catching up

Let's pretend for a minute that this is a UVA blog and that we should talk about a few UVA things that have gone on.  Not training camp, mostly; it's never been my style to ruthlessly dissect every nugget, because most of them are the same claptrap every year.  Defensive coordinators talk about their aggressive defense; somebody is "really making his mark" and then promptly disappears the moment the games begin; the schemes are "adding new wrinkles" or "focusing on the basics" and either is an improvement.  Like clockwork.  I prefer to wait til it's all over and then sift through the results.  So maybe a few football things, but not all.

-- The Maryland lawsuit saga is finally over, with both sides agreeing basically not to bother each other any more and no more money changing hands.  The ACC has withheld about $31 million, and agreed not to go after any more in exchange for Maryland not trying to get any of it back.  One Sabreite theorizes, based on whatever source he has, that the settlement has to do with a future ACC Network, and the lawsuit being a real drag on those plans because the ACC would've had a hard time calling itself damaged by the loss of Maryland while at the same time firing up the money machine.  

That may be, but I have a simpler (albeit not mutually exclusive) theory: now that Maryland's officially gone, collecting any further damages requires actually being written a check by Maryland rather than simply not giving them any money.  This was unlikely to happen without an order from whatever was the highest court that deigned to hear the case following the usual lineup of appeals, which means that if the ACC really wanted to pursue this, they probably weren't getting paid until like 2018.  Maryland's case was always tenuous and slightly nonsensical - it was based on the idea that since they didn't vote for the higher exit fee they shouldn't have to pay it.  Accepting that argument would more or less require any private organization to have unanimous consent of its members to do anything at all, so it was bound to go nowhere fast.  Maryland had an excellent incentive to just let the whole thing drop.

-- I include this football article mainly to point out the likelihood that the Hoos will have neither Dominique Terrell nor Jay Whitmire this coming year.  Best guess: the coaches will do everything they can to get Whitmire in the lineup only if they get the notion that he won't get a medical redshirt (which would give him a 6th year of eligibilty.)  If they think he can get the NCAA waiver, he'll sit the year.

-- This is an excellent article, I think, on freshman guard B.J. Stith.  B.J. has some unique challenges in front of him, following in dad Bryant's footsteps at UVA, and you really get the impression that both of them understand the nature of it.  And that B.J. is more than mature enough to handle it.

-- Speaking of handling things, Evan Nolte went out and did silly college things and we now get to know about it because he's a basketball player and not just some dude.  Actually the story is sort of funny.  CPD went easy on him, which is nice.

-- ESPN released their "Big Monday" schedule (I think Monday's kind of an annoying day for the big weekly hoops showcase, but whatever) and guess who leads the ACC in appearances?  UVA has games featured against UNC, Pitt, and Syracuse.  Only UNC has as many as three games featured.  Duke and UNC will still have their rivalry hyped to the moon and back, but still.

-- Cleveland is becoming the home of UVA sportsters of all types.  Tim Smith signed with the Browns last week; this sees him join Joe Harris, of course with the Cavaliers, and Kyle Crockett pitching for the Indians with Mike Papi in the Indians' system with middle-A Lake County.  Smith's chances of making the Browns' final roster are certainly slim, but exposure is exposure.

Cleveland is all well and good, but personally I'm having even more fun following the exploits of Artie Lewicki (middle-A West Michigan) and Whit Mayberry (high-A Lakeland) in the Tigers' system.  Both are pitching very, very well, in case you were wondering.

de-frogger

The new park in Omaha, I think somewhat purposefully, was built to encourage pitchers' duels.  Low-scoring games offer the best drama baseball has to offer, and that means ratings and so on.  So it came as a little bit of a surprise to me that 2012 and 2013 produced no walk-off wins in the College World Series.  The last walk-off win belongs to South Carolina, against, you'll probably remember, UVa.

Armed with that knowledge, I may have been incorrect when I said Vengeance Tour '14 would have to come to a quick end for UVa to do anything worth doing in Omaha.  Having been the victim of the last CWS walk-off, the Hoos appear bound and determine to wreak that emotional havoc upon all who get in their way.  They toyed with Ole Miss, leaving runner after runner stranded in scoring position just to give the one-hit Rebels a fighting chance; then, TCU fans no doubt thinking (not incorrectly) that they had a great shot by throwing their ace starter, shutdown closer, and best middle reliever, the Hoos yanked the rug out again.  No doubt this is all out of long-simmering rage over being booted out of the 13th inning the last time we saw this city.

Baseball becomes the second UVa team this year to reach heights it's never achieved, following in the footsteps of women's tennis.  The Hoos will finish no worse than tied for third in the CWS, as two more teams will be shown the door before UVa plays its next game.  This is not to focus on the negative, though; this team has positioned itself to play for the national championship, and has three more wins to the dogpile.  They've taken the best shots that two of the best teams in the country had to offer; they one-hit the best-hitting team in the tourney and outpitched the (supposedly) best-pitching team in it.  Perhaps it was no accident that UVa was the highest-seeded team in town.  The story of the underdog favorite is a hackneyed one, but it's still fun if it's your own boys.

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-- TCU's Cody Jones got the lion's share of the highlights for his diving catch, and it was a really nice one, but clearly, Brandon Downes had the more important web gem.  Runners at the corners and one down for TCU could've been devastating.  Instead the threat was snuffed out.  And by the way, I don't actually disagree with the TCU baserunner's decision to try for third.  "Never make the first or third out at third base" is a maxim that also implies the second out is forgivable.  And I'm usually a fan of the idea of forcing the outfielder to make a really good throw.  Usually they can't.

-- Whit Mayberry's outing was vintage Whit Mayberry.  He doesn't have the stuff that Howard or Lewicki have, and he doesn't have the control that Waddell has, but Jeebus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker does that dude battle.  Branden Kline is the only guy in recent memory I can think of who brought that much of an "I don't care how but I'm'a get this mufka out" mindset to the mound.  Nobody's gonna get this analogy, but he reminds me a little bit of a right-handed Mike Maroth.  That's a compliment even though I just compared Mayberry to the last 20-game loser in the majors.  I think he could make a really good pitching coach once his pro career is over.

-- UVa actually has a little bit of an advantage that Vanderbilt - the other 2-0 team - does not have.  Both UVa and Vandy next play on Friday.  Irvine and Texas are playing tonight, and the winner will have a day of rest before playing Vandy.  All four elimination-game teams got a rest day before that game, but TCU and Ole Miss will have to play us the day after their game.  It goes without saying that we're looking for another marathon.

-- Baseball generates all kinds of really interesting facts.  UVa has now played in the two longest games in TD Ameritrade CWS history.  Nine whole innings were played without a run, spanning over three hours; the equivalent of a full scoreless game.  UVa didn't have a single runner in between the two that scored to bookend that stretch.  It was tied for the longest game in CWS history in any stadium.

-- Bring on the Friday rematch.  You know I'm gonna like our pitching depth against anything either the Rebs or Frogs will have.

weekend review

Woo-hoo, I partook in the annual ritual of watching the no-defense festival that is the annual loss to Duke on the lacrosse field.  Well, I take it back somewhat: not every game against them is completely without defense.  We never play it, but sometimes Duke does.  Sometimes we lose by a lot and sometimes by a little, but one thing is usually a given: Duke will wear out the netting, usually around 15 times.  The last time there was a low-scoring affair against those guys: 2007, a 7-6 loss for us.

This happened to be one of those days where UVA could keep pace somewhat.  UVA has been in the game in every one of its losses but the Notre Dame one; even more interesting, we've been able to play any kind of game the opponent wants.  Defensive slugfest?  Sure.  Shootout?  Sure.  And therein, I think, lies part of the problem.  When have we seen UVA impose its will on the other team?  Only in games against much lesser opposition, and even then you saw problems against Rutgers and Richmond, to name a few.

Goalie play took a dump, of course, which didn't help.  I was surprised to see that Duke's Luke Aaron failed to reach a .500 save percentage, because it seemed like he was saving basically everything, which may have been only in comparison to our own goalies, who saved nothing.  That's "goalies" because Matt Barrett got yanked for Dan Marino, who was just as bad.

I'm not prepared to guarantee UVA will make the NCAA tournament because I'm not prepared to guarantee this team can beat Bellarmine; they absolutely should and I think they will, but the flaws are such that you just never know.  How often do they look like they know what they're doing?  I'd say, not much.  The offense doesn't know whether to be patient or to run'n'shoot; the defense doesn't know whether to sit back or be aggressive, and they try all of them at various times and don't get consistent results.  The coaches have tried all they can think of to win faceoffs and have resorted to an apparently random pattern of choosing the ineffective short stick or the ineffective long stick.  Likewise they can't decide who should run the offense from the X; they don't seem to have confidence in either Owen van Arsdale or Ryan Lukacovic, and have equally inconsistent substitution patterns there as well, to say nothing of the midfield.  The whole operation stinks of throwing crap against the wall just to see what sticks.

