game preview: Ohio State

Date/Time: Saturday, March 16; 3:00

TV: Cavaliers Live

Record against the Buckeyes: 6-0

Last meeting: UVA 11, OSU 9; 3/17/12, Columbus

Last game: Cornell 12, UVA 11 (3/9); DU 10, OSU 9 (3/9)

Rankings: UVA #11/#9, OSU #12/#12

Efficiency stats:

Faceoffs:
UVA: 54.7% (#11)
OSU: 58.3% (#17)

Clearing (offense):
UVA: 93.2% (#3)
OSU: 91.8% (#7)

Clearing (defense):
UVA: 79.5% (#8)
OSU: 90.5% (#57)

Scoring % (offense):
UVA: 34.8% (#23)
OSU: 35.5% (#19)

Scoring % (defense):
UVA: 30.1% (#21)
OSU: 28.5% (#12)

O-rating:
UVA: 16.20 (#20)
OSU: 15.97 (#21)

D-rating:
UVA: 12.84 (#14)
OSU: 13.01 (#15)

(Ratings are my KenPom-esque measures of efficiency for lacrosse.  Numbers are schedule-adjusted.  National average is about 15.1.)

With one bubble team now having fallen very ingloriously off the bubble for good (I think a close loss to NC State would've at least kept us on the horse, but losing by twenty is the likely coup de grace), it's time to turn our attention to another bubble team: the lacrosse one.

This blog's yearly lacrosse bracketology will make its 2013 debut this Sunday, and already I fully expect the Hoos to be starting from a lower position than we're used to.  With very narrow losses to Syracuse and Cornell, each week now brings more or less a must-win game in order to stake a tourney claim.  Remember, the autobids expanded by one, which leaves even less margin for error for UVA in the weeks ahead.  The Hoos must find a feather for their cap somewhere.  Ohio State isn't it, but without one, we really can't afford a loss, either.

-- UVA on offense

If truth be told, I would point to the offense as the reason the Hoos couldn't quite get past Syracuse or Cornell, and had trouble with Vermont besides.  UVA is scoring at a slightly lower rate than they did in 2011 and 2012, and that's with the schedule still mostly composed of cupcakes and lacking Hopkins and the ACC.  And, come to think of it, Ohio State's not-shabby defense.

Actually, the Buckeyes are a little less of a wall than they've been in the past.  They're playing faster, too; in the past, they've had the reputation of being the UVA of the lacrosse world, but they're more or less mid-pack in terms of possessions per game now.  Both should help UVA.  Goalie Greg Dutton hasn't been on top of his game, with a save percentage south of .500 after posting a .575 last season.

OSU also brings a revamped defense, with only Dominic Imbordino returning from last year.  Partly as a result (I would imagine) OSU is way near the bottom of the NCAA charts in caused turnovers.  Their results this year have been a mixed bag.  Allowing only 10 goals to Denver, even in a loss, is pretty good - that's a season-low for the Pioneers.  Allowing 8 goals to Detroit, one of the worst offensive teams in the country, is bad.  That would be Detroit's second-highest total of the year, and Dutton was frankly outplayed by Detroit's goalie in that game.

On the good-guy side, Dom is slowly settling down the lineups, but not completely.  Nick O'Reilly has become a fixture, and oftentimes the offense lives or dies with his quarterbacking, which he's doing a nice job of with 15 assists already this year.  I still want to see Matt White play closer to the net and end this midfield experiment, but I've resigned myself to not getting my way.  Otherwise, there isn't so much a first and second line of midfielders as there is a first and second group that gets shuffled up at times.  We're getting there, though.

Faceoffs continue to scare me, even with Mick Parks winning at a .567 clip.  The reason is that our wing play, if I may be so blunt, stinks.  Chris LaPierre has been missing a ton of time and it shows.  Our wings are always last to the play, it seems.  I'd like to maybe solve that by putting the speedy Pat Harbeson on the wing, but Harbeson's no defender at all and only marginally skilled on offense.  Besides, there's no guarantee he'd take any better an angle to the ball or be any better anticipating its motion than anyone else.  Can't be much worse, though.

Still, as long as we can get some possession I'd like to think we can score on Ohio State.  Maybe not, like, VMI-style, but UVA was doing well against a very stingy Cornell defense for a while.  Continuing to gel should help, and the game is at home.

-- UVA on defense

It was probably fair to say that OSU was a one-man show last year.  Attackman Logan Schuss had twice as many points as the next guy.  It's much more diversified this year.  Freshman Carter Brown has joined Schuss at the attack and played well.  Along with top midfielder Jesse King, OSU finds itself with a much more efficient offense than they had last year.  King and Brown are both scoring on 40% or more of their shots.

The battle between Schuss and Scott McWilliams should be a good one.  McWilliams already has 20 caused turnovers, and while he's a little bit of a risk-taker and prone to getting beat, Schuss is one notch below the country's elite.  Which McWilliams has now had his crack it in guarding Rob Pannell.

If there's an X-factor it might be midget midfielder Turner Evans, who missed the Buckeyes' first couple games.  Evans is judicious with his shots, but he's been a sniper when he gets open for one, scoring six times on nine shots.  As he's not very big, he has a tough time getting open on his own, but he'll probably have a short stick on him more often than not and that defender can't be caught out of place.

-- Outlook

A tough matchup awaits.  Ohio State has tourney aspirations and this is one of their best chances to play their way in.  And this is a year in which UVA is going to struggle to play at the level we're accustomed to seeing.  Last year OSU jumped out to like a 6-1 lead before UVA got back into the game and eventually won.  So don't be exactly blown away if we lose.  That said, I'll be damned if I predict a loss to these bastards.

Final score: UVA 10, OSU 8

game preview: NC State

Date/Time: Friday, March 15; 2:00

TV: ESPN2

Record against the Pack: 59-81

Last meeting: UVA 58, NCSt. 55; 1/29/13, Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 61, Md. 58 (3/10); FSU 71, NCSt. 67 (3/9)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.3 (#339)
NCSt.: 67.9 (#84)

Offense:
UVA: 108.9 (#53)
NCSt.: 116.2 (#11)

Defense:
UVA: 88.5 (#17)
NCSt.: 98.1 (#121)

Pythag:
UVA: .8934 (#20)
NCSt.: .8491 (#40)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (4.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 4.9 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (5.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.0 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (17.0 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.1 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (6.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (13.1 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.5 apg)

North Carolina State:

PG: Lorenzo Brown (12.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 7.4 apg)
SG: Scott Wood (12.1 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.1 apg)
F: Richard Howell (13.3 ppg, 10.7 rpg, 1.8 apg)
F: C.J. Leslie (14.9 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 1.4 apg)
F: T.J. Warren (12.2 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 0.8 apg)

I won't bore you with a manifesto about the stakes here.  It's a tournament.  Which is our litmus test for another bigger tournament.  If you haven't figured out yet what's on the line here then you're in the wrong place.

-- UVA on offense

NC State's defensive iffiness is well-documented these days.  With a thin rotation, they can't afford foul trouble, and while they're actually very good at staying out of it, they don't play aggressively.  Lacking a center, the Pack struggle to rebound on the defensive end.  If Richard Howell isn't grabbing a rebound, nobody else is either.

It could be interesting to see how that goes, because the last time UVA played a team that doesn't rebound well defensively, they absolutely punished on the offensive glass.  That would be the FSU game, where Akil Mitchell grabbed six offensive boards and Mike Tobey five.  Tobey also had a nice game the last time out against NC State with three offensive rebounds.  It's not the Tony Bennett way, but if UVA is getting its points near the rim, it's much easier to steal a few offensive boards here and there.

That is if we get points at all.  The offense has hit a brick wall lately.  Production from Evan Nolte has dried up; the last time he hit two baskets in a game was February 19 at Miami, and his last three-bucket game was nine days before that.  Joe Harris's shooting has been awful the past three games: 2-for-7, 4-for-9 (but 1-for-6 from three), and 2-for-11.  That's basically your key to the game right there.  That kind of shooting from your first-team all-ACC guy is good enough to scrape out an ugly win over Maryland at home, but in the ACC tourney?  Gonna get you killed.

