So a couple notes from the ongoing spring practices that necessitated some changes to the depth chart:
- Chris Cook will in fact return to corner. The depth at each position remains the same, however, as Rodney McLeod moves to safety. Which is where I kept thinking he was in the first place, so that's helpful.
- Mark Ambrose is effectively retired from football with recurring shoulder troubles, thus freeing up a football scholarship. More in a bit.
- John-Kevin Dolce is more a nose tackle than a linebacker these days. This gives us some needed depth up front. Nose tackle is really what makes the 3-4 go, and tired nose tackles don't draw double teams. This means plenty of rotation, and just three guys at that position probably wasn't going to cut it. Four is a number I like better.
Now: Ambrose. Moving him off the depth chart means you can now count up the names and come up with a total of 89 scholarships promised. 88 if Kyle Long doesn't make it in the fall. The limit, as you know, is 85. How we'll reconcile this I don't know but a hint to the answer can probably be found in the news that Ambrose's career is over. I have, of course, absolutely no knowledge of the actual severity of the injury. The coaches say he can't play any more, and absent other evidence you have to believe them.
But this is pretty similar to what happened with Alabama last year. They had too many scholarships promised out, and lo and behold three or four guys had recurring medical issues and were forced to give up football. All reserves, of course, who barely saw the field. A few recruits didn't qualify. I think it's fair to at least ask a couple questions - rhetorical, because I have no press pass, but questions anyway:
- If Ambrose were a starter, an all-ACC performer even, would his shoulder problems be severe enough to warrant giving up football?
- If we had 83 scholarships promised out instead of 90, would his shoulder problems be severe enough to warrant giving up football?
I suppose you have to assume the coaches know what they're doing. But going all-out with the '09 class and taking so many LOIs seems like playing with fire. Much was made of UNC's recruiting class which was well over the limit of 25, but what's the difference between signing over the single-class limit and signing over the overall limit? There may of course be a perfectly innocuous explanation, like, the coaches saw this shoulder issue coming a mile away and anticipated that once they put on pads, Ambrose wouldn't be able to play. Still, there are 88 or 89 healthy and presumably academically qualified players on that chart. Some of them won't be there on September 1 against W&M. I'd hate to see us have to resort to skeezy tactics to make it fit.
OK! Now that I've got you pissed off at either me or the football program, let's talk lacrosse, and specifically, the win over Hopkins that was first an awesome blowout then a complete abomination then awesome again. My observations:
- I'm pretty amateur at breaking down lacrosse. Very amateur, actually. The number of lacrosse games I've seen on TV can be counted on my hands. So when I can see the gaping holes in the JHU defense and see what's coming before it happens - which usually involved one of our attackmen sliding into the open spot untouched and slamming home a perfect pass - that's when you know shitty defense is being played. Debbie Downer that I am, I liked our offensive effort but I'm pretty sure a middle school Quiz Bowl team could have donned the pads and potted a couple goals against the criminal negligence masquerading as defense that Hopkins was playing in the first quarter. I hope none of our rivals were watching that (they were though) because the clear message regarding how to stop our offense is PLAY ZONE.
- With a name like Steele Stanwick, your life is pretty well cut out for you before you even start. Hotshot lacrosse player at a prestigious East Coast school - check (and if he doesn't live up to the potential he's displayed so far, it'll be the greatest waste of a terrific name since Majestic Mapp landed on his knee funny.) Next up is law school at Georgetown and a feverish, cutthroat race to make partner at a DC or New York firm. Either that or writing paperback courtroom/murder dramas (Firm Fatale by Steele Stanwick), but either way, bigshot lawyers in fancy suits and BMWs are going to be involved. And by the way, I'm still trying to figure out what rathole his second goal (team's sixth) wormed through before it found the back of the net. Guy's a deadeye shot, too.
- OMG win faceoffs plz k thx!!! Gaudet did a very good job at this, and frankly if he had only won half, we'd have lost. I think it was Benincasa getting utterly destroyed on that faceoff at the end of the third quarter in which a Hopkins goal ensued approximately three seconds thereafter. Gaudet's going to have to continue his faceoff excellence all season because I don't know if our defense is consistently good enough to withstand a lot of extra possessions for the opposition.
- For a team whose style is pursuing and attacking the ball on defense (I know this because the announcers mentioned it at least eight thousand times, usually in the context of pointing out us getting burned by it) we sure don't do a lot of it when the ball is loose. I need to go back and look at the recording again to find out who that was ambling down the field with the ball like right next to him screaming "PICK ME UP!" and not paying attention to it. As Hopkins fell behind, they became the more desperate team on ground balls and played like it. I want to see a better sense of urgency next time out.
- Maryland is next, on Saturday and on ESPN2. Not the UVA Football Channel. The Deuce. How cool is it that ACC lacrosse is on ESPN2? I wish I was a UVA lacrosse player so it would be legal for me to hit a Twerp with a stick on national TV.