I don't think this season is a total loss.  Any time you beat Hopkins and Syracuse you've succeeded at a portion of the goals that UVA lacrosse sets out to accomplish.  Then again, any time you lose to Maryland, UNC, and Duke, and get to mid-April not 100% sure about making the NCAA tournament, not to mention not even playing in the ACC one, you've fallen short of quite a few others.  The atmosphere around the program is starting to look like the one around Debbie Ryan's hoops program a couple years before her resignation.  When a respected Sabre poster lets loose on the coaching staff and program with cannons blazing like this and this, and is not told out of hand to stuff it, you can tell the cracks are appearing.

I link those epistles for you, and even find them well-reasoned, but I don't (yet) fully endorse them.  I'm painfully aware this is the worst two-year stretch for UVA lacrosse in quite some time, but I'm also painfully aware of what happens when fans let expectations run too wild, revolt, and accelerate the downward spiral.  Tennessee boosters pitched Phil Fulmer overboard because they were tired of Outback Bowl seasons and he had the audacity to go 5-7 that one time, and in the five years since they've won 7, 6, 5, 5, and 5 games.  People around here got tired of Debbie Ryan because we didn't win enough in the ACC and didn't go far enough in the NCAAs, and Joanne Boyle has only managed to spin her wheels at best.  Is Dom Starsia getting lazy at recruiting and allowing the program to get bogged down in the mud?  Maybe.  Are we capable of screwing this up by running him off and spending six winless years in the ACC?  More than.

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-- It's amazing how a shutout can feel like anything but a dominant pitching performance.  Brandon Waddell combined with Whit Mayberry and Nick Howard to hold Clemson entirely scoreless on Sunday and take the series, and yet it sure had none of the feeling of the same result a week prior.  Waddell was dominant against Pitt, and forever walking the edge against Clemson.  Much better team this week, yes.  And honestly, a pitching coach will be at least as happy, if not happier, to see his charges battle back against multiple basepath incursions, than to see them breeze through with little trouble.  The Pitt shutout showed a lot of ability; the Clemson shutout showed ability and character.

Miami managed to sweep the same Pitt team that we took only two of three from, however, and thus UVA finds itself tied atop the division.  This means less than it did last year, though, now that the ACC tournament has moved away from pool play and to a basic double-elimination format.  The 1 and 2 seeds used to get their choice of game times, and that mattered much more then.

-- If this doesn't impress you or do anything for you at all, you're in the wrong place.  How about the ACC all-sport record for most consecutive conference wins?  Men's tennis brought that distinction to UVA by winning its 117th straight conference match - counting both regular season and tournament play, meaning, NCAA tournament as well.  117 straight wins against ACC foes, no matter when or where the competition.  That's a mark that, if it's ever topped by anyone, will take a good ten years to achieve, minimum.  (Though I haven't checked to see if anyone anywhere is working on a streak of like 70 or so right now, which is possible but not real likely.)

-- I wouldn't have bothered watching the spring football game even if it had been on, honestly.  It just doesn't excite me; for one, because the affair is never a real game; two, because you can never really tell whether one side's dominance is a good thing or a bad thing and therefore the thing is not all that instructive; three, because 2-10.  (#1 is that way because coaches are always concerned about injuries and depth - there's no way we could've put together two full teams' worth of O-linemen - but it's also easily fixed such that my attention could be restored.  Play a full speed 7-on-7 game.  Problem solved.  Injury risk is minimized and fans get something to watch.)

However, Jeff White's article answered the one question we all want to know, even if Mike London is still playing coy.  Greyson Lambert, besides being voted a team captain, threw 31 passes while Matt Johns threw 19 and David Watford just 14.  I leave you to draw your own conclusion, with every confidence you'll decide the same as I did.

2013 baseball recruiting class, part 1

I guess I usually do this closer to baseball season when the thought is still fresh in everyone's mind, but I didn't.  So we'll do it now.  It's our annual series in getting acquainted with the prospects that will grace UVA's roster as freshmen next season.  "Acquainted" is not an accidental choice of words; this can be an awfully imprecise exercise.  Probably the worst prediction I've ever made in five years of writing this blog is that Brandon Waddell would be "probably a future LOOGY or one-inning specialist."  That's about as far from "Friday starter" as it gets.  Sometimes I don't include everyone, because lists found on the Internet aren't up to the level of the comprehensive coverage of football recruiting, and sometimes guys leave unexpectedly before the season or the semester begin.  It's the sort of imprecision that every year makes me strongly consider not doing this, and every year deciding that I at least want to have it as a reference for when the season begins in seven or eight months.  On the plus side, the signing deadline is earlier than it was, so we don't have to stretch to August to find out if our signees are skipping school.

The class is a little smaller this year, which is unsurprising because of the small number of players lost to graduation/the draft.  BOC knows how to manage a roster.  Last year I had to make this a three-parter, but we're back to two this year and the entries are shorter than usual as well.

Tyler Allen - OF
Powhatan HS (VA)
Undrafted

The road to playing time next year for a freshman outfielder is nigh-impossible, so Tyler Allen is a name that'll have to be stashed in the long-term memory banks.  He's the only outfielder in the class, which is not too surprising; we have at least five legitimate candidates for playing time and even if Mike Papi moves to first base, the rest of the field is crowded with ouststanding hitters.  It'd be a huge surprise to see him in the lineup in 2014.

That said, though, Allen is a good all-around outfield prospect.  I wouldn't go so far as to call him "five-tool" because that carries some connotations of sky-high expectations, but Allen can hit, run, field, and throw, all with the skills to do so competitively in college.  He's fairly tall with good speed and a left-handed bat, and he could probably at least compete for time in center field when it's his turn.  Left field otherwise.  Like most college prospects, he's a .400 hitter, and he was player of the year in his district.  About half the class made a Rawlings all-region first team; Allen was one who did.  He's got great timing, too; in a 15-3 win this season, Allen hit two grand slams.  Nice display of power for his future coach; Brian O'Connor was in the stands for that one.

Allen will see the field sparingly, if at all, in 2014.  You'd expect that Brandon Downes and Derek Fisher will leave after next year, though, which opens the door.  Both left and center field will be open for competition in 2015, which is when Allen's time will come.

Alec Bettinger - RHP
CD Hylton HS (VA)
Undrafted

Bettinger is a summer-ball teammate of UVA's best-known prospect in this class, Connor Jones.  He's got a fastball that tops out around 90 and a good breaking ball.  Different coaches of his seem to have different ideas as to the effectiveness of his off-speed stuff and which is his better pitch and so on, so they sound like something that'll need honing before they're college-ready.  If Bettinger is eventually destined for the rotation, a stop in the bullpen on the way seems highly likely.  One possible obstacle for him will be his size; other than Whit Mayberry there aren't any heavily-used righties on UVA's staff shorter than 6'3; Bettinger stands just 6'0".  Lefties get more of a pass than righties on height and Bettinger will have to work hard to separate from the pack.

Adam Bleday - LHP
Titusville Area HS (PA)
Undrafted

Bleday is an interesting prospect; he's not big or super-athletic and as a pitcher, he's not by any means a hard thrower.  But he's a very good hitter (.429 batting average) who played center field as well as pitched for his high school team, and as a pitcher, his senior season saw him finish with an 0.18 ERA.  That means in the 38 innings he pitched, only one earned run crossed the plate.  He struck out 72 against only 12 walks.  In his junior year, he pitched a full 9 innings in one game (which qualifies as extra innings in high school) and struck out 23(!!) hitters.

Stuff-wise, he's sort of a typical lefty; fastball in the mid-80s at best, but with obviously excellent command and two other pitches that work well for him.  He's also small, even for a lefty.  With three good pitches, Bleday could get at least a look as a starter and might have that in his long-term future.  The competition for the 2014 starting rotation looks as wide open as it's ever been, and the field is stocked with veterans like Whit Mayberry and Artie Lewicki, so if a freshman can crack it, that freshman would have to be very impressive.  Mental makeup means a lot to BOC and Karl Kuhn, and we've got no way of knowing how that will go (which is why I make occasionally awful predictions like the Waddell one) but the fact is that the competition both in the rotation and among bullpen lefties is going to be strong in 2014.  It might be tough for a guy like Bleday to have a major role early, but long-term he should be in the thick of the race.  (Kind of the story of this freshman class, really.)

