to. After quitting the team in 2009, he had a change of heart when Mike London was hired, wanted back on, asked how high when London said jump, and bulldozed his way to the ACC scoring lead with 14 touchdowns. He'd have become UVA's first 1,000-yard rusher since 2004 had he not split carries with Perry Jones, and yes, he'll be the football nomination for Cavalier of the Year in June.

Jones acquitted himself well also, managing to stay healthy and showing a deceptive ability to not get tackled despite being the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Jones was also third on the team in receptions. Raynard Horne ran well in relief of the top tandem. Max Milien flashed a little Jason Snelling ability at fullback, but wasn't used as a ballcarrier or receiver as heavily as Snelling was.

All in all, a productive year, exceeding expectations. Partly that's due to the offensive line also exceeding expectations, but Payne ran with a purpose this year and deserves special mention for his roaring comeback.

Next year....

Payne and Horne graduate, and the possibility exists that there won't be room for backup fullback Terrence Fells-Danzer, either. Jones will need a new backfield partner, because he's just that damn small and will never be a 30-carry-a-game running back. That job will see some competition in spring and fall. Torrey Mack hasn't quite lived up to his billing and is in danger of being passed up - this will really be his last chance to show something - and he should be pushed hard by K.P. Parks and Khalek Shepherd. Particularly Parks, who's uncannily similar to Mike Hart: short, built like a bowling ball, not real fast. Parks has exciting potential. If Clifton Richardson doesn't have to prep, he too could enter the mix right away.

At fullback, Max Milien will almost certainly be brought back for a fifth year, and if TFD is not, Ryan Cobb will inherit the backup role.

WIDE RECEIVER

This year....

For the first time in UVA history, two wide receivers cracked 700 receiving yards, and Kris Burd was three feet away from making it 800. Dontrelle Inman (the back-from-the-dead stories just keep piling up on offense) helped everyone forget that Tim Smith took an injury-related redshirt year by going for 815 yards himself.

The receivers definitely made it easy on Verica this year. Inman, Burd, and Matt Snyder racked up catches and yards like no group of receivers have in UVA history. There've been better individual receivers, but never all at once. These three were good enough on their own that few other receivers on the roster saw the field. Jared Green got a few catches in relief and Ray Keys caught a couple garbage-time balls; that was about it.

Next year....

Inman graduates, but the replacement cupboard is deep. Tim Smith will hopefully be healthy enough to have a breakout year alongside Burd, and Snyder should return and continue to be a quality possession receiver. I half-expect Green not to be brought back, but there are freshmen waiting in the wings. Bobby Smith is a huge oak tree of a receiver and could be used in the end zone; E.J. Scott should at least be a reliable fourth receiver in relief of the starters. Kevin Royal's skill set screams "possession guy" and so he'll probably have to wait til Snyder graduates for his turn. But any of these three could surprise.

And let's not forget the recruiting class. At extreme risk of counting my freshmen before they hatch, at least one of Dominique Terrell and Darius Jennings should definitely be at UVA; both are possible. Adrian Gamble is likely to redshirt, but Jennings is enough of a talent that he would have a chance to force his way onto the field immediately. Terrell would bring a totally new dimension - I envision him being used the way the Detroit Lions use Stefan Logan: on end-arounds, as a running back, as a target for WR screens, and in the slot. Barring a spate of injuries and some bad surprises on the recruiting trail, there will be plenty of help to ease the new quarterback into his job.

TIGHT ENDS

This year....

Colter Phillips almost didn't play the season because of the well-publicized death of his father in an Alaska plane crash. It's a good thing for Hoo fans he did. Phillips led the team's tight ends in catches, and while the offense didn't exactly see a return of the Heath Miller-esque featured tight end that was so popular in the Groh era, they played a big role. Joe Torchia's injury troubles opened the door for Phillips and Paul Freedman, and they performed well. Admirably, though not spectacularly. Jeremiah Mathis was a late addition to the TE corps when it was further decimated by injury, and he caught a touchdown and liked it so well that he just might stick there.

Next year....

Phillips and Freedman were just sophomores, so they'll be around a while. London all but announced that Mathis would stay a tight end, but with Parr's early depature he might be needed back on the defense. So I consider that one still up in the air. Either way, Jake McGee and Zach Swanson will also battle to be the third tight end. Swanson should have an edge because he's a little bigger and is a natural tight end from high school, while McGee is a converted quarterback. I doubt we'll see a big production increase from this year, due to breaking in a new quarterback and the continued excellence of the receivers.