Showing posts with label gaudet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaudet. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
weekend review: the sunshine edition
Ah spring. We had a fine weekend indeed, did we not? The sun shone and the jackets and sweatshirts came off, and I finally understand why people do spring cleaning, because all that sunshine streaming in makes you realize how godawful dirty the house gets over the winter when it's dark and you don't see what a mess you've been leaving. So, energized by the successes of our mighty athletes, I busted out the Swiffer and did some serious cleaning around the house. Gone is the dust of despair; a new breeze of success is in the air, and so I promise you a post today that's 99% emo-free.
Basketball
Maryland vanquished, we turn our eyes to Boston College. I stick with my earlier sentiment that success of any amount in the tournament is simply a bonus. However, that doesn't mean hope is out the window. I may have been in the Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on Saturday, but the host team went out of their way to make me feel at home. I watched a team whose superstar was double- and triple- teamed all day and made most of his points on free throws, who bricked 15 of 18 three-pointers, and who looked like a clown show inbounding the ball. Sound familiar? If nothing else, Thursday's game will be mighty entertaining every time a ref hands someone the ball underneath the basket - BC threw at least two inbound passes straight out of bounds again without them even touching another player.
BC is probably going to the tournament regardless of what happens in our game. But after dispatching Maryland to the NIT, it would at least be fun to make Eagles fans a bit nervous on Selection Sunday, no?
In the Good For You Department, ACC honors came out this week, and Sylven Landesberg is a unanimous selection for the all-freshman team. He's also honorable mention for the all-conference team, by the way Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu is the other unanimous pick, setting up an interesting announcement tomorrow for ACC ROY. Let's see what the arguments are for both:
Landesberg:
- Freshman scoring leader
- Freshman minutes leader
- Carried team on shoulders as go-to guy
- More Rookie of the Week honors
Aminu:
- Better rebounder
- Rookie of the Week selections came mostly during actual league play
- Team doesn't suck
Personally I would vote for the guy without whom his team might not have won a single ACC game, and that's objectively speaking. Tyler Hansbrough is a stone-cold lock for POY, and people don't much care about DPOY, so the ROY selection tomorrow is the interesting one.
Baseball
If Landesberg loses the ROY selection to Aminu, we can always point out the godsmacking the baseball team put on Wake this weekend. My God. 47 runs in three games. Wake threw two freshman starting pitchers at us in the three-game series and we gave them such a welcome to the conference they must still be hearing PING in their nightmares.
The starting lineup is now hitting .415 on the season. With a couple of military academies rolling into town this week (Navy and VMI), I don't really see that getting smaller in the next two games. It might interest you to know that VMI's team ERA is 7.07. All this is exciting, but I will hold off judgment for a bit yet. The next two weekends feature three-game home series against FSU and Miami, both of which were in Omaha last year, and both of which swept us but good last year too.
By the way, I'm considering for a weekend project, a sabermetrics addition to the library over on the side there. You can get all the standard stats at the official site, of course, but sabermetrics in college baseball are tougher to come by. Let me know if this stirs any interest. I might do it anyway, whether or not I hear from anyone, but a response or two or ten would go a long way toward reassuring me I'm not wasting my time with that.
Lacrosse
The baseball team isn't the only ones lighting up the scoreboard. Their challenge this week will be to match the lacrosse score against VMI: 19-3.
That's not what's got me all sunshiney though. I'm allowing myself to get genuinely excited about the chances for a national championship, because this week saw two of the biggest concerns melt away with the last of the snow into virtual nothingness. One, faceoffs: Chad Gaudet is the ACC Player of the Week. A faceoff specialist. 11-of-13 in the second half against Cornell had everything to do with it, which segues beautifully into the second concern. The Hoos proved they can play after halftime by outscoring Cornell - that's "#4 Cornell" - 8-3 in the second half.
To wrap up the feel-good-itude of this post, here's a great little article from yesterday's CDP about Mo Diane. See how beating Maryland puts a little pep in your step no matter how bad the season?
Basketball
Maryland vanquished, we turn our eyes to Boston College. I stick with my earlier sentiment that success of any amount in the tournament is simply a bonus. However, that doesn't mean hope is out the window. I may have been in the Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on Saturday, but the host team went out of their way to make me feel at home. I watched a team whose superstar was double- and triple- teamed all day and made most of his points on free throws, who bricked 15 of 18 three-pointers, and who looked like a clown show inbounding the ball. Sound familiar? If nothing else, Thursday's game will be mighty entertaining every time a ref hands someone the ball underneath the basket - BC threw at least two inbound passes straight out of bounds again without them even touching another player.
BC is probably going to the tournament regardless of what happens in our game. But after dispatching Maryland to the NIT, it would at least be fun to make Eagles fans a bit nervous on Selection Sunday, no?