Tony Butler - INF
Sun Prairie HS (WI)
Undrafted

I wish there were more on Tony Butler, but he's been unfortunately injury-prone in his high school career.  He's had two surgeries already; one on his hand after his sophomore year and one this spring, on his shoulder after suffering a dislocation and torn labrum.  That injury cost him his senior year.

A shame, because he did some gaudy things as a junior.  He batted .521 as a shortstop, had an 0.78 ERA (three ER in 28 IP) as a pitcher, and tossed a no-hitter as well.  At least one publication, during the preseason, called him the best player in Wisconsin, and he played for the best team, too; his team was state champs in both 2012 and 2013.  This year, instead of playing, he coached.

Butler is one of the members of this class to make Rawlings's all-region first teams, and one of two infielders in the class.  The amount of playing time available for infielders will depend partly on what the coaches decide to do with Nick Howard; does he continue to play third base (where he's a little bit of a butcher with the glove) or does he focus on pitching full time?  John LaPrise may have the inside track on the vacated second base job, and we'll also be interested to see what we get out of George Ragsdale.  By virtue of being an infielder, though, and also by virtue of being pretty good, Butler stands to be one of the few freshmen with a solid path to some playing time in 2014.

Ben Carraway - RHP
Creekview HS (GA)
Undrafted

Yes, this is the year for younger brothers of former Hoo pitchers.  Ben's older brother is Andrew, one-time standout starter for UVA and current Seattle Mariners minor leaguer.  Carraway is otherwise somewhat overshadowed in this class; his fastball currently tops out around 88, low for a righty, and beyond that there's precious little information on him.  I would guess just based on that fastball that Carraway would have an uphill climb for innings, but with so little to go on, predictions are even dicier than usual.

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For future reference, next week I go offline for three days and then return with the second half of this series and then the first of the preseason ACC football previews.  I feel like it's way too early for that shit but I have two more of them to do now and if I don't get an early start I'll never finish.  Even with just 11 to do (on top of, you know, actually focusing on our own team) they had a way of making August race past at the speed of sound.  The fall roster is out, so tomorrow there will be depth chart discussion as part of the previously-promised big recruiting picture post.

weekend review

I don't brag much - maybe like four or five times a year, tops - but when I'm right, I'm right.  The Charlottesville regional, as far as UVA was concerned, went down exactly as planned.  Except for that UNC-Wilmington was a dud and couldn't get past Elon.  UVA, on the other hand, swung some cold bats against some quality pitching performances from Army's Chris Rowley and Elon's Spencer Medick.  Fortunately the Hoos turned in even better performances on the hill and set themselves up in the winners' bracket.  Then, against the same Elon team, only with a burned-up pitching staff, UVA opened up a can.

Sunday's starter was Whit Mayberry, but the outing of the day belonged to David Rosenberger, a medium-use reliever for most of the season who came through with five scoreless innings in relief.  A terrific outing especially for a guy who usually needed four or five appearances to rack up that many innings.  Mayberry wasn't actually bad, and a more normal strike zone might've seen him go five or six terrific innings himself.  Whit was victimized by a dinky little strike zone and actually only walked one hitter, but since the umpire wouldn't give him the corners, he had to throw juiceballs in order to get strikes, and the Elon hitters took advantage.  A six-run third, though, followed by some insurance in later innings, put the Elon threat away for good.

Can't talk about great pitching performances without mentioning the shutout on Saturday, though, which Scott Silverstein (6 innings), Josh Sborz (1 inning) and Kyle Crockett (2 innings) combined their efforts on.  Or, for that matter, Brandon Waddell's three-hit, 8-K effort against Army.  When you allow four runs in three games, you'll usually advance.

It's an extremely chalky tournament so far; 14 of 16 super-regional slots have been filled (at the moment I'm writing this) and the only one of those 14 that's not a 1 seed is Oklahoma.  (Which beat the Hokies.  You can probably hear me wailing and gnashing my teeth already.)  UVA hosts Mississippi State, which slipped up against 4 seed Central Arkansas on Sunday but recovered today to move on.

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-- Solid article last week in ESPN, the summary of which is basically Brian O'Connor is awesome.

-- More shakeup in the lacrosse world, and I call it bad news.  The ACC lost out on the Johns Hopkins sweepstakes (who knows if they ever tried?) and Hopkins will join the Big Ten as an associate member for lacrosse.  Or really, Hopkins will join the CIC (the B1G's research collaboration branch) with lacrosse as their excuse - and the B1G's excuse for adding them.

That puts a powerful competitor for recruits on the landscape for 2015, when the move occurs.  (Hopkins probably has half a schedule put together for 2014 already, and there's no sense in them joining before Maryland and Rutgers get there anyway.)  Maryland badly needed Hopkins so they wouldn't have to go the fully-independent route and would have a rival they could use as a recruiting chip.  They've put together a conference of Hopkins, Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Rutgers, which is a tough group, especially since it'll be televised on the BTN.  (Don't expect Michigan to stink forever.)  Meanwhile, the ACC now has to look within its own ranks if it wants to find a sixth member and create a tourney autobid.

Hopkins will have to create room on their schedule for four Big Ten games (they already play Maryland, obviously, and played Michigan this season) and it's natural to wonder if they'll keep UVA on their schedule.  They probably will.  Hopkins-UVA is one of the stronger rivalries in lacrosse and one Hopkins may need to keep their recruiting at an elite level, and besides that we're the closest ACC team they've got.  If they want to keep playing ACC teams, UVA is the way to do it.

The other big shakeup is Denver's move to the Big East as an associate lacrosse member.  This is called "the Big East saves its own ass" and preserves its autobid, as it will be losing Syracuse and Rutgers and would've dropped to five teams after 2014.  Naturally, the ECAC is in trouble, and the four teams left (Air Force, Bellarmine, Hobart, and Fairfield) need to either go raiding or find other conferences.  The latter seems more likely.  Fairfield is in the MAAC, after all, and might find this a propitious time to be a lax member too.  Bellarmine might find a fit in the A-Sun.  The NEC has a little autobid dilemma, being also left with five teams thanks to the MAAC's pillaging, and Hobart might be just the fix they need.  Air Force could, I dunno, figure something out.  If they tried to keep the ECAC on life support, Detroit would be a fit, but who else?

I would guess they'll go their separate ways - the ECAC has always been little more than a holding pen for teams waiting to find a more permanent home.  And if so, you might just see the constant lacrosse realignment - which has for some time been a fact of life rather than a cataclysm - settle down for a bit, with the only catalyst for more change being new schools adding the sport.

weekend review

Well, after all the buildup the ACC tournament turned out - for UVA, at any rate - like most other weekend series.  Go somewhere, win more than you lose, go home, and no special accolades attached, which is code for we didn't win it.

That said, I don't call it entirely unsuccessful.  UVA got dusted by the Hokies on Wednesday - bad - and dusted Georgia Tech the next day - good.  Losing the first game meant we needed three things in order to happen in order to see the Hoos in the championship game, and #'s 1 and 3 got taken care of just fine while #2 (GT needed to beat VT, and didn't) never materialized.  Some short takeaways from the weekend:

-- When FSU dropped their second game of the tourney, it assured us of one important thing: UVA has more ACC championships this year than anyone else.  No ties: we have five to everyone else's less-than-five.

-- It's kind of been a while since Nick Howard started a game, and lately when Brandon Waddell has a good game it's usually on the order of "nice job getting out of all those jams."  I'm pleased to watch Waddell battle; you can tell he's got some of that no-fear mentality that our coaches want to see out of their starters, and when you've got that, developing your stuff is the easy part.  But right now, Scott Silverstein is the starter I trust the most on the hill.

-- Which in turn sets up nicely for the upcoming regional.  The #1 seed has the luxury of the option to hold back their ace for the second game,** and the way it goes this year, we don't even have to mess with the rotation to achieve that.

** Which I maintain is the most important game regardless of seed, but typically, the 1 seed is guaranteed to have the tougher contest in the second game, while the same can't be said for the 2/3 seeds.

-- Kevin McMullan has always been the Shamel Bratton of third-base coaches.  Don't do that don't do that why did you do that YESSSSSSS

-- Florida State - the #2 seed and Atlantic Division champion - went 0-3 on the week.  If you like you may call that an indictment of the silly division system that awards pointless division championships and serves no purpose whatsoever.  Although I would temper that by pointing out that FSU would've been the #3 seed in a correct divisionless system and would've still had GT and VT on their plate.

-- Seeing Whit Mayberry go long enough to be eligible for a win is nice.  That pretty much officially gives us four starters for the NCAAs, and a fifth (Kyle Crockett) who can turn in some very long relief outings and destroy left-handed hitting besides.  (And has a fan in Mike Martin, who sounded slightly awestruck in saying Crockett has a "beautiful, beautiful arm."  There's no Danny Hultzen or even a Tyler Wilson or Branden Kline on this staff, but what it lacks in ace-quality pitching it makes up for in depth.  Long after opponents have gotten into the part of their bullpen that makes their fans sweat, we're still trotting out quality arms.