OFFENSIVE LINE

This year....

What looked like the worst unit on the team turned out to be a decently-performing unit. The interior was steady all year with center Anthony Mihota and left guard Austin Pasztor locking down their respective jobs, and B.J. Cabbell looking shaky only for a brief time at right guard. Landon Bradley's injuries caused some shuffling at the tackle positions, but when he was in he was greatly improved over his lost-looking performance from 2009. Oday Aboushi cemented a starting job, whether on the left or right, Morgan Moses proved impressively versatile, and Sean Cascarano began to nose his way into the rotation.

All in all, the play of the offensive line is what allowed the offensive resurgence to take place and Bill Lazor to look like a genius. They weren't a dominant group, but they proved that stability and a return to decent play could make the offense functional again. Better than functional.

Next year....

More stability, amazingly enough. Continuity you can use. Cabbell is the only starter lost to graduation, though Bradley's injury is a long-term one that might see rehab last through fall camp. In both cases, replacements will be in place. The best thing long-term will be to replace Cabbell with Moses, who has the necessary power and explosion to be a stellar drive-blocking guard and the athleticism to pull around. If Bradley isn't healthy, Aboushi and Cascarano will be able to step up at tackle, though a three-man rotation involving Bradley would be ideal.

Luke Bowanko should also be able to step into more playing time at guard, since backup Isaac Cain also departs, and the wraps will be taken off Conner Davis as well. The future is bright along this line.

One rarely-mentioned aspect of it will be the necessity of finding a new long-snapper, the process of which will begin immediately in spring camp. Bet you never even thought about the long snapping all season. That means it was perfect. Danny Aiken was the one player on the team whose value-to-hype ratio was the largest; cross your fingers that his replacement, whoever that is, plays as well.

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Next week: same thing, but on defense and with a lot less sunshine and a lot more grumbling.

season preview: Maryland

Maryland Terrapins

Media prediction: 6th

Last season:

Record: 24-9 (13-3), 2nd in ACC
Postseason: NCAA 4 seed; lost in second round
KenPom: 11th of 347

Returning scoring: 47.4%
Returning rebounding: 63.2%
Returning assists: 33.5%

2009-'10 All-ACC:

1st team: G Greivis Vasquez
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
Rookie: F Jordan Williams
Defensive: none

Starters:

PG: Adrian Bowie (Sr.)
SG: Sean Mosley (Jr.)
SF: Cliff Tucker (Sr.)
PF: Dino Gregory (Sr.)
C: Jordan Williams (So.)

Bench:

G Terrell Stoglin (Fr.)
G Pe'Shon Howard (Fr.)
F James Padgett (So.)
C Berend Weijs (Jr.)
F Haukur Paulsson (Fr.)

Coach: Gary Williams (22nd season)

Schedule:

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

Maryland is a picture of ACC stability. Rarely at the top, never at the bottom, always a threat. It's in this line of thinking that the ACC media voted them 6th in the conference despite having to replace their top three scorers, including (thank God because he's the king of king douches) Greivis Vasquez. The media's probably right, too.

If anything, maybe the media underrated them a smidge. The first inkling that Maryland probably won't fall that far on the pecking order is that they've been immune to the tendency of ACC teams this year to suffer some form of humiliating loss. They've yet to record a signature win, either, but they were highly competitive in their games against real teams in the OOC and never came close to losing against the bad ones. That's what 20-odd years of coaching stability earns you.

The story of the this year's Maryland team is the group of players who've patiently waited their turn and are now getting it. The best of that bunch is Jordan Williams, a powerful true big man who stands 6'10" and is easily averaging a double-double on the year. Williams was named to last year's all-rookie team and is living up to the distinction as a sophomore. There aren't many players in the ACC who'll be able to handle him.

Williams helps make Maryland's frontcourt a major strength, but he's not alone. Dino Gregory is also an excellent rebounder, and Cliff Tucker can play all over the place. This was, not so long ago, a donut team with nothing in the middle and plenty of outside scoring; that's changed, as Maryland's strength is now clearly inside.

Not that the guards are bad. Adrian Bowie and Sean Mosley are quality veterans, though neither brings quite the scoring punch of sixth man Terrell Stoglin. Stoglin's just a freshman and playing his way into the lineup. Coaches like to have that kind of punch off the bench and a veteran presence in the starting lineup, so Stoglin probably will stay a sixth man all year, but he brings a dangerous shooting presence into the game.