And truthfully, NC State's defense isn't good enough to dictate terms.  UVA has a better-than-even chance if Harris's jump shot is falling, or if Harris can get by his defender consistently.  Otherwise NC State will hang back in a straight-up man defense, watch Harris struggle, and dare someone else to pick up the slack.

-- UVA on defense

You'll probably hear more than you care to about the very limited play of Lorenzo Brown in the last game, after he twisted his ankle.  The other thing you don't want to hear is that it probably did have an effect.  NC State relies very, very heavily on Brown to facilitate what they do, and doesn't have much else in the way of point guards.  The little hobbit kid, Tyler Lewis, is about it, and the Pack don't use him much.

Besides running Brown and occasionally Lewis at the point, NC State works with a thin lineup, using six players for the other four spots.  Four players (Brown, Leslie, Howell, and Wood) get 30+ minutes per game.  Shooting guard Scott Wood (he's listed as a forward but I don't care, his role is 2-guard all the way) sits for barely six minutes a game.  Wood is a fearsome and voluminous three-point shooter.  It was really against Wood that Paul Jesperson opened some eyes to his defense; Jesperson harried Wood into a subpar shooting night and some uncharacteristic turnovers.  His ability or lack thereof to do so again will swing a big part of this game.

Most of the rest of NC State's scoring comes from a trio of forwards: C.J. Leslie, Richard Howell, and the underused T.J. Warren.  Leslie is lanky and athletic; Justin Anderson will likely draw that assignment, and Anderson gives up three inches.  Howell is powerfully built and a strong interior scorer.  Warren is a little bit of both, and shoots a very occasional three.  NC State might be better off if it were more than occasional, because he's 13-for-24 on the season.  Putting all three on the floor at once represents a matchup challenge, because Joe Harris gives up a lot athletically to Warren, who he'd likely have to guard.

Bottom line here: this team can beat you in a lot of ways.  It's cliched, but it really took a 40-minute defensive effort to stop the Pack last time.  It's gonna take the same again.  UVA enjoys one major matchup advantage in Mike Tobey; the only time NC State trots out a center is when they give Jordan Vandenberg a few minutes here and there to spell their scoring forwards.  But NC State is still accustomed to having their way in the paint due to their athleticism, and Brown is very adept at getting them the ball in the right place.

-- Outlook

History, as I've probably overmentioned, is not on our side here.  And though NC State is seen as something of an underachiever, all their losses but one (and that to Miami) have been away from home.  Technically this game will also be away from home, but not in practice.  I fear I have no choice here but to play the pessimist; UVA hasn't been playing well of late and there is a grain of truth to the notion that NC State missed Brown badly during our last game.

Final score: NCSt. 66, UVA 59

the acc next year

Apologies for the slight AWOL period.  I got hit with a wave of homework and a cold that could go either way at this point.  I think we'll know more tomorrow.  I will tell you what, man, there is absolutely no worse cold symptom than a sore throat.  I hate it.  If you have a fever with your cold it's a great thing.  It's your body going, OK you bastards, let's crank up the heat in here and see how you like it.  But a sore throat ruins everything.  I suck down Halls cough drops like the fat kid at the donut buffet.  That stuff is a ridiculously underrated modern miracle.  Candy with medicinal value.  It's like if Reese's Pieces were a hangover cure. 

Enough of my bitching.  I thought we'd take a look at the state of the ACC next year now that it's going to have one more semi-surprise member.  And let's be clear one more time: Adding Notre Dame is a great thing for the ACC, all things considered.  Adding them sooner is a bonus.  I'll stipulate to the following:

-- That things were much better in the good old days when we could count on playing basketball against everyone twice and conference realignment wasn't a thing

-- That South Bend, Indiana is nowhere near the Atlantic Coast

-- That the Domers can be awfully snooty

-- That not being all-the-way football members is a compromise of principles on the ACC's part.  (But five football games a year ain't to be sneezed at either.)

I don't care; the ACC is doing what it has to here, and it's a clear boost to the ACC's value.  What I want to do for now, though, is to take a look at what the ACC might look like next year.  I'd like it if the ACC were to come out with some comprehensive announcement, even if it takes til May, that lays it all out sport by sport.  But I doubt they will, which gives me a little window to try my hand yet again at the art of procrastination.  I mean prognostication.

Football

I know, Notre Dame isn't technically a football member.  Neither will the five-games-a-year deal begin this fall; it's too late for that and is in the interest of nobody involved to try and make that happen.  So wait til 2014.  The question then becomes: Is UVA one of the teams that will get Notre Dame on its schedule then, or do we wait?  Let's remember that with 14 football-playing teams, it's roughly once every three years that we'll see Notre Dame, assuming they rotate it evenly.  UVA's OOC agenda for 2014 includes home games against UCLA, Kent State, and Richmond, and a trip to BYU.  I would guess unless UVA is willing to buy out Kent State or Richmond, Notre Dame ain't happening that year.  Openings remain in both 2015 and 2016.

Interestingly, UVA has a 2017 game scheduled against William & Mary, and not only that, the date is set.  2017 is full.  The official site just recently added the 2016-2017 UConn series, even though I don't remember ever seeing an official announcement.  (It's been on my future schedules page, though.)  But the 2015 date with the Tribe is TBA.  Perhaps because UVA has been told to be flexible?  Shall we take these tea leaves to mean that the ACC has told UVA to go ahead and schedule stuff for 2014 and 2017 and keep 2015 open?  I think we shall.  Let's place our bets on 2015 being the first year of UVA's involvement in the Notre Dame series.

Basketball

OK, now we can talk about what the ACC will look like next year.  Which is to say, a 15-team league playing 18 games apiece.  That means you can play four teams twice and everyone else once.  Two of your four home-and-home teams are your permanent schedule buddies.  ND gets BC and GT.  (A nod to the Rudy game?  An enticement to help retain GT's loyalty over persistent Big Ten speculation?  Possibilities abound.)  Ours don't change - we're one of four teams who keep the same schedule buddies from this year to next.  The others are NC State, Clemson, and FSU.  Since ours are VT and Maryland, obviously that arrangement is temporary.  I am highly in favor, by the way, of the 18-game road schedule for Maryland that was proposed on Twitter.  The chances of this remain low, but one can dream.

The basketball tourney is likely to be an interesting matter.  The ACC long ago made sure to have it known that the tournament would continue to include everyone.  But what's the bracket gonna look like?  They haven't said anything except for this announcement from last October, when Notre Dame first became a thing: "The Tournament will begin with three games on Wednesday, followed by four games on Thursday and Friday, two semifinals on Saturday and the championship game on Sunday. The top four seeds will continue to receive byes into Friday's quarterfinal round."

What that basically is, is the old Big East format, minus one game.  Picture the current 12-team bracket.  There are four first-round games.  Now attach one game to each one of those, so that the bottom 8 teams have to play for the right to play the 5-8 seeds.  9-16, 10-15, 11-14, and 12-13.  The top four seeds, then, have a double-round bye, and the next four have a single-round bye.  It's a fun tourney style, really.  That's what I'd bet on for the ACC, except without the 9-16 game.  Four games a day until the semifinals (ok, three the first day), so it's very TV-friendly (and venue-friendly), and you get to start on Wednesday for five full days of tourney action.

As for next season's ACC/B1G Challenge (which is even what the ACC official release is calling it - I must say, I didn't like the new Big Ten logo but it was awfully nice of them to finally give us a three-character abbreviation) it will leave out Clemson, VT, and Wake, for being outside the conference's RPI top 12.

Baseball

Adding Notre Dame solved a potential very big scheduling problem: namely, what to do with an odd number of teams since Syracuse doesn't have one.  Notre Dame simply makes the ACC a 14-team baseball league.  And interestingly, the ACC has managed to poach three of the Big East's four best baseball teams.  Pittsburgh isn't completely horrible, Notre Dame's decent for a northern team, and of course Louisville has had a legit tourney team for a while now.  (St. John's used to be good, too, and was assigned to the Charlottesville regional a few times, but has started this year 3-11.)