-- A school of thought said that if we knew the FSU game would be meaningless as it relates to the ACC tournament (which it was since VT had already clinched their trip to Sunday's championship game) we should empty the bench and play all the dudes who don't otherwise play.  In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't, as it gave our players one last taste of extra-innings drama - and another lesson in how to win - before the NCAAs began.

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And now for future baseball stuff instead of past baseball stuff:

-- UVA's tournament draw is pretty decent.  Nobody stands out as particularly scary in our own regional of UNC-Wilmington, Elon, and Army.  Army does have a solid pitching staff and will probably toss Chris Rowley again, the same guy UVA faced in last season's regional and managed to hit fairly well.  But no power-conference two-seeds and no sneaky mid-majors, like, say....

-- ....South Alabama, who is in our paired regional as a two-seed against host Mississippi State.  The Bulldogs actually got two such sneaky mid-majors, with Mercer tossed in there as well.  Mississippi State has a top-ten RPI but in terms of record was fifth in the SEC, behind Vandy, LSU, Arkansas, and South Carolina.  So we could've done worse in the draw.  Much worse.  UVA, by the way, is the national 6 seed.

-- I'll tell you who else could've done worse: Miami.  The tournament committee practically fellated the Hurricanes.  Miami's RPI is 19th, which might help explain it, but sheesh: this was a team with a losing ACC record.  They did beat Clemson, VT, and GT in weekend series, but also lost series to Duke, BC(!), and Wake (three of the four non-entrants to the ACC tournament) as well as Florida, who is a regional 3 seed.  Which is probably what Miami should be.  Instead they're a 2 seed with a nationally unseeded regional host.  Wut?  Well, they have one of the nation's toughest 3 seeds in Oklahoma State, so it's not all craziness.  I guess either the committee likes their RPI + series wins, or else it's a measure of respect for the ACC.

-- This is the bracket that will be used next year and in the future at ACC baseball tournaments.  It's a 10-team double-elimination.  Having been morbidly fascinated by how they will pull that off, I find that the final product doesn't disappoint in all its convolusion.  Stare at it til your head hurts, then come back here for the explanation, such as it is, if you need it.  Let's see if I can interpret that:

* The teams will be divided into two pools of five: 1-4-6-7-9 and 2-3-5-8-10.
* The top two seeds will get a bye. (Presumably, they will still be, stupidly, the division winners.)
* The first set of games, on Tuesday, will be 4-9, 6-7, 3-10, and 5-8.  The losers of those games head to the loser's bracket to play Wednesday.  In each pool, the best-seeded winner gets a bye til Thursday, and the worst-seeded winner plays the 1 or 2 seed on Wednesday, the winner of which advances to Thursday.
* The winner of this Thursday winner's bracket game advances to Saturday.  The loser heads to the loser's bracket, which concludes sorting itself out on Friday and sends a team to Saturday.
* By Saturday, we only have four teams left, two from each pool, which will play a single-elimination tourney to decide a champion on Sunday.

Got all that?  On one hand, I guess it's nice that they've found a way to reward better-seeded teams.  (I'm avoiding using the term "higher-seeded" because that bracket uses that term to mean worse.)  On the other hand, that has potential to grind up pitching staffs something fierce, and plus nobody will be able to understand it.  Is the ACC baseball tournament such a cash cow that it's so vital to have 10 teams there?  (No.  It isn't.)  Better alternatives include:

* The same thing we're doing now.
* Not having a tourney at all, playing one extra week of regular season ball, and handing the banner to the team with the best record.
* This.

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Further stuff in brief:

-- Fresh off losing one Richardson, the football team picks up a future one in the form of OL Will Richardson.  Despite the limited space in the 2014 class, I think we'll probably try to get one more OL, but with Richardson and Steven Moss, the class is a paragon of quality-not-quantity on the OL.  Richardson has ratings ranging from high three stars to sitting inside the ESPN 150.  (Though admittedly, had he chosen Florida State instead, he had a much better likelihood of staying there.)

-- Paul Jesperson has settled on Northern Iowa as his landing spot.  Much closer to his home of Wisconsin than his other option, USC.  Much luck to him.

-- UVA's first two football games - BYU and Oregon - will both be 3:30 games, the former on ESPNUVA and the latter on ESPN2 or ABC depending on your location.  Win.  A strong showing in those games - which is probably to say, beat BYU and don't get embarrassed by Oregon - should set us up for decently-televised games through mid-October.  And since that's the softer part of the schedule, moving through it with aplomb might just give us some well-timed games (i.e. not at noon on Raycom) the rest of the year.

acc tourney preview

So that starts Wednesday.  It's officially the postseason, and that means obsessing over pitching staff usage and the goings-on in your little pods as the tournaments make their inexorable advance toward (hopefully) championships of some kind.  UVA's game times for the ACC are as such:

Wednesday, 3 PM: Virginia Tech
Thursday, 11 AM: Georgia Tech
Saturday, 11 AM: Florida State

Sure, don't put the conference's winningest team on in prime time or anything.  We wouldn't want anyone to see good baseball.  My whining aside, you've already seen series previews on each of these teams, so these will be just little capsules of each game.

-- Wednesday --

The Hokies haven't announced any rotation info for the tourney, but I think it's a safe bet that UVA will face their top pitcher, lefty Joe Mantiply.  Mantiply has gotten a lot better as the season went on; when I wrote the series preview a few weeks ago he was allowing a .304 batting average, which is now down to .256.  He's got good velocity for a lefty and has worked himself into being one of the ACC's legitimate top starters, though he didn't get an all-conference nod.

UVA's last outing against Mantiply didn't go all that well; Kenny Towns and Derek Fisher took him deep, but they were solo shots only and the Hoos managed three runs in seven innings.  Brandon Waddell will oppose the Hokies; he gave up six runs in 5 2/3 in the Friday game against VT, but the UVA bats bombed the Hokie pitching and handed him the win.

Tech's lineup, as before, is largely about the six or so players that make it go.  Tyler Horan finished the regular season leading VT in nearly every applicable category, including a .344 BA and 11 HR.  The bottom three aren't a major threat, but if you let the top six string things together it's a long day.

-- Thursday --

Georgia Tech will have their FSU game under their belt by game time Thursday, and UVA won't have to face Buck Farmer, who mowed down the Hoos' lineup in the first meeting.  Instead it'll be righty Dusty Isaacs facing off against Scott Silverstein.  This was also the Saturday matchup in the regular season, which UVA won 7-2 with five runs in four innings off of Isaacs.  Silverstein, meanwhile, had one of his best days of the year, allowing just one in seven innings and whiffing nine.

We need that kind of performance again, because GT's lineup as usual is built around trying to get on base in front of their gorillas; this year, said gorillas are named Zane Evans and Daniel Palka, and they combined for 31 homers and 125 RBIs in the regular season.  GT's lineup makes them dangerous, but this pitching matchup was a pretty favorable one the first time around, and should be somewhat so again.

-- Saturday --

This is the final game of pool play on our side of the bracket, so we'll know for sure going in what the story is as per trying to get to Sunday.  Obviously, the most likely thing is that we have to win to get there (if we aren't already eliminated from contention.)  O'Connor hasn't picked his pitcher yet for this game; probably, it'll be Nick Howard if we need to win or if we're already out (the latter being just for the sake of getting Howard some work, as he didn't pitch against UNC), and if somehow we've already clinched a spot in the Sunday championship, then we probably save Howard for Sunday and toss Whit Mayberry instead.

FSU, meanwhile, has already made their choice: southpaw Brandon Leibrandt, who opposed Scott Silverstein in the regular season and lost despite pitching a gem.  UVA only scratched out four hits and two runs, but it was enough because Silverstein pitched his other best game of the year: seven shutout innings.  The actual likely starter, Howard, also pitched a terrific game the next day to polish off the regular season sweep.

FSU may actually have the least scary lineup in the pool.  It's deeper than either VTs or GTs but doesn't have the top-end power and for-average hitting that the Techs bring.  The pressure will be on the Noles, given their inability back in April to break through against UVA's pitching.  If we can get through the first two games with a 2-0 record and a reasonably intact bullpen, the final hurdle will be ours for the taking.