In the Good For You Department, ACC honors came out this week, and Sylven Landesberg is a unanimous selection for the all-freshman team. He's also honorable mention for the all-conference team, by the way Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu is the other unanimous pick, setting up an interesting announcement tomorrow for ACC ROY. Let's see what the arguments are for both:
Landesberg:
- Freshman scoring leader
- Freshman minutes leader
- Carried team on shoulders as go-to guy
- More Rookie of the Week honors
Aminu:
- Better rebounder
- Rookie of the Week selections came mostly during actual league play
- Team doesn't suck
Personally I would vote for the guy without whom his team might not have won a single ACC game, and that's objectively speaking. Tyler Hansbrough is a stone-cold lock for POY, and people don't much care about DPOY, so the ROY selection tomorrow is the interesting one.
Baseball
If Landesberg loses the ROY selection to Aminu, we can always point out the godsmacking the baseball team put on Wake this weekend. My God. 47 runs in three games. Wake threw two freshman starting pitchers at us in the three-game series and we gave them such a welcome to the conference they must still be hearing PING in their nightmares.
The starting lineup is now hitting .415 on the season. With a couple of military academies rolling into town this week (Navy and VMI), I don't really see that getting smaller in the next two games. It might interest you to know that VMI's team ERA is 7.07. All this is exciting, but I will hold off judgment for a bit yet. The next two weekends feature three-game home series against FSU and Miami, both of which were in Omaha last year, and both of which swept us but good last year too.
By the way, I'm considering for a weekend project, a sabermetrics addition to the library over on the side there. You can get all the standard stats at the official site, of course, but sabermetrics in college baseball are tougher to come by. Let me know if this stirs any interest. I might do it anyway, whether or not I hear from anyone, but a response or two or ten would go a long way toward reassuring me I'm not wasting my time with that.
Lacrosse
The baseball team isn't the only ones lighting up the scoreboard. Their challenge this week will be to match the lacrosse score against VMI: 19-3.
That's not what's got me all sunshiney though. I'm allowing myself to get genuinely excited about the chances for a national championship, because this week saw two of the biggest concerns melt away with the last of the snow into virtual nothingness. One, faceoffs: Chad Gaudet is the ACC Player of the Week. A faceoff specialist. 11-of-13 in the second half against Cornell had everything to do with it, which segues beautifully into the second concern. The Hoos proved they can play after halftime by outscoring Cornell - that's "#4 Cornell" - 8-3 in the second half.
To wrap up the feel-good-itude of this post, here's a great little article from yesterday's CDP about Mo Diane. See how beating Maryland puts a little pep in your step no matter how bad the season?
Monday, March 2, 2009
snow day ramblings
Wheeeeeeeeeeeee I don't have to go to work today. So comin' at you a little early with the weekend's activities, sport by sport. I'll start with the fastest and most emo:
Basketball
We suck. It's really just depressing anymore. Three games left in the season: first, at Clemson, which is going to be a demolition of epic proportions for several reason. Second, the home finale against Maryland. Third, the tournament game against whoever's sixth-seeded, which will be one of Clemson, Maryland, VT, or BC. I'll admit - the last few games have been competitive and it wouldn't have taken much swing back our way to make this a much sunnier section of the blog. But then again, that's what happens to bad teams - they can't make their own luck.
I'm working on some form of season recap which I plan on posting sometime between the Maryland game and the tournament game. Til then I'm going easy on the basketball stuff. I can only take so much emo.
If you like, you can read the Basketblogpoll breakdown here, as well as those of previous weeks. I should have been pimping this earlier because the arguments of yours truly have been featured in past weeks. Good thing? Sometimes. Sometimes its because your ballot is messed all to hell and you're simply being given your shot at asplaining yourself.
Swimming
Dominance, again. Things are in their rightful order with a sweep of both the men's and women's ACC championships. What's most exciting though is that, as with the women, much of the dominating is done by underclassmen. Particularly in the freestyle, where we have three sophomores and a freshman taking home scads of long-distance points. Any swim team that wants to win any championship has to have a deep base of talented freestylers because free is (in the case of the ACC championships) 8 of 18 swim events, leaving 10 events to be spread among the other four disciplines. This team will be champions for a long time to come with this kind of talent spread.
In particular, Matt McLean, who:
- Won three events
- Took home the most valuable swimmer award
- Made history by being the first ACC swimmer to do that two years in a row, and....
- Is a sophomore
I'm already looking forward to the chance at a three-peat.
Lacrosse
Big win. Big win. The furious comeback we almost gave up, that's a little bit worrisome, but the game was on the road and the crowd was huge for a regular-season lacrosse game - it wouldn't have fit in the JPJA - so I'm willing to overlook that despite the second-half trend this season of letting off the gas. I'm especially happy about two things: Big-time scorers (Glading, Billings, and Shamel Bratton) stepping up in a big-time game, and of course, the excellent advantage on the faceoffs. I'm now officially excited about that. If Gaudet and Ryan Benincasa can keep up the pace they've got going now, it'll pay huge dividends when the games are for all the marbles. VMI is next, and the only real danger here is overlooking a bad team that got sandwiched between two pretty good ones.
Football
Recruiting, obviously. The board is updated with the following:
- Added QB Andrew Hendrix, whom we have offered, to the yellow section. He is a teammate of DE/LB Marcus Rush, a player also in the yellow section but if I had, like, bluish-yellow and reddish-yellow, he'd definitely be closer to blue.