Overall, it's basically what you'd expect out of a Gary Williams team in a "down year": not that down at all, actually. Williams is probably the only real star in the lineup, but nobody's a weak link, either. And they have the ability to run nine and even ten deep if they have to: there are backups for everybody and they can present the same look with different players. Maryland will probably need to pick up a signature win or two in ACC play in order to make the tournament - losing to Boston College at home was a bit of a setback - but nobody will find them an easy out, either. Chances are they'll finish with a winning record and hover in bubbleland for a while, but I think ultimately they're a tournament team, even if as a double-digit seed.

the recruit: Mike Tobey

Name: Mike Tobey
Position: Center
Home state: Monroe, NY
School: Hotchkiss School (CT)
Height: 6'11"
Weight: 210

ESPN: 88; #29 center
Rivals: three stars
Scout: no ranking

Other offers: Maryland, Pittsburgh, Xavier, Miami, Northwestern, Siena

It makes me happy that Mike Tobey committed after the turn of the New Year. Basketball recruiting is fluid and ever-changing and let's just say there's a good reason I don't maintain a basketball recruiting board. It drives me crazy, that's why. I like well-defined seasons for these things, and I can make it make sense by keeping it in my head that players who commit in a particular spring or summer will be available not that fall, but the next. Tobey committed in 2011 for the class of 2012, just as Malcolm Brogdon and them committed in 2010 for the class of 2011, so I can get my head around that. Even though it's a good seven, eight months earlier than usual.

Anyway, personal peeves aside, I take the early-ish commitment from Tobey as a sign that Tony Bennett is getting comfortable on the recruiting trail, and that's a good thing. Another good thing: Tobey is the first honest-to-god center pickup for Bennett. They've been very rare around these parts and most of them don't work out so good. John Brandenburg transferred to Colgate and Assane Sene and Tunji Soroye have proven useful only on one end of the court.

So what about Tobey, then? Unsurprisingly, every scouting report ever calls him "raw." It's the default word for young players who are taller than the treetops. (Everybody learns to shoot, drive, pass, and defend and play below the rim in junior high, but once you get to 6'11" you have to relearn the game in a way and nobody's that tall in ninth grade.) In the mold of previous Bennett recruits like Will Regan, Tobey has a good shooting touch for a big man and isn't limited to scoring from three feet out. Brains, good hands, and good footwork also show up in the scouting reports, so it's no mystery at all where I'm going with this. Tony Bennett wants a team full of smart, versatile players with good basketball IQ. Finally getting one that's almost seven feet tall is a coup.

The other thing that dominates the googlewebs on Tobey is reclassification: down a class, up a class, whatever. The story is this: Tobey transferred from Don Bosco in New Jersey to Hotchkiss in Connecticut. He's young. Really young. He turned sixteen in October and he'll still be seventeen when he starts school at UVA. Because of his age, he intended to repeat his sophomore year and graduate in 2013. He changed his mind and stuck with the class of 2012; probably because he was getting offers from ACC coaches who wanted him sooner rather than later.

Because of his age, he's got baby fat still. You'd think at 6'11" and 210 pounds he could hide behind a telephone pole. He can't. He's not actually skinny, which means he's got a lot of muscle to add before he's ACC ready. That's his number one weakness, but I'm not dumb enough to believe Tony Bennett recruited a player this hard who would sit around and not use the next 20 months to work on that. Tobey's got low ratings from the gurus, or none at all, but those will change a lot between now and 2012, and as he adds bulk he'll add stars, too. The talent is already there; he's not yet registering on a lot of 2012 radars, but as a 2013 player he was considered a consensus choice for the second-best player in Connecticut and by at least one source as one of the top 25 players in the country. Offers from the likes of Maryland, Pitt, and Xavier back that up; if Tobey had waited until 2013 to graduate who knows who'd have offered him? (And why do you think I think it was Tony Bennett - among others - who helped convince him to stick with 2012?)

Tobey is a player whom it'll be interesting to watch through the summer, and I wish I had the benefit of doing so before writing this, but it matters little. The dude's seven damn feet - it's not like it takes much imagination to guess how he'll be used on the court. Tobey has a fantastic chance to bring a dimension to UVA hoops that's been missing so long, I've never even seen it. No, Ryan Pettinella doesn't count.

two and a half items

Time to kick off the first week of the New Year, and what better way to do it by looking forward? First, a half-item: the hiring of Randy Edsall at Maryland.