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I would obviously be remiss if I said nothing about the tennis, which beat UCLA in a drama-filled matchup for the program's first national title in its history and the ACC's first in that sport since like the caveman days.  (If you count Notre Dame's 1959 title.  Otherwise it's the ACC's first in that sport since ever.)  UVA swept through every round up to and including the quarterfinals without losing a match; a 4-1 win over Georgia was closer than that score indicated, and a 4-3 win over UCLA was closer than that score indicated too.  #3 singles player Mitchell Frank finished off the title win with a really gutty come-from-behind win after dropping his first set 6-0.

And I've already edited the Wikipedia page, you're welcome.

Fun facts:

-- This is UVA's 20th NCAA-sanctioned national title and 27th counting other sanctioning bodies (such as pre-NCAA lacrosse action and indoor tennis.)

-- UVA has won a national title in something for five years in a row.  (This blog will complete its fifth season whenever baseball wraps up.  Hmmmm.  I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.)

-- And it hasn't been done by owning a death grip on some esoteric sport, like the way USC has won the last five (and probably six, soon enough) men's water polo titles.  Five titles, one per year, in four different sports: men's soccer, men's lacrosse, men's tennis, and two in crew.  Not too many schools, if any, can claim that kind of broad-based excellence.

So.  Many congrats to Brian Boland, who's had his team on the cusp for a long time now and finally broke through.  UVA didn't lose to a single opponent all year, and hasn't lost to a conference opponent since 2006.

Speaking of conference opponents, while we're busy collecting trophies, there's still one straggler that doesn't show up in the annals of the elite.  A moment of silence for an empty case, please.

weekend review

Of the big four sports played in North America, as well as some of the next-tier ones like soccer and lacrosse, baseball is easily the most structured.  That's why it lends itself so well to advanced statistics.  That's also why it's the most prone to bizarrity; in a more free-flowing game like hockey or basketball, there's less of a structure to break free of, which means there's less opportunity for something nutty to happen.  And usually when it does, it's because of the officials.

So you get games like Saturday's against UNC.  It's impressive how fast a pitchers' duel turned into a slugfest.  Whit Mayberry did a great job in five innings of starting, needing only about 60 pitches and moving very efficiently.  Nathan Kirby was great for two innings; unfortunately, he pitched in three, with the wheels coming off in the eighth.  (He wasn't the only one, though; the boys in Carolina blue fell apart at exactly the same time.  And I was impressed in the confidence the coaches put in Kirby, having him pitch through some tough situations in a very tight game.)

Thankfully, UVA scoring runs and then UNC giving them back wasn't the ultimate story.  Carolina boneheadedness was.  UVA's 11th-inning rally started to bear fruit when UNC tried to get the lead runner at third on a sacrifice bunt, and Colin Moran biffed the throw, which of course moved everyone up a bag.  That's how the 11th started; it ended when Skye Bolt hit a deep drive that Mike Papi caught against the wall (saving at least a double), and for whatever reason, the pinch-runner on first never tagged up.  He was nowhere to be found when the ball arrived back at the base to double him off and polish off the game.

You can argue for a while whose fault that was (and we have, believe me) but since none of the replays show where he ended up, it's all speculation.  My guess: he came in thinking there were two outs (there was one) and that Papi's catch was the end of the inning.  And therefore went tearing around the basepaths at the crack of the bat with home plate on the mind.  If that's the case, I blame the first-base coach; I mean, I used to kind of internally roll my eyes in my baseball playing days, when I'd reach first and the coach there would remind me how many outs.  But there's a reason they do that.  I doubt it happened this time.

So with Thursday's game being a carryover of the scorching-bat attack from the Duke series and the VCU midweek game, and UVA scoring 10 runs on Carolina's ace Kent Emanuel (the more-than-heavy implication on the Sabre board is that Emanuel was tipping all his offspeed pitches) the only thing that kept UVA from a sweep was one really lousy inning on Friday.

It's really not that bad a deal, though.  If you buy that there are five real competitors for the ACC title, any of which could win the tourney, UVA is in the tourney pool that has only two of them; us and FSU.  UNC has to deal with both Clemson and NC State.  On the other hand, we do have the only two teams that beat us in a series this year (that would be the two Techs.)

Some other notes in brief:

-- Nate Irving moves like a sloth in molasses, which makes it all the more exciting when he does things like beat out a bunt and score from second on a single to left.

-- Kyle Crockett was absolutely devastating on Thursday.  In retrospect it's a shame we used him Thursday, because he got shelled Friday and might not have if he hadn't pitched the day before, but man: when his curve is working, left-handers look like total dipshits against it.  And let's face it: we all know UNC has a nasty good lineup, and a six-run lead isn't totally safe.  As we sort of learned on Saturday when the Heels overcame a three-run deficit and nearly blew past a four-run one.  So no bagging on BOC for using Crockett to "save" a huge lead in game one.

-- Colin Moran won the ACC POY award over Mike Papi.  I am not sure whether to be enraged or not.  Papi probably had one of the best seasons ever for a non-winner.  I mean, hello, national OBP leader.  (Then again: national RBI leader Moran.)  On the one hand, Papi was probably penalized for not playing the whole season.  He wasn't even a starter at the beginning and sat about 10-12 games entirely.  This is probably part of the reason Joe McCarthy won freshman of the year instead of Skye Bolt.  So in that respect it evens out.  And it wasn't the media voting, it was the coaches, so for once we can't blame Caulton Tudor and his ilk.

On the other hand, the coaches couldn't even agree on which third baseman should be on the all-ACC first team; Moran shared that honor with VT's Chad Pinder.  If he's not definitively the best at his position, is he really the best overall player in the conference?

Oh well; we don't really know if Papi was "definitively the best" outfielder either, and he might well not have been.  Anyway, UVA was well represented on the honors list: Papi, Reed Gragnani, Nick Howard, and Kyle Crockett all made the first team; McCarthy and Branden Cogswell the second team, and UVA took home FOY and COY honors while UNC took pitcher and player of the year.  Of 36 slots on the honorees list, 15 are filled with Hoos or Heels.  Nice especially to see Gragnani honored after a career spent mostly on the injured list.

-- A few other bragfacts from the ACC release on this honors stuff: this is BOC's third COY award in four years and fourth of his UVA tenure.  During that tenure, UVA has only failed to reach 40 wins twice; we got 39 those times.

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-- Clifton Richardson's impending transfer is definitely one of the more disappointing ones of late.  I think pretty much all of us had high hopes for his future.  It doesn't hurt the depth too badly, but Richardson had more potential than either of the backs in front of him on the chart.  Even if Taquan Mizzell was likely going to ensure Richardson never hit the top of the food chain.  It leaves basically four backs on the roster for 2013, all of whom will almost certainly see the field at some point.  Kevin Parks and Mizzell likely hold the inside track on the top two slots, and Khalek Shepherd and Kye Morgan will at a bare minimum get garbage time - though probably a little more than that.

-- An article that casts some doubt on the future, as-yet-nonexistent ACC Network.  Consolation prize if the ACC Network falls through: more cash from ESPN, quite probably meant as a way to ensure the viability of the conference since it's really in ESPN's best interest for the ACC to exist.  The article says that works out to about $2 million more per school per year, which after a little math and some assumptions means about $336 million total.  So what I hear from that is that if ESPN can buy out the necessary rights from the other media entities that own them for less than $336 million, it's network city.

-- The men's tennis team plays in its third straight national championship matchup tomorrow against UCLA.  A win would give UVA its first ever title, and extend our national championship streak to five years (UVA has won a national title in something every year since 2009) as well as give us a chance at our first multiple-title year since 1993.

weekend review

Apologies for there being nothing to read yesterday.  The next two weeks might be a little bit sporadic and spotty as it's more or less crunch time on the road to the old MBA.  In fact at the moment I'm procrastinating on about 20 pages' worth of papers to do this instead.  So it'll be a tad short as well.

Plus, if you're reasonably familiar with stuff I've mentioned in the past, you can probably put two and two together and come up with another reason I wrote nothing yesterday.

Reason #2 why this will be short: nothing happened in the lacrosse game that hasn't happened in the past.  I've got lots of material for an end-of-year post, which will be much sooner than we're accustomed to, that may shed some light on why the wheels came off so badly.  I don't know whether it's a psychological bias on my part or what, but it seems like most of the time, winning generates a lot more analyzable results than losing.  Despite the joke that a really bad team can always find new ways to lose, usually what happens is that the team can't do X, Y, or Z, and as long as they can't, they lose.

By contrast, the baseball team has been finding all sorts of interesting ways to win, including three more this weekend.  All involved the long ball and high-scoring games in some fashion, which itself is kind of a new thing for a program that has tended toward station-to-station offense and shutdown pitching to rack up its victories.  Only about halfway through the season, UVA is only six homers shy of the 25 that they've accrued in each of the past two seasons.  (The year before that, 2010, was the final year for the ping-bats, so the comparisons cease to be valid.)  And this latest series was on the road at Wake Forest, so for this weekend at least, the closer fences at Davenport aren't a factor.