I digress.  What will the ACC look like next year?  Louisville won't be part of the equation yet, so even with the Big East's higher-level squads, the conference is a bit watered-down.  This would be a great chance to dispense with the idea of divisions, which are stupid and useless for baseball, but they're not that smart.  So with Syracuse in football's Atlantic Division, it's not hard to imagine that Notre Dame will simply take their place in baseball.

As for the tournament, that's been decided too: "Beginning with the 2014 season, the ACC Baseball Championship will feature 10 teams in a six-day event. A double-elimination format will be used Tuesday through Friday followed by two single-elimination games on Saturday and the Championship Game on Sunday."  The "two single-elimination games on Saturday" scream "semifinals" pulled from the winners of two separate pods of five.  How they plan to do that, I can't figure.  It will tax the shit out of a pitching staff, though.

From a competition standpoint, ND will probably slide into the middle of the Atlantic, below FSU, Clemson, and NC State but somewhat above Maryland and a decent ways above Wake and BC.  They'll drop in the pecking order when Louisville replaces the Terps.  Pitt may have less success than they're used to, because the Coastal is tougher.  UVA, UNC, GT, and Miami should all be better than the Panthers; VT may even surprise and finish above them too.

Lacrosse

This will be so much fun that it'll be a shame to lose Maryland.  The ACC will have six teams, all of which play outstanding lacrosse, and for one year it'll be an autobid conference.  You can guess the tourney format with your eyes closed, of course: 1 and 2 get byes while the rest play.  I don't picture the ACC leaving anyone out.  The point is to have ourselves a big ol' RPI-fest and inflate the shit out of that statistic.

This is the one sport where UVA's schedule will be affected more than any other.  Adding Syracuse wasn't going to change anything except for maybe the timing of the game.  (UVA tends to prefer to play all its ACC games last, and Syracuse has, for a recent little while, been the first marquee OOC opponent.)  Adding Notre Dame will force someone off the schedule.  The likely candidate is Ohio State, whom we started playing in 2011.  I guess I could see it being Cornell, but then again I really can't.  And as mentioned, the timing of the games will probably shuffle a little.

If you'll let me step outside the next-year theme, by the way, even by losing Maryland the ACC has a chance to keep the autobid in 2015 and beyond: by bringing in Johns Hopkins, which has decided to "formally" explore conference affiliation.  They will, of course, get to pick and choose their conference and join on their terms, as they'll have several suitors.  I've been mildly pushing for the ACC to invite Hopkins as an associate member for a little while now; I think it's time to basically make "add Hopkins" an official platform plank of this blog, right next to "ban corporate names on bowl games."  If the decision were about lacrosse only, the ACC would basically be Hopkins's only natural choice; add research dollars and academia into the equation, though, and the Big Ten and their CIC research arm become awfully inviting.

weekend review and rooting guide

Obviously there's no sugarcoating the fact that Sunday's regular season finale against Maryland was ugly with a capital "ugly."  No surprise there.  What might surprise you is if I said it wasn't just the first half.  The whole damn game was ugly.  The truth is that I don't think the second half was any prettier than the first.

The main difference is that Maryland started playing a lot worse.  Or more truthfully, that they played more like Maryland is used to playing.  The clock struck halftime and Nick Faust turned into a pumpkin.  Justin Anderson's putback slam was a potential spark according to the announcers, and that might've been a turning point of sorts, but then, I don't think there was a particular turning point.  KenPom's win probability chart for the game shows a steadyish slope in Maryland's favor for pretty much the whole first half; the second half probabilities swerve wildly back and forth and every single play is designated "high leverage."  And eventually it's swerved its way to the good guys.  That's a pretty accurate portrayal of how it felt to watch.  Both teams just played ugly basketball for 20 minutes and UVA played less ugly than Maryland and it was all good in the end.

That speaks to the talent difference.  Joe Harris had a totally pathetic shooting night (4-for-18) but the complementary players picked him up (Akil Mitchell and Mike Tobey in particular.)  Our complements are better than their complements, and their star (Alex Len, I suppose, but it's hard to say Maryland really has had a lead dog this season) played even worse than Harris, because Harris really gets basketball and Len has a way to go.

(Case in point: the final play of regulation, in which Len not only allowed Mike Tobey to set up shop right next to the hoop, but then foolishly - and halfheartedly - went for the steal and found himself in no position to do anything at all.... especially defend the bucket.  Tie game achieved.)

That gives UVA an ACC tournament bye for the second year in a row.  Since ACC expansion to 12 teams, this is the 3rd bye that UVA has managed, and each and every time, NC State has been the team that played through to UVA's bracket.  And won, I might add.  I'm not so sure I wasn't pulling for NC State to beat Florida State on Saturday so that we might flip the script on them.  There's probably something to be said for the momentum gained from beating the crappiest team in the conference and the rhythm from playing while your future opponent sits.

I'd've liked to have the excellent chance as well to add a neutral-site win to UVA's RPI resume.  Certainly, winning on Friday would do wonders for UVA's tourney chances; I would go so far as to say that it would lock down a bid.  More than for NCAA reasons, though, I just want that quarterfinal win for its own sake.  I've yet to even see one as a UVA fan.

(By the way, David Teel has the obvious perspective on what Tony Bennett has achieved this year.  Essentially this was a season where UVA was supposed to finish 7th, instead finished 4th, and did it with Malcolm Brogdon on ice, Jontel Evans out nine games with a broken foot, Darion Atkins ineffective for most of the ACC season with shin splints, and Mike Tobey parked for a couple weeks with mono.  We had the usual boatload of health problems and hardly noticed.)

Oh, and congratulations are in order for Harris and Mitchell for making the ACC's 1st and 3rd teams respectively, and Jontel Evans for making the all-defense team.  The latter is a little bit of a reputation pick, kind of the way Pudge Rodriguez kept winning Gold Gloves even as a mid-30-year-old catcher, but it's not like Evans is undeserving either.  And the selections for Harris and Mitchell are spot on and exactly what they deserved.  No, I don't think I'd have put Mitchell on the 2nd team.  3rd is just right; the competition is pretty good this year.

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As a bubble team, even with one foot in the tournament field, it's probably worth a look at what the rest of the bubble is up to this week.  Here's a rooting guide for the conference tournaments you want to look at:

Atlantic 10: Temple did itself a big favor by beating VCU.  Bad for us.  They have the A-10's 3rd seed and draw the winner of UMass-George Washington on Friday.  Those teams are solid NIT material and aren't in the NCAA conversation, so you'll be pulling for whichever one to soften up Temple's resume a little.  La Salle is in a dicier spot: as the 4 seed, they drew the winner of Butler-Dayton, so, they drew Butler.  Excellent as long as Butler takes care of business.  Butler's tourney resume is ironclad, with a whole assortment of wins over really good nonconference teams (Indiana, UNC, Gonzaga) so they can't play their way out no matter what.  But they can take care of La Salle for us.

Big 12: UVA is literally Lunardi's last at-large in.  Baylor is the first out.  They have the Big 12's 6 seed and drew Oklahoma State in the first round.  You are a big Cowboys fan; a Baylor win might leapfrog them past us even if we do beat NC State.  Iowa State is sort of kind of bubbly, so it wouldn't hurt if they lost to Oklahoma, either.  But the biggie is Baylor.  Also keep in mind that Baylor was one of the teams that Adidas outfitted with their Zubaz getup, so there's that too.

Big Ten: Iowa is kind of a fringe bubble team hanging on at the bottom.  If they go on a rampage - and the Big Ten has been anything-goes this year in a good way - they could start to look interesting to the committee.  After their opening-round game against Northwestern, they would face Michigan State.  I'm not rooting for Sparty in any event, but you might want to.