- Added LB Kevin Pierre-Louis to the red section. I meant to do this last week, as he decommitted from Boston College, and completely forgot. I don't think our chances are exactly spectacular though, and he might well end up right back at BC.
- Moved WR E.J. Scott from yellow to blue now that he has his offer. He's looking good for us.
Some notes from the pros regarding our graduates....
- Chris Canty is getting paid, and as a bonus, now you can root for him without having to pull for the Cowboys.
- The Texas traded Sage Rosenfels to the Vikings and replaced him with the Lions' Dan Orlovsky. Meaning? They traded away a guy who was once considered a threat to Matt Schaub's starting job and filled the hole with a guy who did this. Consider Schaub's job more solid than it was a week ago.
Basketball
We suck. It's really just depressing anymore. Three games left in the season: first, at Clemson, which is going to be a demolition of epic proportions for several reason. Second, the home finale against Maryland. Third, the tournament game against whoever's sixth-seeded, which will be one of Clemson, Maryland, VT, or BC. I'll admit - the last few games have been competitive and it wouldn't have taken much swing back our way to make this a much sunnier section of the blog. But then again, that's what happens to bad teams - they can't make their own luck.
I'm working on some form of season recap which I plan on posting sometime between the Maryland game and the tournament game. Til then I'm going easy on the basketball stuff. I can only take so much emo.
If you like, you can read the Basketblogpoll breakdown here, as well as those of previous weeks. I should have been pimping this earlier because the arguments of yours truly have been featured in past weeks. Good thing? Sometimes. Sometimes its because your ballot is messed all to hell and you're simply being given your shot at asplaining yourself.
Swimming
Dominance, again. Things are in their rightful order with a sweep of both the men's and women's ACC championships. What's most exciting though is that, as with the women, much of the dominating is done by underclassmen. Particularly in the freestyle, where we have three sophomores and a freshman taking home scads of long-distance points. Any swim team that wants to win any championship has to have a deep base of talented freestylers because free is (in the case of the ACC championships) 8 of 18 swim events, leaving 10 events to be spread among the other four disciplines. This team will be champions for a long time to come with this kind of talent spread.
In particular, Matt McLean, who:
- Won three events
- Took home the most valuable swimmer award
- Made history by being the first ACC swimmer to do that two years in a row, and....
- Is a sophomore
I'm already looking forward to the chance at a three-peat.
Lacrosse
Big win. Big win. The furious comeback we almost gave up, that's a little bit worrisome, but the game was on the road and the crowd was huge for a regular-season lacrosse game - it wouldn't have fit in the JPJA - so I'm willing to overlook that despite the second-half trend this season of letting off the gas. I'm especially happy about two things: Big-time scorers (Glading, Billings, and Shamel Bratton) stepping up in a big-time game, and of course, the excellent advantage on the faceoffs. I'm now officially excited about that. If Gaudet and Ryan Benincasa can keep up the pace they've got going now, it'll pay huge dividends when the games are for all the marbles. VMI is next, and the only real danger here is overlooking a bad team that got sandwiched between two pretty good ones.
Football
Recruiting, obviously. The board is updated with the following:
- Added QB Andrew Hendrix, whom we have offered, to the yellow section. He is a teammate of DE/LB Marcus Rush, a player also in the yellow section but if I had, like, bluish-yellow and reddish-yellow, he'd definitely be closer to blue.
- Added LB Kevin Pierre-Louis to the red section. I meant to do this last week, as he decommitted from Boston College, and completely forgot. I don't think our chances are exactly spectacular though, and he might well end up right back at BC.
- Moved WR E.J. Scott from yellow to blue now that he has his offer. He's looking good for us.
Some notes from the pros regarding our graduates....
- Chris Canty is getting paid, and as a bonus, now you can root for him without having to pull for the Cowboys.
- The Texas traded Sage Rosenfels to the Vikings and replaced him with the Lions' Dan Orlovsky. Meaning? They traded away a guy who was once considered a threat to Matt Schaub's starting job and filled the hole with a guy who did this. Consider Schaub's job more solid than it was a week ago.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
game preview: Syracuse
Lacrosse game previews aren't going to be a regular thing (I'm not even sure if basketball ones are going to be regular after this year) but the game tomorrow is too big to ignore.
This is, of course, #1 vs. #2, a regular season matchup you rarely see in basketball and practically never in football. And it's in the Carrier Dome, Syracuse's one-size-fits-all domed stadium that's named for an air conditioner manufacturer and not air-conditioned. Klockner is a very nice stadium, but the dome has one thing going for it that Klockner does not: as lacrosse stadiums go, it's monstrously huge, and should be, as lacrosse games go, noisy (although the likelihood of all 50,000 being filled is pretty much nil.)
Both teams are going to look different than they did last year. Ben Rubeor is off to the pros; Syracuse can one-up that by losing Tewaaraton Trophy (the lax Heisman) winner Mike Leveille. Garrett Billings has taken over the scoring reins for us, while attackman Kenny Nims has led Syracuse in points in both their games this year.