It's usually worthy of a headline when a major leaguer homers twice in a game, and it's awfully rare for a UVA player to do it.  Maybe it happens once or twice a season, if that.  So I call it astonishing that Joe McCarthy did exactly that and it was only the third-most interesting home run story of the weekend.  Reed Gragnani's first UVA career home run is an even bigger deal, if you ask me, and it's still only second.  It's Mike Papi taking home the weekend crown with a two-out, two-strike, ninth-inning grand slam to turn a three-run deficit into a one-run lead.  Exactly like you draw it up in your head when you're ten years old.  Put that game on a bigger stage than just a regular-season series against a low-level conference team and it would rival the RALLY TO OMAHA for drama.

This is UVA and we can't have nice things and when we do we can't enjoy them, so we have to talk a bit about the pitching, which I think is in range of reason to worry.  Of the starting pitchers, only Nick Howard had a good outing.  Brandon Waddell gave up six runs and Brian O'Connor had to use up Whit Mayberry in the first game.  Scott Silverstein and Josh Sborz combined for four innings of horror before the bullpen settled it down long enough for Gragnani's eighth-inning tiebreaker.  With Artie Lewicki still a little ways away from returning and a long ways away from being ready to start (think 2014) and Mayberry probably still not yet ready for six innings either, and Trey Oest coming up shaky against VMI during the week, options are very limited if the rotation collapses.  Sborz is still learning his way around a lineup and Nathan Kirby is not happening right now.

So let's just hope there is no collapse.  It's basically sink or swim with what we got.  The solution, if it comes to needing a solution, is probably to keep the starters the way they are and lean on the pen for some long-run innings, and then have the bats do what they have to do.  BOC may be loath to bring Austin Young, Kyle Crockett, or Mayberry forward to take the ball as a starter, but all three are worth three or four good innings a series.  It's not crazy to prefer those be the 6th, 7th, and 8th, instead of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

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Events of the day necessitate a recruiting board update.

-- Moved K Gary Wunderlich from blue to orange.  That would be the event of the day.  Is it a little crazy using a scholarship on a kicker in one of our most limited years yet?  Not when he might be the best rising senior kicker in the country and multiple family members hold UVA degrees.  That he earned three stars on Rivals says something, because kickers don't usually get stars.

-- Moved ATHs M.J. Stewart and Travon McMillian from yellow to green.  I think UVA has a deal of work to do if they want to reel in either of these guys, but they're at least seriously in the conversation.

-- Removed TE Chris Laye (Auburn) and CB D'Andre Payne (Tennessee) from yellow.

-- Added RB Joe Mixon to red.  Would I bet any money on UVA pulling Mixon away from the other coast?  No.  Especially with like 40 other schools trying to do the same.  But there is at least a flicker, and Mixon is talking about waiting all year, which means if the coaches work hard on it they can give themselves a little staying power.

Yes, it remains a much smaller board than it was at this time last year.  Probably had ten more names on it back then.  I don't exactly expect to see a flood of new offers, either.  Slow and steady is the key here, which is why these updates have only been once every two weeks.  The coaches are probably doing almost as much work on the 2015 class as the 2014 one.

weekend review

Who says February sucks?  Well, I do.  I hate February.  One of its few redeeming qualities is that it's the shortest month, so we get out of the misery quicker and into what is supposed to be spring.  But another redeeming quality is that it's the beginning of the spring sports season and so we get to witness a lot of wins.  Especially if the hoops team is playing well.

Which it so happens they are.  At some point as the Hoos were busy pulling away from Georgia Tech I thought to myself, "man, this would be a blowout if we'd ever hit a damn three pointer."  Not long afterwards, Taylor Barnette dropped in two three-pointers easy as you please and it was a blowout.

I've been beating the drum that UVA's suddenly dynamic offense is not dependent on the three-pointer, and there couldn't have been a better example than this Georgia Tech game.  UVA's game plan took GT's shot-blocking maestro Daniel Miller totally out of the shot-blocking business - in fact, Tech only had one blocked shot all day.  Akil Mitchell was astoundingly wide open underneath the rim; sometimes so much so that Jontel Evans realized it before Mitchell did.  And GT lived in deathly fear of leaving three-point shooters open, allowing Evans a lot of clear and easy lanes to the rim, which he took well full advantage of.

Toss in a few bad-idea defensive switches that left Joe Harris guarded in the post by GT's rail-thin backcourt (their guards are all awfully skinny and Harris's time in the weight room has borne fruit) and UVA just had its way inside the three-point line.  That the Hoos could effect such a blowout while shooting a measly .316 from three (and getting the first 0-fer from Harris in that regard since the Mississippi Valley State game) is one of the biggest reasons to be excited about this team's chances in their remaining games.  And really, they were already up 14 when Barnette popped those two three-buckets, and two more came even after that point.  (Mike Tobey's was the best.  It's not the first he's shot this year, so we knew he could do it, but basketball is the kind of messed-up game where your center comes back from mono and is maddeningly short on all his shots so of course his longest one is nothing but net.)  We've always said "man when Tony Bennett's teams learn to play offense, watch the hell out" and it's starting to come true.

If you want to start giggling like a schoolgirl during a UVA basketball game this year, wait til they have a 20-point-and-widening lead on an ACC team and then say to yourself "and next year we get Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill."

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I didn't get to watch the lacrosse game, so I only have two observations: holding Stony Brook to two second-half goals is impressive work by the defense (not that Stony Brook is a great offensive team, but they ain't VMI either) and second, end-of-quarter goals are going to kill us one day if that trend doesn't stop.  Both Drexel and Stony Brook scored two goals with ten seconds or less left in a quarter.

Other than that, I got nothin'.  Which leaves baseball, where every starting pitcher is apparently trying to one-up the other.  Scott Silverstein rebounded nicely from last Saturday's performance to turn in over six shutout innings, and Whit Mayberry finished his game and his shutout by giving up one hit and four strikeouts in two and two-thirds.

They couldn't touch Brandon Waddell, though.  Holy piss.  Or Holy Toledo, I guess, since that's the official overused har-har-get-it phrase you're supposed to use when the Rockets come to town.  Waddell struck out 15 batters in six innings.  That is to say, only three hitters got themselves out some other way.  Needless to say, Toledo did not score on him either.  It is mentioned that Danny Hultzen was the last UVA pitcher to strike out 15 hitters, and I would love to go to the box score and look to see if that was done in only six innings also, but the website redesigned stripped it of most of its functionality and broke all the links.  So I will check the ECU website, and learn that Hultzen did his work in seven innings.  But Waddell walked a batter and Hultzen didn't.  So.

Anyway, when you're comparing your freshman pitcher with two games under his belt to Danny Hultzen, you might have something special on your hands.  Then again, only one UVA pitcher allowed any runs at all to Toledo, and that was (sigh) Nathan Kirby, who's going to have to get this straightened out.  Actually, the folks at the game are suggesting being straightened out, as in a total lack of movement on his pitches, is why he's being knocked around.  Fortunately, our other pitchers don't seem to be giving up any runs, so there's time to work on this.

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The results of this week's season sim are below:

They are starting to reflect reality now; for example the only two teams in real life with a chance at the ACC's #1 seed are Miami and Duke - and Miami can't fall below #2 - and so the sim is duly aware of this. I've been telling you that UVA is in the driver's seat for third seed, and the sim backs me up, giving us almost a 70% chance at winning it.  What surprised me most is how apparently locked in Maryland is to the 6th seed, with very little hope of moving up and not much more chance than that of moving down.  FSU, Clemson, and Wake are locked in a major struggle for the 7th seed, which earns you the likely right to play Georgia Tech.

Finally, the release of the ACC schedule (do you suppose part of the reason the confernce is supposedly in trouble is because they can't get their shit together in this regard til almost March?) and the announcement of the 2015-17 home-and-home with Boise State made me realize I haven't touched the future schedules page for quite some time.  So I updated that as best as I could without having any kind of a new schedule model in hand.

recruiting board update

It's that time again.  Click on over to the board itself to see, uh, the board itself.  Here are the updates:

-- Added QB Corwin Cutler and DT Donta Wilkins to green.  I officially throw up my hands in confusion when it comes to quarterback recruiting.  Take one every year, I get that.  Take two every year regardless of whether there is a scholarship crunch, I don't get that.

-- Added LB Peter Kalambayi and DE Shakir Soto to yellow.

-- Moved CB Calvin Jones from blue to green.  I haven't heard his name, like, ever, in recruiting discussions, and UVA is his only offer and I'm not thoroughly convinced there is a full, standing, committable offer.  We will consider him down a notch until I see something more concrete.