C-USA: This conference kind of sucks, which is good news.  Southern Miss is the only bubble team, and really at this point they're less of a bubble risk than a potential bid thief.  They're the #2 seed in the C-USA tourney, and nothing they do there short of beating Memphis would impress the committee enough to extend a bid.  And if they beat Memphis they're an autobid anyway.

Mountain West: A surprisingly tough conference this year.  Boise State has a golden opportunity, playing in the 4/5 game against San Diego State.  SDSU is both a very likely tourney team and kind of vulnerable in this game.  Boise is who Lunardi has us playing in the NCAA play-in right now, putting them at basically the same level as us.  You definitely want San Diego State to pull this one out and soften up Boise's resume a touch.

Pac-12: Practically not worth mentioning, but Arizona State is in the same position as Iowa where if they go on a rampage they could attract some of the committee's attention.

SEC: Also known as Bubbleville.  The SEC has one sure thing (Florida) and a whole host of teams that'll watch the selection show with a few nerves.  No fewer than four bubble teams populate the SEC tourney.  As 2 and 3 seeds, respectively, Kentucky and Ole Miss are on a semifinals collision course.  As 4 and 5 seeds, Alabama and Tennessee have the same fate, only in the quarterfinals.  As with CUSA, the committee will not be impressed by anything these teams do prior to those games, with one exception: Missouri is a solidly-in team with a low seed (6) and in position to upend Mississippi before that Kentucky game ever happens.  Your idea result (barring an upset like Arkansas over Kentucky) is for Missouri to blow through that side of the bracket and eliminate both UK and the Rebels.  Barring that, at least one team will take out the other; you probably want it to be Kentucky that beats Ole Miss since Ole Miss is lurking from below while Kentucky is slightly above.  That said, if you want to root for Kentucky to earn a nice NIT #1 seed, I won't blame you one bit.  As for Alabama/Tennessee, it's another clear eliminator, but with a rooting interest: you actually kind of want the Vols to look like a tournament team, just to make that December win look a little shinier.  Plus, since we've already played Tennessee, the committee may look to avoid that rematch, which in turn may entice them to give UVA a slightly more favorable position in the S-curve.

In sum, your rooting guide looks like this:

UMass-GWash over Temple
Butler over La Salle
Oklahoma State over Baylor
Oklahoma over Iowa State
Northwestern or Michigan State over Iowa
anyone to knock off Southern Miss
San Diego State over Boise State
Stanford or UCLA over Arizona State
Missouri over Ole Miss and Kentucky
Kentucky over Ole Miss if comes to that
Tennessee over Alabama

Left unsaid is that obviously we want to beat NC State (which could make all of this moot) and to root for the favorites in the smaller conference tourneys; teams such as Akron, Louisiana Tech, and Bucknell.  (None are especially likely to steal a bid, but you don't want to take chances.)

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Since this basically just became a basketball post, I'll save baseball and lacrosse for tomorrow.  But there was one development last week that bears mention: the announcement that the Catholic 7 split from the old Big East to become the new Big East is official.  What's so big about that?  Because now Notre Dame has to figure out what to do, and quickly.  I'd say the chances are pretty good - or very good - that they'll be in the ACC as soon as this summer.  The Catholic 7 basically smoked the Big East at the negotiating table - they even got to keep their tournament units (the method used to decide how the money from the NCAA tourney gets split up) and basically only had to leave behind the departure fees the conference has been collecting.  Which is admittedly a pretty copious figure.  Cincy, USF, and UConn will get a nice windfall.  But if it's true that the old Big East only wants $2.5 million from Notre Dame in order to leave this summer as well, then that's as good as done.  Notre Dame can find that money in their couch cushions.

EDIT: right, and as I'm typing that, this happens.  So yes.  Say hi to the Irish, just in time for St. Paddy's Day.

game preview: Maryland

Date/Time: Sunday, March 10; 6:00

TV: ESPNUVA

Record against the Terps: 72-106

Last meeting: UVA 80, Md. 69; 2/10/13, College Park

Last game: FSU 53, UVA 51 (3/7); UNC 79, Md. 68 (3/6)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 60.3 (#339)
Md.: 67.5 (#103)

Offense:
UVA: 110.0 (#39)
Md.: 105.0 (#106)

Defense:
UVA: 88.8 (#21)
Md.: 92.8 (#47)

Pythag:
UVA: .9000 (#21)
Md.: .7805 (#67)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (4.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 5.0 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (5.2 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.0 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (17.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.2 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (6.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (13.0 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.5 apg)

Maryland:

PG: Nick Faust (8.7 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.7 apg)
SG: Dez Wells (12.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 3.2 apg)
SF: Jake Layman (5.5 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 0.9 apg)
PF: James Padgett (5.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 0.6 apg)
C: Alex Len (11.9 ppg, 8.1 rpg, 0.8 apg)

So many games this weekend.  I was debating with myself whether to use this post to preview baseball (home against Maryland), lacrosse (home against Cornell) or hoops.  There's a lot riding on Sunday's regular season finale.  Hoops it is.  The short version of the other two: Cornell will probably kick our asses, and the baseball team should at least take two of three if not get the full sweep.

By game time, we'll know if this game means anything in the ACC seeding.  Thanks to the major pooch-screwing that's taken place this past week, UVA can't get the 3rd seed I wanted, and doesn't seem likely to pull off 4th seed either.  To get that bye, NC State must lose at Florida State on Saturday.  If the Pack win, they'll clinch the bye and make UVA-Maryland a pointless exercise - we'll be 5th regardless.  (But not pointless for Maryland - they lose the tiebreaker with FSU, so a loss sends them to 7th while a win keeps them 6th.)

If we're to be the 5th seed, then look ye to the results of the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest game.  The winner is the 11th seed; the loser is 12th and would be our first-round opponent.  And honestly, this might be a better outcome than 4th seed anyway.  Yes, it introduces one more chance to lose, but it also gives us a great chance at a neutral-site win.  (Which would be only slightly canceled out by adding a crap opponent to our RPI.)  Wheeee!  Rationalizing is fun!  In any case, it's already time to break out the NC State tapes because we're once again on a collision course with the Pack and I'm sick of having those bastards finishing off our ACC tournament.  Maybe it's time for us to come out of the play-in round and make them one-and-done instead of the other way around, which is every time we've had a tourney bye since ACC expansion.

But I get ahead of myself.  The reason this Maryland game is a thing is because of the NCAA tourney implications.  If you buy the line that four ACC teams have earned themselves NCAA bids and two more are on the bubble, then you know which two teams those are, and you know what a great chance this is for UVA to draw a big fat dividing line between themselves and the conference's other bubble team.  Regardless of anything else, if the committee is comparing two ACC teams for one of those final slots, they're not gonna choose the one that lost twice to the other.  So a win would be huge.

-- UVA on offense

Now you know what things look like when the threes aren't falling.  If you just looked at the stats you'd figure that Joe Harris's sudden inefficiency has been the problem, but when Paul Jesperson's shot isn't falling, and Evan Nolte is suddenly never open (nor can he shoot when he is), and Justin Anderson seems invisible, it's no sweat keying in on Harris.  I mean, he's a great player, but even Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen to keep the defense honest.

Defenses have been anything but honest lately.  Sagging a million miles off of Jontel Evans is nothing new. Maryland did it last time we met and will do it again.  Florida State brought a new twist to the game by bringing the defender up and encouraging the drive, at which point they dared Evans to pass by jamming the lane.  It didn't help that too often, we'd have our own player in the lane, and close enough that his defender could deny both the pass and the layup.  Alex Len will no doubt be able to do the same, if Maryland uses a similar game plan.

The necessary adjustment is to space things out better than they did against FSU.  I'm for trying Harris in the post, frankly (when Len is out of the game so that the defender is someone more suitable), and then when Jontel dribble-drives, have Harris book it clear and force the defense to make a choice.

Defenses are also figuring out that Nolte is no threat to drive himself, and thus are sticking to him like glue on the perimeter, denying the kick-out pass.  I haven't seen Nolte used as a screener much; if getting him going is the goal, that would be a start, to see if the Hoos can force a switch into a more favorable shooting matchup.