We'll have to contend with their excellent sophomore goalie again, John Galloway. Galloway started every game on their schedule last year as a freshman, and got off to a great start in their first game against Providence, making four saves and allowing just two goals. Admittedly he wasn't tested much; Syracuse positively crushed the Friars, 22-3. Adam Ghitelman played, and won, the regular season game against Syracuse for us last year, but by the time the playoffs rolled around he'd been replaced by Bud Petit. Ghitelman's been solid this year in the cupcake run with a save percentage of .615 - a colossal improvement over his start last year. I don't need to emphasize that in the kind of close games we've had against the Orange, at some point a key save, or lack thereof, is going to make or break the game.
Obviously, though, the elephant in the room is the faceoffs. Faceoffs are going to feature two different players than they did last year. Syracuse will use Jake Moulton, who apprenticed last year under a since-graduated All-American. We didn't lose anyone to graduation, we just sort of fired Garrett Ince and Brian McDermott from the role. Ince was a miserable 8-for-27 in last year's loss.
To me, the faceoffs are far and away the biggest takeaway from this game. Getting the win would of course be great and all, but if we lose, there are still plenty of grade-A opponents on the schedule, and if we win, well, we just get to wear the #1 as a big red target on our backs for a little while and besides it didn't mean anything when the tournament rolled around last year. But we're going to learn something in the faceoff department. We only get a year of Chad Gaudet in the job, but he was brought in specifically to take faceoffs and do very little else, and I'm not above saying that a huge part of our championship hopes this year rest on him. Win or lose, I'll be happy if he tops 50%.
Bonus link: the CDP lets you know just how totally sweet are the swim teams. Just as an example: four of the top five lanes in tonight's 500 freestyle at the ACC championships are 'Hoos - and last night's 800 free relay was won by a 10-second margin, which is roughly half the length of the pool. Yes, I'm gonna bug you again: if you live in or around DC, you ought to go - it won't cost you a penny.
This is, of course, #1 vs. #2, a regular season matchup you rarely see in basketball and practically never in football. And it's in the Carrier Dome, Syracuse's one-size-fits-all domed stadium that's named for an air conditioner manufacturer and not air-conditioned. Klockner is a very nice stadium, but the dome has one thing going for it that Klockner does not: as lacrosse stadiums go, it's monstrously huge, and should be, as lacrosse games go, noisy (although the likelihood of all 50,000 being filled is pretty much nil.)
Both teams are going to look different than they did last year. Ben Rubeor is off to the pros; Syracuse can one-up that by losing Tewaaraton Trophy (the lax Heisman) winner Mike Leveille. Garrett Billings has taken over the scoring reins for us, while attackman Kenny Nims has led Syracuse in points in both their games this year.
We'll have to contend with their excellent sophomore goalie again, John Galloway. Galloway started every game on their schedule last year as a freshman, and got off to a great start in their first game against Providence, making four saves and allowing just two goals. Admittedly he wasn't tested much; Syracuse positively crushed the Friars, 22-3. Adam Ghitelman played, and won, the regular season game against Syracuse for us last year, but by the time the playoffs rolled around he'd been replaced by Bud Petit. Ghitelman's been solid this year in the cupcake run with a save percentage of .615 - a colossal improvement over his start last year. I don't need to emphasize that in the kind of close games we've had against the Orange, at some point a key save, or lack thereof, is going to make or break the game.
Obviously, though, the elephant in the room is the faceoffs. Faceoffs are going to feature two different players than they did last year. Syracuse will use Jake Moulton, who apprenticed last year under a since-graduated All-American. We didn't lose anyone to graduation, we just sort of fired Garrett Ince and Brian McDermott from the role. Ince was a miserable 8-for-27 in last year's loss.
To me, the faceoffs are far and away the biggest takeaway from this game. Getting the win would of course be great and all, but if we lose, there are still plenty of grade-A opponents on the schedule, and if we win, well, we just get to wear the #1 as a big red target on our backs for a little while and besides it didn't mean anything when the tournament rolled around last year. But we're going to learn something in the faceoff department. We only get a year of Chad Gaudet in the job, but he was brought in specifically to take faceoffs and do very little else, and I'm not above saying that a huge part of our championship hopes this year rest on him. Win or lose, I'll be happy if he tops 50%.