There's every reason to believe that Maryland considered Mike Leach, came close to hiring him, and got cold feet. The result is a win for UVA. Edsall is noncontroversial, likely to result in a smooth transition, and not a major threat to put the Terps in the Orange Bowl. While I stand by what I said about Leach - that it didn't matter to UVA if he was hired because London would be able to take care of business if London's the man - the fact is that Leach would have been a gamble for Maryland, but not one that would have paid off for their opponents in the event of disaster. The risk was that Maryland would win football games and get bad press doing it, not that Maryland would sink to Duke-levels of suckdom. Leach turning out "badly" for Maryland would've meant another ugly exit involving lawsuits, which is bad for Maryland but not especially beneficial for us, if you follow. Maryland losing all their games is what's beneficial for us, and while that's not likely under Edsall, neither is a return to their 10-2 early-decade years. I'm perfectly happy coexisting with a Maryland team that might see 9-3 in one of their luckier years.

Speaking of coaching changes, now, the downside to having a recruiting class just about put together with little to no risk of decommitments is the lack of ability to take advantage of turnover in our recruiting rivals. Other than an improved chance to land Darius Jennings and the possibility of poaching Jeremiah Hendy, there's little to be said for the effect of all this turnover on our own class. Little Boy got dropped on Pittsburgh's class when the Wannstache was forced out and Fat Man followed when they had to cut ties with newly-hired Mike Haywood following his arrest. There practically is no recruiting class at Pitt any more. Pittsburgh is one of our bigger recruiting rivals, but VT was a beneficiary instead, yoinking Kyshoen Jarrett (ugh). And it'd be worth our while to take another shot at quarterback Gary Nova if we had room to.

But the recruiting board is due for a shakeup anyway, so here you go:

- Removed OT Donovan Smith, who'll announce pretty soon his choice of a school that isn't UVA. We have our four linemen, anyway.

- Moved WR Dominique Terrell from green to blue. Total 180 on this recruitment.

- Moved TE Rory Anderson and WR Demetri Knowles from green to yellow.

- Moved LB Troy Gray and TE Max Mason from yellow to red. Mason doesn't appear to have ever gotten an offer and probably won't, either.

- Changed QB David Watford from "verbal" to "enrolled." Yes, he's officially in and shows up in the directory. No, Daquan Romero does not, yet, but probably any day now.

At this point the five names in blue and green are the guys to watch between now and Signing Day. And I would be willing to bet that not only are these the guys the staff is after, they're the only ones. In other words, in the unlikely event that we strike out on all five, I think the staff would be happy to sit tight with what they have. Say two-thirds chance they do and one-third chance they put the press on a couple other possibilities to fill the gap.

Those possibilities are mostly the ones in yellow. For example, Dominique Terrell and Darius Jennings both look like excellent bets to land at UVA, and the staff will take them both and go "woohoo." If they both fall through, there's still a little bit of a need at receiver in this class besides just one, and I could see the staff going back to Demetri Knowles or perhaps Brandon Reddish and turning up the heat again.

There is one twist: the potential decommitment of Darius Redman. This has all the makings of a done deal. Why? Because it's probably a mutual decision kind of thing. Redman is a useful prospect but not a game-breaking one, and "admissions decisions" make for a good reason to clear some space in the class for other commits. Or, cynically speaking, an excuse to. It reads like a gentle push out the door. It sounds like a crummy thing to do, but it's a lot better way to handle it than the SEC way, which is to take a letter of intent and then tell him to go to prep school.

Quick review of the numbers, then: 25 commits so far, 23 officially with the two early enrollments, room for two more. Three if Redman does decommit. Maybe four depending on the qualification status of Kyrrel Latimer, which we've heard precious little about.

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

So, basketball. It's still going on. This past weekend saw the last two of those 50/50 games against the dregs of the other BCS conferences and what do you know, we lost one and won one.

That brings the total to 3-2 against crappy BCS teams (wins over Oklahoma, Oregon, and LSU and losses to Stanford and Iowa State, the latter of which has turned out a lot better than crappy) and 4-3 overall (win over Minnesota and loss to Washington.)

That's great. If you'd offered me this start before the season, minus the awful loss to Seattle (or maybe even with that since we got the win over VT on the road), I'd have taken it without blinking. And it all means practically nothing without Mike Scott going forward.

Basketball, college basketball especially, is as much a chess game as it is an athletic contest, and going into the season without Mike Scott is like starting a chess game short your queen and knights. You lose a lot of options, and you're going to be relying pretty heavily on the other guy being really bad at this in order to win. Scott sat out both the ISU and LSU games, and how long he'll be out is anyone's guess right now. But the way things are reading, I'd put a lot more money on "the whole season" than "another week or two." I should have known that missing one game was too good to be true when ankle surgery is involved.