-- Moved DE Jonathan Allen from yellow to red.  Probably not happening.

-- Removed OT Marcell Lazard from yellow.  Almost definitely not happening.  Dude almost committed to Ohio State the other day.

Interestingly, I think the board right now makes the right commentary on the state of recruiting right now.  Only four names are in blue, but there are a larger number in green than we've seen in past years at this time.  If the coaches can maintain staying power through a hectic springtime - it's visit season right now - we can turn a few of those greens to blues and maybe some yellows to greens.  Gotta get people in town for the spring game, which is in a few weeks, and gotta do enough while folks are in town to keep Virginia on their minds while they take visits everywhere else.

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-- File under "Things that make you go DAMMIT": Whit Mayberry and Tommy John surgery.  That'll be all for Mayberry's season, and while the Cav Daily article suggests the starting rotation will take a blow, the truth is the bullpen will suffer more.  Artie Lewicki will be fine on Sundays - maybe not as good as Mayberry would've been, because Whit was putting together a very solid season - but he'll be fine.  What we're missing now, and Lewicki would have provided, is a reliever who can take the ball and go three, four innings.  Like, twice through the lineup.  Kyle Crockett has the durability to do so but hasn't yet shown the consistency.

-- File under "Things that make you go HA": Tyree Watkins has been kicked off of Duke's football team.  Why do we give a damn about some two-bit third-string no-account wide receiver at Duke?  Tyree Watkins, you might remember, was once committed to Virginia.  His commitment didn't last long after his official visit to Charlottesville, because he spent a huge portion of it badmouthing Tim Smith, bragging on his own skills, and telling anyone who would listen that he and not Smith should've gotten four stars from Rivals.  Watkins proceeded to run his mouth at every opportunity during every UVA-Duke game, culminating in making a spectacle of himself by standing outside the UVA tunnel after halftime this past year and taunting every Cavalier who came out.  Except for Cam Johnson.  Seriously.  (And Cutcliffe had the nerve to complain about Chase Minnifield flapping his gums after one play.)  So there's some history here.

So while it is not cool to rejoice in the idea of assaulting a woman**, which is Watkins's (alleged) crime, it is perfectly OK to take satisfaction in the idea that this piece of shit's football career is over and he'll hopefully be out of society for a while.  With the slight disappointment that nobody at UVA ever had the chance to lay him out as he ran for a pass - see, he felt safe trash-talking because he never actually got on the field.

**Does the description of the crime ("The woman claimed that Watkins pulled her out of a car, grabbed her by her neck and choked her, causing her to hit her head against a wall.") feel a little chillingly familiar, if you replace the car with an apartment?  Seriously: fuck this guy.

series preview: NC State

Date/Time: Fri-Sun, 3/30 - 4/1/12; 6:30, 6:30, 1:00

TV: ESPN3

Record against the Pack: 68-120-1

Last matchup: UVA won 2-1 (12-1, 2-6, 3-1); 4/23-4/24/11; Charlottesville

Last game: UVA 19, Towson 5 (3/28); NCSt. 4, ECU 3 (3/28)

Last weekend: UVA 3-0 over Clemson; UNC 2-1 over NCSt.

National rankings:

Baseball America: UVA unranked; NC State #20
Collegiate Baseball: UVA unranked; NC State #9
NCBWA: UVA #26, NC State #27
Perfect Game: UVA #47; NC State #19
Coaches: UVA unranked; NC State #22
Composite: UVA unranked; NC State #18

Opposing blogs: none really where you'll find any baseball info

NC State lineup:

C: Brett Austin (.318-0-16)
1B: Andrew Ciencin (.238-4-18)
2B: Matt Bergquist (.222-0-10)
3B: Trea Turner (.292-1-14)
SS: Chris Diaz (.372-1-26)
LF: Tarran Senay (.310-0-10)
CF: Jake Fincher (.236-0-9)
RF: Ryan Mathews (.329-4-16)
DH: Danny Canela (.282-1-12)

Pitching probables:

Friday: LHP Scott Silverstein (2-2, 2.10, 31 Ks) vs. RHP Ethan Ogburn (2-1, 1.73, 26 Ks)
Saturday: RHP Branden Kline (4-2, 3.10, 35 Ks) vs. LHP Carlos Rodon (4-0, 1.30, 47 Ks)
Sunday: RHP Artie Lewicki (1-1, 4.50, 21 Ks) vs. RHP Logan Jernigan (3-1, 4.03, 28 Ks)

We're pretty sure that teams like FSU, UNC, and Miami will finish ahead of the Hoos in the ACC standings.  And we're pretty sure that teams like Wake Forest and Clemson, and maybe even GT, will finish behind.  NC State is another story.  There are better teams in the conference, but there aren't any bigger series than this one; the Wolfpack, fueled by a stellar recruiting class, are no longer a pest hovering in the bottom ranges of the ACC tournament.  They were once capable of delivering the occasional surprise and little more; now they're a legit threat to win the whole thing.  There is nothing better that UVA can do for its ACC tournament positioning than to go down to Raleigh and steal a series.

-- UVA at the plate

In the season preview I suggested (OK, more than suggested - outright averred) that NC State didn't have the pitching to be a threat in the ACC.  Whoops.  The Pack have an excellent Friday-Saturday combo in Ethan Ogburn - whose hurling is leaps and bounds ahead of previous years - and superfrosh Carlos Rodon.  Rodon was a 16th-round pick last summer and would've gone higher but for signability issues, as he was well set on college.  He was the prize of NC State's freshman class, and could very well be the staff ace by the end of the year; Rodon is allowing a .216 BA and striking out more than 10 per nine innings.

Ogburn's been no slouch either this year; his 1.73 ERA is almost four runs better than it was last year.  There's a question about Sunday, where Logan Jernigan will get the ball, but doesn't have a strong grip on the job.  Jernigan was knocked around last week by the Tar Heels and pulled in the 3rd inning.  That said, Jernigan's allowed all of seven hits this year, in 22 1/3 innings, for an opponents' BA of .092.  It's his walks - 18 of them - that have gotten him in trouble.

State's bullpen is pretty much outstanding too; it's very deep, and altogether, this staff leads the conference in a few pitching categories, notably opponents' BA, which is .213 overall.  Are you gathering a theme here?  That it's kind of tough to get a hit off these guys?  They give up fewer than seven per game.

So it's the top-hitting team in the conference (UVA is hitting .324) vs. the stingiest pitching staff.  In particular, Derek Fisher and Keith Werman have been on a tear lately.  UVA will also have Reed Gragnani back after he missed last weekend with a minor leg injury, but Mitchell Shifflett is hitting well enough that Gragnani may have to fight Colin Harrington for a left field gig.  (Not to mention, having Shifflett's wheels in the 8th spot ahead of Werman in the 9 hole makes for some interesting possibilities to make a defense sweat.)  Gragnani, as a switch-hitter, might also end up in a super-sub role going forward.  Guess we'll see.

At any rate, this is a weekend where we'll have to make every opportunity count.  If UVA can string a few hits together in one inning, things might look good; NC State, however, is equally likely to scatter them and leave us with not much to work with.  Could be interesting.

-- UVA in the field

Whit Mayberry didn't pitch at all against Towson this week, so I'm guessing he won't be available, even out of the pen, this weekend.  Artie Lewicki is listed as the Sunday starter, of course.  I don't expect Mayberry to be available on any weekend until he gets a little test drive in on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

So that thins out the pen a little, again.  It'll be the same order as last weekend.  They'll go against a respectable, if not quite fearsome, Wolfpack lineup.  NC State starts three freshmen, beginning with leadoff hitter Trea Turner, a speed demon who's a perfect 25-for-25 on stolen base attempts.  In other words, if he gets to first base, chances are about 2 in 3 that he'll get to second on his own.  (It wouldn't surprise me if the only reason he doesn't go for second is because it's occupied.  It's basically safe to assume that he will steal.)

So you've really got to keep Turner off the basepaths.  The guaranteed steal puts a lot of pressure on the defense.  NC State used to be something of a swing-for-the-fences kind of team, but they don't hit a lot of homers these days, and neither do they walk or strike out much.  They'll make your fielders work, though they're not all that big on sacrifice bunting - at least not at Brian O'Connor levels.

There isn't a one-man-show in the lineup that hits for power and average, but they do have hitters.  Chris Diaz is batting .372, generally from fifth in the order; Diaz only has one homer but does have good doubles power.  If they could get Andrew Ciencin to hit better than .238, they might have a monster on their hands, but Ciencin - who hits from the three-hole thanks to his home-run power - has never been a guy to hit for average.  Ryan Mathews is a solid all-around hitter, but almost never walks.  Freshman catcher Brett Austin is the lineup's only switch-hitter.  The bottom of the order will generally not be frightening, as Jake Fincher and Matt Bergquist are in for their defense.  (Fincher, though, is the second-best base-stealing threat, on the rare occasion that he does get on base.)