Bonus link: the CDP lets you know just how totally sweet are the swim teams. Just as an example: four of the top five lanes in tonight's 500 freestyle at the ACC championships are 'Hoos - and last night's 800 free relay was won by a 10-second margin, which is roughly half the length of the pool. Yes, I'm gonna bug you again: if you live in or around DC, you ought to go - it won't cost you a penny.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
game preview: Miami
So the lax team went out and did its thing again last night. After peppering Stony Brook with 62 shots, Mt. St. Mary's got the same treatment as the team racked up another 60. Garrett Billings, fresh off a record-tying goal-scoring performance at Stony Brook, didn't score at all and took only four shots. Chad Gaudet won 11 of 16 faceoffs, which is pretty excellent stuff, but like I said earlier, I'll get excited after I see how we do at Syracuse. That should be a great game and I'm looking forward to watching it and....oh. Right - it's not televised. Well, that's awesome. When I turn my TV to channel 134 on Friday night, Siena vs. Niagara will be on. I know its basketball season, and it's great to give a little exposure to a team like Siena which is quietly having a fine season, but what does ESPNU exist for if not to broadcast the marquee matchup of the year of the #1 and #2 teams in what is arguably the East Coast's most popular non-revenue sport?
Preview time, anyway. Basketball, that is.
Virginia Cavaliers (9-14, 3-9) vs. Miami Hurricanes (16-10, 5-8)
Possible starting lineups:
UVA:
PG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Calvin Baker (7.8 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Sylven Landesberg (18.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 2.9 apg)
F: Solomon Tat (0.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.3 apg - but mad hustle, yo)
C: Assane Sene (2.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.7 bpg)
Miami:
G: Jack McClinton (20.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.0 apg)
G: James Dews (8.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Brian Asbury (7.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Dwayne Collins (11.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.5 apg)
C: Jimmy Graham (3.7 ppg, 6.1 apg, 0.6 apg)
Hope we like the number 11, because we're just about locked into that seed for the ACC tournament. Georgia Tech isn't going to run the table, and we're not bloody likely to overtake Miami or NC State, even with a win tomorrow night. For now, that means an opening-round game against Boston College.
Anyway, you and I both know about Dave Leitao's wackity rotations, with rhyme and reason not always clear. If he wants to continue baffling UVA fans and changing things up, this would be a great time to reinsert Jerome Meyinsse. You remember him - he got minutes all the way up until the BC game (the no-subs-in-the-second-half one) and inexplicably played 20+ in a few games without much indication as to why. Since then he hasn't sniffed the court.
Miami, however, has a whole bunch of guys that measure up between 6'7" and 6'9" and weigh 230 pounds or more. More so than most teams, and certainly more than us. Lord only knows how many minutes Mike Scott is going to get from game to game - he hasn't been in the starting lineup lately - and Jamil Tucker is 6'8" 240 and plays like he's 6'3" 215. We tried the small-and-quick thing against NC State's bigger guys and it failed miserably. We're gonna get run over by Miami's bigs - Graham, McGowan, Collins, Thomas, Asbury - if we can't run out some size of our own. Given the matchups, Meyinsse would be a good candidate to get some of these minutes that have been going to Solomon Tat lately.
The other problem we're going to have is Jack McClinton, who leads the league in threes made and shoots them at almost 48%. Of late we've done a good job at limiting our own three attempts, which is nice because we suck at shooting them. What concerns me is that when you combine a hot hand for the opponent, and a bunch of big guys defending that don't let you into the lane, the temptation is to launch away and hope for the best. Bottom line: I don't like the way we match up with these guys, and I think the best chance we have is to press, turn defense into transition offense, and generally run the floor and try to do everything faster than they do. Because we're going to get killed if it turns into a halfcourt game.
Preview time, anyway. Basketball, that is.
Virginia Cavaliers (9-14, 3-9) vs. Miami Hurricanes (16-10, 5-8)
Possible starting lineups:
UVA:
PG: Sammy Zeglinski (9.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 3.5 apg)
SG: Calvin Baker (7.8 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Sylven Landesberg (18.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 2.9 apg)
F: Solomon Tat (0.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.3 apg - but mad hustle, yo)
C: Assane Sene (2.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.7 bpg)
Miami:
G: Jack McClinton (20.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.0 apg)
G: James Dews (8.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Brian Asbury (7.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.3 apg)
F: Dwayne Collins (11.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.5 apg)
C: Jimmy Graham (3.7 ppg, 6.1 apg, 0.6 apg)
Hope we like the number 11, because we're just about locked into that seed for the ACC tournament. Georgia Tech isn't going to run the table, and we're not bloody likely to overtake Miami or NC State, even with a win tomorrow night. For now, that means an opening-round game against Boston College.
Anyway, you and I both know about Dave Leitao's wackity rotations, with rhyme and reason not always clear. If he wants to continue baffling UVA fans and changing things up, this would be a great time to reinsert Jerome Meyinsse. You remember him - he got minutes all the way up until the BC game (the no-subs-in-the-second-half one) and inexplicably played 20+ in a few games without much indication as to why. Since then he hasn't sniffed the court.
Miami, however, has a whole bunch of guys that measure up between 6'7" and 6'9" and weigh 230 pounds or more. More so than most teams, and certainly more than us. Lord only knows how many minutes Mike Scott is going to get from game to game - he hasn't been in the starting lineup lately - and Jamil Tucker is 6'8" 240 and plays like he's 6'3" 215. We tried the small-and-quick thing against NC State's bigger guys and it failed miserably. We're gonna get run over by Miami's bigs - Graham, McGowan, Collins, Thomas, Asbury - if we can't run out some size of our own. Given the matchups, Meyinsse would be a good candidate to get some of these minutes that have been going to Solomon Tat lately.