Maryland uses such a large rotation that it's tough to get a grip on individual matchups.  I can't even vouch for more than two positions of the starting lineup above; they've been very fluid in their decisions in that regard.  Obviously, any time Len is in the game he's a threat to alter or block a shot.  I don't think Mark Turgeon will make the same mistake he made last game in allowing himself to have his matchups dictated to him and going too small, which means more Len than last time.  He's the only threat in the middle, though.  Shaquille Cleare can't seem to defend without fouling, and Charles Mitchell is only a little bit better there.  And as noted last time, Maryland is almost always on the wrong end of the turnover margin.

With any luck, the friendly confines of the JPJA will provide the shooting backdrop necessary to fix the awful 2-for-14 night the Hoos had in Tallahassee.  (Actually, in a way I hope that's not the problem because it doesn't solve anything for the ACC tourney.  One game at a time, though.)

-- UVA on defense

UVA's gameplan in the last meeting was very successful; so much so that Mark Turgeon abandoned his size advantage and tried to match small for small.  That meant going right to his own weakness.  Maryland typically gets awful point guard play; neither Nick Faust nor Pe'Shon Howard have been the answer.  Most of the backcourt, really, is pretty turnover-prone.

As with above, it's hard to know exactly what kind of rotation to expect.  Might Turgeon try to flood the frontcourt with bigs and dare Tony Bennett to put Darion Atkins on the floor?  It's possible.  However, Maryland will have to demand of Alex Len that he catch the ball closer to the hoop, or else watch 6'6" Justin Anderson bring the same nastily effective double-teams that he brought in the first matchup.  And usually I worry that in the second game, whatever worked before won't be so effective because it's easier to make adjustments from the losing end, but UVA brings a new wrinkle too: Mike Tobey, who sat the last one out.

Fortunately, I don't really worry about Maryland's backcourt.  As mentioned, the point guard play is poor because they don't have a true point guard, and only Logan Aronhalt is a three-point threat.  Dez Wells is a decent wing scorer, but only inside the arc.  Seth Allen is a volume guy.  Maryland is pretty effective overall from two, because they can always put someone on the floor who can get to the rim - usually two or three - and also tend to have a size advantage when they want one, meaning they'll post up pretty effectively.

Good news though: the Terp offense is usually pretty bad away from home.  In ACC play they've managed .9 points per possession on the road; even when they win it's not with an explosion of offense.  They beat Wake at Wake recently, 67-57, and with a score like that you'd assume a pretty low-possession game.  Nope: 74 possessions, one of the fastest-paced games they've played all year.  So UVA should have success on the defensive end.

-- Outlook

If you want to read this final score prediction and imagine me banging my head against a brick wall til it falls down, that's fine.  It's kind of the essence of being a UVA fan anyway.  But as bad as the latest losses have been, you are reminded that we led them both late and lost by a combined score of three points.  I told you in the FSU preview I expected the BC game to be a wake-up call and that the Hoos would show a little gumption in Tallahassee.  OK, it took until like the last quarter of the game, and a few game minutes after Tony Bennett was seen on TV with maybe the first evidence I've ever seen of veins in his foreheads, but there it was.

Well, this time for real.  It's Senior Night, which is mainly the Bub Evans Show since he's the only one.  So how about a big game from him?  I think we'll get one.  And this time I'm really gonna kick that football.

Final score: UVA 62, Md. 51

spring practice preview

If you're a football fan, and only a football fan and don't care about the rest of the doings of the athletic department, you're probably not reading this blog in March.  But aside from that, it's almost time for that little midoffseason oasis of fun known as spring practice.  When we get to ridiculously overanalyze the ability of players to take on tackling dummies and fret about whether that long touchdown bomb means good things for the offense or bad things for the defense.

First, an update on the depth chart.  The following players (not including graduated seniors) are no longer listed.  Also given: the impact of their departure.

-- DT Chris Brathwaite.  Impact: Huge.  Even as a reserve, Brathwaite was the most disruptive defensive lineman we had, and led the team in TFL.  With Will Hill graduating, Brathwaite was on the cusp of fulfilling the irrationally high expectations I had for him.  Seriously, I'd been talking this guy up for two or three years.  In his initial recruit post I specifically said I was chugging the Kool-Aid.  (I also called him a linebacker because that's what Al Groh recruited him to do.)  Brathwaite had good high school grades at a tough private school in NYC, and as I recall the articles, had to be up at 6 AM to catch the train there every day.  So I had a pretty good bit of confidence that he could handle the rigors of college athletics.  And then poof, he's gone.  Frustrating.

-- TE Jeremiah Mathis.  Impact: Medium-low.  Mathis is "indefinitely suspended" and didn't appear on the rosters they handed out to the media this week.  Mainly he was used as an occasional red zone target, but if no Mathis means more Jake McGee in the red zone, I think we can deal.

-- OT Kelby Johnson.  Impact: Medium-high.  Johnson is in the same boat as Mathis, status-wise.  I'm not counting on either.  Johnson would've been in a prominent competition with Jay Whitmire for the starting right tackle position and probably had a small upper hand.  Now the position defaults to Whitmire, and depth will have to come from someone who redshirted last year.

-- DE Courtnye Wynn.  Impact: Low.  Wynn is off the team for "conduct detrimental to the team and/or one's self."  Whatever that's code for.  Drugs, maybe, I dunno.  Wynn redshirted last year, so unlike the above three, we have no onfield performance to go on.  Our need for some pass rush at DE is well-known, and it's possible Wynn could've provided some.  That said, he was at least fourth on the pecking order and was probably in competition with Trent Corney for that spot too.  Wynn had a lot of potential but it would've been a little while before we saw it realized, probably not til 2014 or '15.

-- S Kameron Mack.  Impact: Practically none.  Mack left the team before last year but Mike London left the door open for his return, which looks like it's not happening.  There's sufficient depth at safety to cover his loss, and CBs that can be moved if necessary.

-- WR Bobby Smith.  Impact: I hate to be this way, but probably positive.  Smith had literally zero impact on the program in four years and was evidently not asked back for a fifth year, which was something I was assuming would happen.  He is the only non-invitee of potential fifth-year seniors.

In case you're wondering, that roster attrition has us down to 86 scholarships promised out.  That's one over the limit, but that will be taken care of when we learn exactly who all the prep schoolers will be, and we already kind of know of one anyway.  One other point: you see how small the senior class is, with just nine scholarship players.  Behind them are 23 juniors, which means that starting next year with the 2015 recruiting class, we'll no longer be recruiting under the umbrella of the coaching transition attrition.  In other words 2015 gonna be a massive class.  Let's hope there isn't another round of transition attrition to follow soon.

A few position shifts are in order as well: Zach Swanson moves to TE from FB and Vincent Croce to FB from DT.  Also Mario Nixon from WR to TE.  These moves are very likely to increase the playing time of the involved players, perhaps vastly.  The TE position looks nicely shored up, and Croce has a chance to be the guy that we're also hoping Connor Wingo-Reeves can be.

Now for the look at things by position:

QUARTERBACK

London revealed that Matt Johns has mono and won't participate, which is a really, really unfortunate time for that to happen; it's not farfetched to think that it closes the window on his chances to start.  There's still the fall, of course, in which he could very well be brilliant.  For now, though, the quarterback derby is once again on in full force with a three-horse race in front of us this spring.  Phillip Sims and David Watford have on-field experience, but they'll be working in a semi-new system, nullifying some of the advantage they have over Greyson Lambert.  I don't think either Sims or Watford have done anything on the field to earn them a leg up, and a new OC will want to make his own decisions anyway.  Let the battle royale (sigh) begin.  Yet again.

RUNNING BACK/FULLBACK

I think the main thing to watch for is, how much can Clifton Richardson, Khalek Shepherd, and Kye Morgan establish themselves before Smoke shows up in the fall?  This is their chance - particularly Richardson's - to strut their stuff and give the staff a reason to carve out a role for them in the fall before Taquan Mizzell arrives and starts bogarting carries.  Kevin Parks is better-established and shouldn't have to worry as much, but it's not like he can slack off.