There's only one good way to look at this: the chance that Scott could be eligible for a medical hardship waiver to return in '10-'11. Even that isn't the greatest thing ever, because the frontcourt will be packed. But it'd be nice to have Scott around to lead a big group of developed sophomores instead of a big pack of wide-eyed freshmen. Could make for a good season.

Still, the downsides are many and they don't bode well for this season at all. With Mike Scott, UVA would be a legitimate threat to make some noise in the conference, and the NIT would be a realistic destination. Without him, we're scrabbling to stay out of the cellar and hoping to pick up some wins against the GTs and Wakes of the world. Beating LSU without Scott is encouraging, but the team's shooting was still iffy at best. Without Scott getting people's attention in the middle, the perimeter is a lot easier to defend. I don't think you can even say that freeing up Scott's minutes will help the freshmen develop, because they'd be able to run the offense better, shoot better, and generally have better freedom of movement on the court with Scott taking some pressure off of them. KT Harrell and Joe Harris and the rest aren't going to easily improve if some pesky dude is up in their grill because he's not scared they'll pass to the post.

So nothing good can come of this. If it sounds like I've entered GLOOM mode over basketball, I have. Just the other day I was wishing it was lacrosse season, which is a bad bad sign. A win over Howard tomorrow will do little if anything to dispel the cloud, because following that are three ACC games in which there is major potential for ass-kickery and not in a good way.

If you want basketball optimism, wait til tomorrow when I make an attempt at profiling Mike Tobey, Tony Bennett's first 2012 recruit.

season preview: Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Media prediction: 9th

Last season:

Record: 23-13 (7-9); 7th in ACC
Postseason: NCAA 10 seed; lost in second round
KenPom: 27th of 347

Returning scoring: 50.1%
Returning rebounding: 35.5%
Returning assists: 57.1%

2009-'10 All-ACC:

1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: F Gani Lawal
Rookie: F Derrick Favors
Defensive: none

Starters:

G: Iman Shumpert (Jr.)
G: Mfon Udofia (So.)
G: Glen Rice, Jr. (So.)
F: Brian Oliver (So.)
C: Daniel Miller (rFr.)

Bench:

G Maurice Miller (Sr.)
G Jason Morris (Fr.)
F Kammeon Holsey (rFr.)

Coach: Paul Hewitt (11th season)

Schedule:

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

Want to watch the end of an era (ok, kind of a mini-era) as it unfolds, instead of looking back and wondering what happened? Watch Georgia Tech this season. Wake Forest will probably have a worse season when all's said and done, but they have a new coach, not one hanging on by a fingernail. Paul Hewitt once took the Jackets to the NCAA Final, but his '08-'09 season was disastrous and this one has a chance to be worse. As I write this they're in the throes of an overtime struggle against Charlotte, which they'll probably have lost by the time I type the final word on this preview.

It starts with the makeup of the roster, which lists two centers, two forwards, and eleven guards. Georgia Tech lost Gani Lawal and prized freshman Derrick Favors - both large, powerful frontcourt types - to the NBA draft, and Hewitt responded by signing a single guard for the 2010 recruiting class. The team is led by Iman Shumpert, a very talented player who in an ideal world would have teammates feeding him the ball, not the other way around. Shumpert can score in buckets but he's an iffy creator, at best. Tech also gets reliable scoring from Glen Rice, Jr. and Brian Oliver, but Oliver is the only consistent frontcourt contributor in that department. Center Daniel Miller is mainly a big body in the middle for rebounding and defense.

Despite the hideous lack of frontcourt depth, GT does a surprisingly decent job of rebounding, as their guards (especially Shumpert) are able to chip in on the boards. That's the good news; the bad news is that GT, especially for such a guard-heavy team, is abysmal from beyond the arc. Oliver - the forward - is the best option they have here, and he's barely north of .300. Shumpert takes the next-most threes on the team and he's three misses away from dropping south of the Mendoza Line.

The saving grace for GT is a very favorable schedule, with most of the ACC's better teams appearing only once. That should keep them out of the cellar - that, and the fact that Wake Forest is so bad. And they played surprisingly well against Syracuse, losing by just four. But the Jackets have yet to beat a BCS-conference team, and have a lot more bad losses (Siena, a terrible blowout loss to Kennesaw State, and yes, Charlotte) than good wins (Richmond) already. This team will have a losing record well before the end of January and stay that way the rest of the season. And it'll almost certainly be Hewitt's last.