The other problem we're going to have is Jack McClinton, who leads the league in threes made and shoots them at almost 48%. Of late we've done a good job at limiting our own three attempts, which is nice because we suck at shooting them. What concerns me is that when you combine a hot hand for the opponent, and a bunch of big guys defending that don't let you into the lane, the temptation is to launch away and hope for the best. Bottom line: I don't like the way we match up with these guys, and I think the best chance we have is to press, turn defense into transition offense, and generally run the floor and try to do everything faster than they do. Because we're going to get killed if it turns into a halfcourt game.
Monday, February 16, 2009
four sport superstar
It was a reasonably eventful weekend. For me it's not over yet, because I get President's Day off, so here's a post you can waste time with at work for once. And we cover four sports today, two of which we're actually good at.
Lacrosse
That season started on Saturday and continues today. The first four games, including Saturday's 13-7 win over Drexel, are cannon fodder warmup games for the big one against Syracuse next Friday. Here, I meant to link this last week, but forgot: it's the "composite top 20" as posted on the official site, and you'll notice that the top seven teams are bolded. One's us, and the other six are on our schedule. It's not like we can help playing Maryland, UNC, or Duke, but the brass balls displayed by the athletic department in scheduling basically everyone else that's a powerhouse are admirable.
As for the game itself, Chad Gaudet was brought in this year from Dartmouth to fix our biggest weakness from last year and win some damn faceoffs. This he did - 12 of 21. For reference, Drexel was a 58% team last year on faceoffs, and we won just 10 of 22 (45%) against them last year. A good start.
Next up is welcoming Bryant to the ranks of Division I. What a rude way to make your debut.
Swimming
I haven't once mentioned this sport on these pages, and for this I am shamed. It was, after all, my sport in high school. In fact, up until 2007 when the TFSU mens' team took home the ACC championship, the UVA mens' team ACC championship streak was an exact mirror of my high school team's division meet streak. (The high school streak continues intact and should add division championship #11 in two weeks at the shiny, gleaming, brand-spanking-new pool they just built for the team.)
I digress. The point here is that the women's championship meet begins this week, at Maryland. The men are next week. Both our teams went undefeated in conference dual meets. I encourage DC-area 'Hoos aching for a good Virginia team to root for to show up at 7 PM at Maryland's Eppley Natatorium on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, this week and next, and root for the swim teams to crush the ACC opposition. It's free!
Football
It's more or less official that DC Bob Diaco is leaving for Cincinnati. Diaco worked with Cincy's coach Brian Kelly at CMU before coming here, so, while it's basically a lateral move, it's pretty much an understandable one. I have no idea what effect this will have on the defense, because Diaco was DC for about two offseason months and zero practices. I also can't really think all this turnover is healthy for the coaching staff. Only two position groups - the TEs and OLs - have the same coach as they did last year. This is what's happened:
OC: Mike Groh --> Gregg Brandon
DC: Bob Pruett --> ??? (Al Groh?)
ST: Bob Diaco --> ??? (Ron Prince?)
QB: Mike Groh --> Gregg Brandon (I assume)
RB: Anthony Poindexter --> Wayne Lineburg
WR: Wayne Lineburg --> Latrell Scott
TE: Bob Price --> Price
OL: Dave Borbely --> Borbely
DL: Levern Belin --> Chad Wilt
LB: Bob Diaco --> ???
DB: Steve Bernstein --> Anthony Poindexter
That's an upgrade at RB, WR, and DB, in getting Poindexter coaching the proper position and getting recruiter extraordinaire Scott on the staff. Jury's out, though, at DL (firing Belin seemed pointless), QB (Mike Groh was considered a pretty good developer of quarterbacks right up until the part where he had to call plays for them) and LB. Diaco's special teams coaching was nothing terribly special - I never had any complaints about kick/punt coverage, but the returns left a lot to be desired.
I don't know how I'd feel about Prince coming back. I don't think he was a good OC at all. I never cared for his playcalling any more than I liked Mike Groh's. That said, though, his fingerprints won't be on this offense, and it's always nice to have a guy with head coaching experience to bounce things off of. But that said, he's definitely not the guy I want to see atop the candidates list if this is Al Groh's last year.
Thinking future-wise, the 2010 recruiting board is updated again. Changes:
- Added LB Marcus Rush (offer) and WR Brandon Coleman (offer) to the yellow section.
- Added LB Khairi Fortt, a junior day attendee along with Rush, to the red section. Too many offers to be higher right now.
- Moved RB Kevin Parks to the blue section. He's like thisclose to committing.
Basketball
This is all I know to say about the basketball team anymore:
afgherhfadknfpwjr-u23jojdfjsdijskmoweoj?????
I mean, holy bouncing Jesus. I've talked in the past about how I keep thinking about what kind of production certain players are capable of when playing their best and then projecting that into one game, but I didn't actually think it'd happen.