As for fullback, it'll be Vincent Croce's debut at the position, with only walk-ons otherwise populating the job.  Billy Skrobacz has some time on the field, but nobody else.

WIDE RECEIVER

A pecking order has been well-established here, so there shouldn't be much drama, except for what new opinions Steve Fairchild brings.  Tim Smith and Darius Jennings are your top two, with the next rung manned by Dominique Terrell and E.J. Scott.  Nothing in that last sentence should've surprised you.  The main shuffle will be in the row below that, with Miles Gooch, Adrian Gamble, and Canaan Severin - different styles of player, mostly - look to carve out their roles.  Jamall Brown and Kyle Dockins are coming off redshirt years, and probably won't figure into the 2013 plans much, but they can start building some equity for the future.

TIGHT END

A real position shuffle here, as it's one of the few that had more than one graduating senior, believe it or not.  Paul Freedman and Colter Phillips have moved on.  Jake McGee returns as the lone player with real TE experience.  Zach Swanson has bulked up nicely to 255 pounds and is probably the top blocking-TE option.  Maybe the only one.  It'll be interesting to see his pass-catching skills now that he's back at his natural position.  Rob Burns could show up in some red-zone action, as he's tall as hell.  (6'7", for the curious.)  I don't think Mario Nixon will be major factor until he fattens up; he's listed at 215 pounds at the moment.

OFFENSIVE LINE

Caveat before I start: the roster handed out by the school has some different positions than what I have on the depth chart.  For example: Sean Cascarano at OT instead of OG, Sean Karl at OG instead of OT, Ross Burbank at OG instead of C.  I've decided not to have a hair trigger on moving these guys; I suspect some of it is the coaches looking to try some guys out at different spots and not necessarily making that a permanent thing.  We'll see how things go as time goes on.

That said, at least one of those is a little troubling.  I was sort of hoping Burbank would get a long look at center so that Luke Bowanko could go back to a more natural position at guard.  It's not the worst thing in the world, though, to not be changing centers every year.  Anyway, the O-line in general will be a little thin in camp, with a grand total of four scholarship offensive tackles, among other things.  One of the things I'll be most interested in is, who will be the third tackle?  Are they really moving Cascarano?  Or can we get some good snaps out of Michael Mooney?  That sort of thing.

DEFENSIVE LINE

DE is pretty well set, with Jake Snyder as a well-established player and Eli Harold and Michael Moore looking like very strong candidates for the next two rotation spots.  Trent Corney is a wild card here.  We'll be looking for some refined technique out of him, and hoping he can bring some pass rush to the table.

DT is much more fluid, especially without Brathwaite.  Brent Urban is a starter, but the coaches will be looking at Justin Renfrow and David Dean to find out how the rotation shakes out after that.  Marco Jones unfortunately won't be on the field, or else he'd be a candidate to try and nose his way into the conversation.  We know basically nothing about Andre Miles-Redmond, and since he's essentially the fourth DT right now, this spring should bring some answers.

LINEBACKER

There ought to be some major battles here.  More so than at any position but quarterback.  Henry Coley is likely to be on the field in some capacity, and it looks like he may move to the middle and battle it out with Kwontie Moore.  Coley is now the msot versatile 'backer on the team.  If so, Daquan Romero and Demeitre Brim will have an interesting duel on the strong side, with Romero getting a little head start.  Then you have D.J. Hill and probably Mark Hall on the weak side; Hill has a major experience advantage, of course, and played well in some limited time last year.  One other thing to watch: how soon early-enrollee LaChaston Smith makes the move to linebacker after the start at RB he was promised.

SECONDARY

This, on the other hand, should be mostly drama-free.  The starters are well-established.  There's a lot of competition at the bottom end of the cornerback depth chart, with four freshmen having redshirted last year.  What happens there could determine some of next year's attrition; whoever ends up at the bottom is going to be there permanently.

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

Schedule for the spring includes no trips around the state like they've done in years past.  Either it's because of London's reasoning - that they don't want distractions while they install new offenses and defenses - or they just want to stay and play in their new toy which is ready to go.  That indoor facility looks nice, and pleasingly UVAish.  I wish I could say the same for some of the new buildings near the E-school.

game preview: Florida State

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

TV: ESPN2

Record against the Noles: 18-21

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

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

KenPom:

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

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

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

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

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

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

Florida State:

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

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

-- UVA on offense

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

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

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

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

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

-- UVA on defense

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

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

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

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

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

-- Outlook

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

Final score: UVA 62, FSU 57

the recruit: George Adeosun

Name: George Adeosun
Position: OT
Hometown: Alpharetta, GA
School: Alpharetta
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 301

24/7: 90, four stars; #26 OT, GA #27
ESPN: 77, three stars; #56 OT, GA #74, SE #327
Rivals: 5.4, two stars
Scout: three stars; #55 OT

Other offers: Oklahoma, Georgia, Arizona State, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Purdue, Kentucky

Just shy of one month after Signing Day, it's time to wrap up the updates.  I'm punctual like that.  The last player in the class to declare for UVA was also one of the most highly-coveted, albeit with a twist.  George Adeosun was a William & Mary commitment until the UVA coaches found him in January and invited him up for the huge official visit weekend that's become a yearly London staple.  At the time, he had this to say: "Right now I kind of have it down to William & Mary and Virginia unless anything else comes along."

A few something elses came along.  UVA's staff, or sources or whoever it is that talks to the reporters from the paysites that cover recruiting, occasionally will ask the reporters not to divulge a particular name so as to keep things under wraps.  This would've been a good time to do that, because Adeosun's recruitment absolutely exploded within a week of his UVA visit.  At first it was only Purdue and Kentucky, and that didn't seem to pose too much of a threat.  Then it got out of hand.  A whole bunch of programs looking to stuff another offensive lineman into their classes decided to get in touch, most notably Oklahoma and Georgia.  It must have been absolutely dizzying.

But UVA was first, and that meant something; it also helped that Adeosun is a classroom superstar and UVA has a tendency to be attractive to guys whose grade point starts with a four.  As a result of his very late bloom, the scouting services are all over the map on their evaluations.  Rivals gave him sort of a default two-star, so that rating is kind of null and void.  24/7 went nuts and gave him four stars; OU and UGA offers would tend to back up that assessment.  The highish-three that Scout and ESPN gave seems to be fairest, given his late appearance on the scene.  I mean, a guy who plays at a pretty big high school in a pretty big-talent state ought to have been noticed by somebody in the SEC.  (Though being an offensive lineman hinders that somewhat.)

Slotting-wise, Adeosun sits the fence right between tackle and guard.  Both have been mentioned as possibilities in various scouting reports big and small.  Part of the reason for that is that his size sits the fence; 6'6" is tackle-sized, 6'5" (where ESPN lists him) is kind of cutting it close.  ESPN also likes his pass protection better than his run-blocking, though, which is a point for tackle.  As is the vast amount of interest he got in January.  Part of it is schools scrambling to fill their offensive line quotas, but I don't think schools from here to Arizona are going after a guard prospect.

One thing everyone's agreed upon is that Adeosun is pretty raw as a talent, and needs some technique work.  That's OK; O-linemen all redshirt anyway, or 95% of 'em do.  With the recent "indefinite suspension" of Kelby Johnson, and the impending graduation of Morgan Moses (after this upcoming season) tackle depth is kind of thin.  So anyone sitting the fence is probably a tackle.  I've got high hopes for Adeosun thanks to the explosion of interest in his services.  UVA won a tough recruiting battle against a couple very high-profile schools; just because it happened at the last minute shouldn't make Adeosun any less highly anticipated than the ones who commit in May.

weekend review

It's probably a good thing I never got around to writing previews of either the Boston College hoops game or the Syracuse lacrosse one.  I would've predicted wins in both and then gotten blamed for the losses.

Seriously, those should've been highly winnable games.  Of course, they were on the road, which in basketball these days is a deadly place to be.  Even so.  Syracuse looks like they'll struggle this year to get to the NCAA tournament, or would've struggled if we'd beaten them; an overtime loss to Albany is a major detriment to their outlook and should've also meant not having that hard of a time scoring on them.  Again, though: the road.  Especially the Carrier Dome, which is a hellhole as far as UVA lacrosse is concerned.

One thing I sort of pride myself on is looking at a game or a season or something and being able to figure out what happened.  I mean, I wouldn't write this thing if I didn't think I could do that.  Sometimes the reasons are coldly analytical and sometimes intangible, but usually there's something.  So it shames me to say I have no good explanation whatsoever for the Boston College debacle.  Feel free to accept whatever explanation you like: freshmen hitting a wall, Duke hangover, a gym with less atmosphere than a 10 AM shootaround.  I mean, Jontel Evans taking a long dribble off a short basketball court did not help matters, but that's not really it.  The game just....disappeared.  It was there and then it wasn't.  I wish I knew why, and that's probably the most frustrating thing about it.

(As for the Syracuse game, I didn't see it.  It was only aired in Syracuse's markets.  After several years of improvement in TV coverage of lacrosse, we've taken a step back this year to the point where after tomorrow I will have seen the Drexel and Vermont games - both for the first time - and not the Syracuse game.  Next year Cuse will be under the ACC umbrella and this arrangement they have where Time Warner has right of first refusal on anything in the Carrier Dome will be gone.  I hope.)

The good news is that the BC thing doesn't hurt UVA's tournament chances as much as you might think.  It hurts mainly by not helping; we sure could've used that road win.  But the rest of the bubble screwed itself this weekend just as badly.  Baylor just lost to not-even-NIT-bound Texas, probably a hangover from their buzzer-beaten missed chance against K-State on Saturday.  Ole Miss got taken down by 8-20 Mississippi State, and Tennessee got beat by Georgia.  Arizona State and St. John's were losers as well.  So, yes, a win on Sunday would've done wonders for separating UVA from the bubble pack a little, but as long as business is taken care of the rest of the way - that is, beat FSU and Maryland if you please - things will still be OK.

In the realm of smaller tournaments, here's the results of the weekly sim:

I've made the tiebreakers reflect reality instead of arbitrarily assigning them to the highest-rated KenPom team, which is to say that, yes, Miami has clinched the #1 seed.  One thing that's not quite true is the sim's declaration that UVA has no shot at the #2 seed; it's just that that would require such an unlikely turn of events (including VT beating Duke in Cameron) as to be essentially out of the question.

UVA no longer controls its own destiny for the #3 seed, unfortunately, but if they win out, so must UNC, which means they have to beat Duke.  That game is at the Dean Dome, so anything's possible, but still.

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At least the baseball team is still undefeated.  It better be, since the lineup of teams they've played is what Tim Weiser would call less than stellar.  But the convincing fashion in which they've won is highly encouraging.  Starting pitchers Brandon Waddell and Nick Howard both boast ERAs under 1.00, Trey Oest has pitched 11 innings of shutout ball, and the bats are mashing.

With the first ACC series coming up this weekend (at home against Maryland), impressions after the first 11 games:

-- Waddell and Howard look like Friday and Saturday guys.  Waddell is an absolute revelation.  His 15-K, six-inning game against Toledo was nuts.  He wasn't especially hittable against Harvard, either.  Oest is making a serious bid for a weekend role as well.  Scott Silverstein has had really only one bad outing, but the others have had none, and Silverstein's good outings aren't as good, either.  Silverstein's cruising for the weekday job.

-- That dominance aside, the bullpen is going to be massively important this year.  BOC has been pulling his starters in the fifth and sixth innings for the most part.  We're talking about two freshmen, one sophomore who pitched only part-time last year, and one senior with an arm that's been rebuilt more than Troy.  Wisely, the coaches are guarding very heavily against any breakdowns.  But it means we're going to have to have a very deep pen.

Lucky us: early returns are good there, too.  Whit Mayberry's return was a very pleasant surprise, and he's pitched very well.  He's been used as sort of the game's second starter, averaging more than three innings an appearance.  Kyle Crockett had a little back problem to start the year, but he's come back as well, and pitched shutdown ball too.  Josh Sborz appears to be taking on the closer role.  David Rosenberger and Austin Young have three appearances each; Kevin Doherty and Nathaniel Abel, two each.  All have done well.  And better yet, folks at the games have reported - and recorded - Artie Lewicki throwing in the pen.  He could be back from his Tommy John surgery in perhaps 3-6 weeks.

-- In the uniform realm, it seems UVA now has an orange VIRGINIA jersey with the fancy lettering to go along with the white one they've "always" had and the blue one they debuted not long ago.  And that lettering, by the way, is a little different on all three jerseys: it's vertically arched now instead of radially arched.  Uni Watch readers will get it; non-Uni Watch readers didn't give a damn in the first place.

The orange fancy-letter jersey basically replaces the one with script writing, giving UVA a little bit more of a unified look.  Now there are three jerseys all with the same lettering.  I still want a gray one.  White pants on the road look weird.  But regular gray, not that strange battleship gray thing that the Hoos debuted last year.

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I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the swimming Hoos once again captured the ACC championships, which is a nigh-automatic event but worth your applause for the ACC dominance they've been carrying on.  The men were over 150 points better than 2nd place - trust me when I say it's a lot - and the ladies were almost 300 points ahead.  That gives UVA three ACC championships for the year; add the two swimming ones to womens' soccer.

The schedule this week is very Marylandish, with both baseball and basketball taking on the Terps at home.  Lacrosse has Vermont on Tuesday, which is the end of the cupcake season, and Cornell on Saturday.

welcome to the pantheon

The school's official postgame releases these days have been noting Joe Harris's steady climb up the UVA scoring chart.  At last count he sits at 1,170, in 35th place between Joe Noertker and Chip Conner; the latest players to move down a slot thanks to Harris's exploits are Conner, Olden Polynice, Paul Adkins, Devin Smith, and Adam Hall.  Harris is a threat, by the end of this season, to move past Roger Mason and get into the top 30; by the end of his career, assuming health and a solid scoring pace, he should be top 15, maybe threaten the top 10.

That's all well and good, but the list of players who've scored 1,000 points in a Virginia uniform reads like a Hall of Pretty Good.  Even the top 15 isn't exactly full of retired jerseys.  I definitely appreciated the smooth, seemingly effortless game that Chris Williams (#8 on the list) brought to the court, but a list of Cavalier greats would go a long way down before you'd find his name.  You've got to do something special, something memorable, before you get invited to the real show.

And if 36 points against the #3 team in the country to lead your team to a signature, very likely NCAA-tournament-clinching win doesn't do it for you......

The announcers kept going back to the last time UVA knocked off a top-5 team, which was the same team and on the same date of the year, so their focus isn't without a certain poetic righteousness.  The brilliance of the performance, though, had me thinking instead of a different night some six years ago, with a particular shot that's burned into the memory of just about all of you reading this.  In case it's not:



Sean Singletary wasn't even having his best game; he only hit 6-of-16 that night.  But you give the ball to your best player when the game is on the line, and then you find out if he's made of greatness.  And it hit me sometime in the mid-to-late second half, when Jontel Evans deferred to Harris to bring the ball up court, even though Harris was being defended and Evans wasn't.  That's when Singletary came to mind.  Five seconds left in overtime is when you need greatness, and you define it by what happens next.  The context was different; the demand was no less.  Here, Joe Harris: we need some greatness.  Here, said Joe Harris: I've got some for you.

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The end result was extraordinary, in a cats-lying-down-with-the-dogs kind of way.  You had Jay Williams pimping Harris for ACC POY.  You had Seth Greenberg having UVA's back on the court-storming thing.  (About which more in a bit.)  Why, even Jerry Palm saw fit to move UVA onto the bubble.  What a nice guy.  (What a knob.  Palm's methodology appears to at least be consistent: his justification for having Kansas as a 3 seed while Lunardi has the Jayhawks as a 1 is the TCU loss.  OK, yes, the tourney committee looks at losses.  But if "don't have bad losses" was their main criterion, VT would've made it in 2010 when they were 23-8, 10-6.  Good wins carry more weight than bad losses, and UVA's got two sparkling ones.  The knobbishness comes from the fact that Palm's modus operandi in dealing with fan feedback appears to be to only respond to the least intelligent comments and then hold that up as his example to the world for why he's right.)