Indeed, most everyone played well, especially Zeglinski and his 6-for-6 shooting, but the story as always is Sylven Landesberg with the biggest and the mostest buckets. On the day when Sean Singletary's #44 was retired and a few recruits were in the house, Landesberg took it upon himself to make sure the honor didn't get wasted on a losing effort. This kid is BIG-TIME and I don't know any other way to say it. Here's hoping Landesberg was seeing himself in Singletary's place about five years down the road.
Lacrosse
That season started on Saturday and continues today. The first four games, including Saturday's 13-7 win over Drexel, are cannon fodder warmup games for the big one against Syracuse next Friday. Here, I meant to link this last week, but forgot: it's the "composite top 20" as posted on the official site, and you'll notice that the top seven teams are bolded. One's us, and the other six are on our schedule. It's not like we can help playing Maryland, UNC, or Duke, but the brass balls displayed by the athletic department in scheduling basically everyone else that's a powerhouse are admirable.
As for the game itself, Chad Gaudet was brought in this year from Dartmouth to fix our biggest weakness from last year and win some damn faceoffs. This he did - 12 of 21. For reference, Drexel was a 58% team last year on faceoffs, and we won just 10 of 22 (45%) against them last year. A good start.
Next up is welcoming Bryant to the ranks of Division I. What a rude way to make your debut.
Swimming
I haven't once mentioned this sport on these pages, and for this I am shamed. It was, after all, my sport in high school. In fact, up until 2007 when the TFSU mens' team took home the ACC championship, the UVA mens' team ACC championship streak was an exact mirror of my high school team's division meet streak. (The high school streak continues intact and should add division championship #11 in two weeks at the shiny, gleaming, brand-spanking-new pool they just built for the team.)
I digress. The point here is that the women's championship meet begins this week, at Maryland. The men are next week. Both our teams went undefeated in conference dual meets. I encourage DC-area 'Hoos aching for a good Virginia team to root for to show up at 7 PM at Maryland's Eppley Natatorium on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, this week and next, and root for the swim teams to crush the ACC opposition. It's free!
Football
It's more or less official that DC Bob Diaco is leaving for Cincinnati. Diaco worked with Cincy's coach Brian Kelly at CMU before coming here, so, while it's basically a lateral move, it's pretty much an understandable one. I have no idea what effect this will have on the defense, because Diaco was DC for about two offseason months and zero practices. I also can't really think all this turnover is healthy for the coaching staff. Only two position groups - the TEs and OLs - have the same coach as they did last year. This is what's happened:
OC: Mike Groh --> Gregg Brandon
DC: Bob Pruett --> ??? (Al Groh?)
ST: Bob Diaco --> ??? (Ron Prince?)
QB: Mike Groh --> Gregg Brandon (I assume)
RB: Anthony Poindexter --> Wayne Lineburg
WR: Wayne Lineburg --> Latrell Scott
TE: Bob Price --> Price
OL: Dave Borbely --> Borbely
DL: Levern Belin --> Chad Wilt
LB: Bob Diaco --> ???
DB: Steve Bernstein --> Anthony Poindexter
That's an upgrade at RB, WR, and DB, in getting Poindexter coaching the proper position and getting recruiter extraordinaire Scott on the staff. Jury's out, though, at DL (firing Belin seemed pointless), QB (Mike Groh was considered a pretty good developer of quarterbacks right up until the part where he had to call plays for them) and LB. Diaco's special teams coaching was nothing terribly special - I never had any complaints about kick/punt coverage, but the returns left a lot to be desired.
I don't know how I'd feel about Prince coming back. I don't think he was a good OC at all. I never cared for his playcalling any more than I liked Mike Groh's. That said, though, his fingerprints won't be on this offense, and it's always nice to have a guy with head coaching experience to bounce things off of. But that said, he's definitely not the guy I want to see atop the candidates list if this is Al Groh's last year.
Thinking future-wise, the 2010 recruiting board is updated again. Changes:
- Added LB Marcus Rush (offer) and WR Brandon Coleman (offer) to the yellow section.
- Added LB Khairi Fortt, a junior day attendee along with Rush, to the red section. Too many offers to be higher right now.
- Moved RB Kevin Parks to the blue section. He's like thisclose to committing.
Basketball
This is all I know to say about the basketball team anymore:
afgherhfadknfpwjr-u23jojdfjsdijskmoweoj?????
I mean, holy bouncing Jesus. I've talked in the past about how I keep thinking about what kind of production certain players are capable of when playing their best and then projecting that into one game, but I didn't actually think it'd happen.
Indeed, most everyone played well, especially Zeglinski and his 6-for-6 shooting, but the story as always is Sylven Landesberg with the biggest and the mostest buckets. On the day when Sean Singletary's #44 was retired and a few recruits were in the house, Landesberg took it upon himself to make sure the honor didn't get wasted on a losing effort. This kid is BIG-TIME and I don't know any other way to say it. Here's hoping Landesberg was seeing himself in Singletary's place about five years down the road.
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