Lunardi, on the other hand, scooted UVA all the way up to a 10 seed.  Huzzah.  That puts us in a place where it would take a real collapse, rather than a tiny slip, to miss the tournament.  Maybe even more importantly, there is now no mathematically possible way that North Carolina can earn the ACC's seeding tiebreaker over UVA.  UVA's magic number for clinching the 4th seed and an ACC bye is now 2; the magic number for clinching the 3rd seed is 3.  And yes, the 2nd seed is doable as well, but I consider that to be all gravy.  The big bold line is between the 5th and 6th-best teams in the conference, so being higher than 4th is what makes the difference.

And what about that POY discussion?  Well, I wouldn't put it past certain Tar Heel State media wonks to drop Harris to the second team.  You know how it goes.  But objective voters ought to see it as a four-way race between Harris, Erick Green, Shane Larkin, and Mason Plumlee.  No, Mr. Tudor, James Michael McAdoo will be nowhere to be found.  And Plumlee might have blown it last night, if people watch too much of the highlight where he just stood there as Harris raced around him to snag his own rebound.

UVA has a short turnaround before playing on Sunday at Chestnut Hill.  There won't be a full preview for that game, so here's an abbreviated one: as long as the players don't let Thursday's events linger in their minds, they will be fine.  Duke almost lost at BC, mind you.

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And now, because Coach K decided to make an issue out of this, we must talk about court-storming.  Granted, the media blew it up as the media is wont to do, and granted, K was asked a question and he answered.  I'm still not on board with the Duke line that he didn't want that to overshadow the UVA effort.  How many years has Coach K been doing this?  He knows by now what the media will talk about when he says something.

Fortunately, "the media" isn't exactly united in their treatment of the event.  Seth Greenberg, as mentioned, was like, look, at Duke where they do their little hand-wavy thing while you're inbounding the ball, their hands are mere inches from the player's head.  Say what you will about Seth's undisciplined basketball teams and his obnoxious tournament campaigning when his Tech squads hadn't beaten anybody ever, but he makes a solid analyst.  And even more so on that event.

Meanwhile, USA Today had a headline that went a little something like this: "Coach K Cursed at Virginia Fan After Orderly Court-Storming."  That's a link worth clicking for both the YouTube video that's on there - in which the line of yellow-jacketed security guards is unmistakable and quite effective - as well as the picture that helps headline the thing.  It's glorious.

You know, I'll bet some student said something to K which prompted a few nasty words in return.  Jeff Capel got into it too: "Assistant coach Jeff Capel went back and yelled a few curse words while another assistant coach, Steve Wojciechowski, did his best to quickly usher players into the safe area."  I'm not gonna make this a sermon about how you ought to just ignore semi-drunk English lit students that say something at you because you're the famous coach and you know better.  Really what I love is this: K is a demigod at a place where they derive a hell of a lot of their pride and self-worth from being bigger and more creative dicks to opposing players and coaches than anywhere else.  That's the whole Cameron schtick, man.  They spend weeks actually researching the lives of their opponents so they can be more effective dicks.  And that's why they consider themselves the best fans in college hoops.  I don't mind that so much, honestly.  It adds color to the game.  But if K can't take a little of the medicine back.... that's just kinda sad, really.

Then there's Capel.  When K is telling the media that his main thing is he thinks security's primary concern should be to get the losing team off the court - and if you were to email Duke's admin about K's comments they'd tell you the same - it loses a lot of steam when their assistant coach goes back onto the floor to hurl more curse words into the stands.

I'll finish with this and that'll be the end of it.  I don't make a practice of copying and pasting stuff from the paywalled reporters, but in this case I don't think it will be a thing; it's better off not behind the paywall.  This is CavsCorner's Brad Franklin:

First off, link below gives you our vantage point from media seats. You can clearly see that Duke and Coach K were surrounded by security and ONLY when he chose to grab a cop, turn him around, scream profanities in his face, and push through did the storm become a problem.

Second, this whole thing is laughable because those media folks doing the most talking either weren't there or WERE ALREADY IN THE TUNNEL AND COULDN'T SEE WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT! It's maddening.

I watched K the whole time. I realized later that I must've been worried. I had a conversation pre-game with a source because I noticed guys walking around with ear fobs and I wondered if Duke had security for Coach K. Maybe his wife or family was coming? No, I was told, it was because JPJ has weird angles for a court storm and the powers that be wanted extra security.

What I saw clear as day: The Duke players and coaches were surrounded by security and had they waited two or two and a half more minutes, the "gate" of security line swings and they go to the tunnel completely safe. But because Coach K grabbed that cop and literally pushed him through people, it became an issue.

I actually think the security plan would have been fine had Duke waited. I also think in the future they pick one tunnel, create a path, and block it off nearly same way as last night. You can see the yellow jackets line up and I could see football players like Morgan Moses try to break through and go with the team but yellow jackets were having none of it. They did their job well.

This is a non-story. It comes down to Coach K not wanting to wait on the court while the kids rushed, NOT because his players were in danger.

Bold emphasis is mine, capital letters are as they were posted.  At the end of the day, Coach K is the one in the wrong for ever even calling this an issue.

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Technical bullets about the game:

-- What an amazing job done defensively on Mason Plumlee.  There were times when the "entry pass" found him three feet from the arc and twelve or sixteen from the rim.  And in some cases that led directly to a turnover when Plumlee tried to get away with an arm hook as he drove to the rim.  Refs were having none of that.  Even when it didn't lead to an offensive foul, it was almost flawlessly effective defense.

-- Duke's best offensive move of the night came from Alex Murphy.  That's how you know they're in trouble.

-- Paul Jesperson's jump shot looks like it's starting to need work again.  He's not lifting his arms and the shot is flattening out.  I worry that it's starting to become a self-fulfilling prophecy where he's not shooting well, which causes him to be anxious and shoot even worse.  Even so, how impressive is it that the team laid down that strong of a beating while shooting 3-for-11 from three?

-- Admit it: when Harris fouled out you wanted to crawl into a hole and never hear the word "basketball" again.  You'd seen that movie before and knew how it ended.  But how about the team's response?  In order: a beautiful press-break and some mini-four-corners action that took eight seconds; eight more seconds of defense before Quinn Cook dropped in a three; freshman Evan Nolte sinking two free throws icy-as-you-please; and then twenty seconds of outstanding defense that took the clock down to nothing.  Very impressive.  I mean, it should be easy, really, but it never is, and I'm not sure it gets any easier even if your name is Kentucky and not Virginia.

-- So that's what it looks like to have a game refereed without a disgustingly obvious bias toward the Tobacco Roadies.  If you catch me at my most honest, I can see where Duke might have been a little upset about the refereeing, because UVA was playing a very physical game but the refs were calling some minor bumps.  (Even then, I took note of a few no-call instances where, upon replay, a no-call was the right call but it looked like a little rough play at first glance.)

That said, I'm not sorry.  At all.  I'm not even sorry I'm not sorry.  And for the record I don't even think the refs were Virginia-slanted (although there's a bias in that statement that for obvious reasons cannot ever go away,) I just think that the refs' approach to the game isn't one that Duke is used to, nor did it quite match the game's intensity.  A little more "let 'em play" might've been more appropriate - and more favorable to Duke since they were the ones doing most of the actual hacking.  Really, though, it's just that having the shoe on the other foot feels incredible.  Seeing Duke melt down over the refereeing is possibly the grandest, most exquisite thing I've ever seen in almost 25 years of watching college hoops.  I don't know when the last time was that a Dookie fouled out with over eight minutes to play, but that sort of thing is like a relic from another time.  Makes me wonder: is this what Duke fans always feel like?