Let's get back to base-stealing for a second.  Turner is 25-for-25, but the rest of the team, minus his efforts, is also excellent.  NC State minus Turner is 22-for-28, still a better percentage than UVA's 42-for-59 as a team.  This will be a real test for Nate Irving, especially on Friday because Scott Silverstein has the worst lefty pickoff move ever.

Ultimately this is a good, not great, team at the plate.  NC State doesn't have championship-level hitting, but they're solid.  Keep Trea Turner the hell off the basepaths and you've taken the most important step.  I don't worry too much about the bottom of the lineup, and the fact that they insist on batting a .238 hitter in the three spot is a bonus for opposing pitchers (and a waste of Turner's talents.)  But by and large there aren't many slouches either, so the UVA pitching staff needs to pitch well, and it'd be impressive to limit the Pack the way they did Clemson last weekend.

-- Outlook

This is a huge series.  So I wish I were more confident for it.  If we can pull off a series win here it would be huge for the rest of the season, because the Pack are probably going to play right at our level or better all spring.  Being on the road sucks, though, and State's pitching staff worries me.  A sweep by either team would be a big surprise, but it would be the only surprise.  A 2-1 series either way is almost guaranteed here, the teams are so closely matched.  If you held a gun to my head, I'd pick NC State to take two, but I wouldn't have any confidence in the pick, either.  I expect all three games to hinge on just a couple plays here and there and be almighty close.

weekend review

Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?  Bad news it is, and that means lacrosse.  UVA surrendered its #1 ranking this weekend by surrendering an overtime goal to Johns Hopkins.  As was only fitting with the direction of that game, it happened with five seconds to go.

The final sequence of the game was laced with some of the finest examples of traded attempts to give away a game that I have ever seen.  Hopkins, with a golden opportunity to win the game in regulation, was called for offsides and followed it up with a too-many-men penalty.  UVA, for its part, decided to wait out the penalty in order to guarantee first possession of overtime (a strategy I disagreed with) and then watched as Rob Emery allowed a routine pass to sail over his stick, handing possession right back.  Hopkins didn't actually want it, but another too-many-men penalty - this one on UVA - forced them to actually try and take a shot to win.  And so it went until John Ranagan of Hopkins said to hell with it and potted the game-winner just to spare the crowd the agony of watching another overtime play out like that.

What will give the Hoos confidence should there be a tournament rematch is this: Hopkins hardly ever scored in settled situations.  Rob Fortunato's brilliance in net may have had something to do with it.  Hopkins scored 11 goals, and I count at least seven in "special" situations; three man-up goals, two directly off faceoffs, and at least two fast breaks that I can remember.  Six-on-six, offense vs. defense, the UVA defense was outstanding.

The offense, yes and no.  Some nice plays, but I think the story of the game ultimately is the UVA failure to capitalize on chances.  10 goals in 32 chances - that's a good number against the Hop defense but a bad one for the UVA offense, and you can't pile on mistakes and expect a team like Hopkins not to take advantage.  The one that sticks out most prominently is a pass to someone all alone in front of the goal (Bocklet?  Briggs?  Can't remember exactly) from behind the net in semi-transition.  The pass was in the dirt, and was scooped by Hopkins and instead of a two-goal lead, it was tied five seconds later.

At any rate, the #1 seed is now out of the picture, and fine whatever, We Don't Want That Bullseye Anyway and all that.  The ACC season is upon us, with some opportunities to do some major damage.  It is now Hit A Terp With A Stick Week, which is my way of saying it's time to play Maryland, and you know how it is here at Maryland: we don't lose to Virginia.  So they have that going for them, especially in things like football and baseball and basketball and whatnot.  Maryland will go in slightly shorthanded after this little altercation that forced us to miss the first five minutes of our game while the refs decided who exactly should be ejected.  Maryland's #41 in that video - the guy who delivered the cross-check, and shortly thereafter several punches, to a Tar Heel's head - is second-line midfielder Kevin Cooper, who'll miss the UVA game by NCAA statute that requires a one-game suspension for players ejected for fighting.  This isn't exactly Cornell minus Rob Pannell, but they did seem to think enough of Cooper to have him out there for the game's crucial furious-rally moments.  I don't care enough to get involved in the debate between There's No Place For That In Lacrosse and He's A Classy Kid Who Got Caught Up In The Moment - I simply enjoy watching players from our next opponent, regardless of who it is, remove themselves from our game with them.

Ultimately, though, the impact of Cooper's suspension on the UVA game is likely to be so negligible as to be not worth analyzing.  Unless for some reason the NCAA suspends both Carolina's and Maryland's entire team - except for the guys currently on the field - for leaving the bench.  That'd be fun if it happened, which it won't.

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Fortunately, the baseball weekend went a lot better, with a sweep over now 3-6 Clemson.  I fear I may have overrated the Tigers in my season preview; they have no hitting, and in my humble estimation the wrong pitchers are in the starting rotation.  The bottom of the order is terrible, and the bottom starts at like #5.  The one guy who should have been bashing - third baseman Richie Shaffer - went zero-for-three-games with four strikeouts.

The stories of each of the three games were, in order, Jared King, Branden Kline, and Jason Stolz's absolutely terrible bunt.  (This is why Brian O'Connor's philosophy is you don't play if you can't bunt.)  Said bunt was representative of UVA's fielding cutting down Clemson's chances and limiting them to one run in the innings they did score, when they could've had more.  UVA turned, on Sunday, some unorthodox double plays, including 3-6-3, 1-6-3, and most notably, 1-6; the latter was Stolz's popped-up bunt to Austin Young, who then doubled off the baserunner at second that had no business not already diving the hell back to the bag when that bunt went upwards in the first place.

The starting pitching was outstanding all weekend, especially Saturday's starter, Kline.  To start the game, Kline allowed a triple and a sac fly, and then nine innings of zeroes save for one scratch single.  That's how you earn ACC Pitcher of the Week.  (That article notes that UVA leads all teams with 23 Pitcher of the Week awards in the last nine years.  If I were less lazy I would find out how many of them are Danny Hultzen.  I bet the answer lies somewhere between "several" and "many.")

It's also how you earn the confidence of every observer, including the ones that matter and make the decisions.  Artie Lewicki was also strong on Sunday, and if that kind of thing continues and Whit Mayberry comes back strong from his elbow issues, the Hoos will have four solid starters, a prerequisite for serious contention in postseason play.  I don't think there'll ever be a group that holds a candle to what we had last year - for crying out loud the third-best guy was the one who threw the perfect game - but this group of four, if pitching up to their actual reachable potential, is the kind of group that launches you to postseason overachievement.

UVA has two games against Towson this week, and then a very tough weekend matchup looms against NC State.  The Wolfpack always seem to have our number, and the games are on the road, and that's a tough team this year that took two of three from Georgia Tech, swept the halfway-decent Wake Forest, and threatens tonight to also take a series from North Carolina.

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The latest hilarious googletubes rumor is the idea of Seth Greenberg going to SMU - remember they will be in the Biggish Eastish next year as part of that conference's master plan to to dilute the everloving piss out of their basketball product - to replace the lately fired Matt Doherty. (As the guy who led North Carolina all the way to the NIT and took the SMU program from 11th place in a 12-team conference to 11th place in a 12-team conference, Doherty's skills will no doubt be in high demand.  In, like, Estonia.)  I don't put any stock in the idea really; unless there's a huge pay raise involved or Greenberg just loves Dallas, that job would be a huge step down.  Even from VT.  Still, the idea is sobering.  The day Greenberg is no longer in charge in Blacksburg will be a sad one at the FOV offices.  Greenberg's style is enjoyable if you're rooting against the Hokies; his teams are undisciplined and just this side of unwatchable most of the time, and he's always good for some quotes when the tournament committee once again deems VT the 39th-best at-large team in the country, out of 37 actual tourney entrants.  That said, he's an excellent recruiter.  Unless they're paying lottery jackpot money, I'm very skeptical of the Hokies' ability to find a coach, when the time comes, that can match Greenberg's success.

series preview: Clemson

Date/Time: Fri-Sun, March 23-25, 6:00, 1:00, 1:00

TV: None

History against the Tigers: 45-101

Last matchup: UVA series sweep (5-0, 8-7, 7-6); 3/11-3/13/11; Clemson

Last game: UVA 12, VMI 3 (3/21); Clemson 4, Elon 2 (3/21)

Last weekend: FSU 3-0 over UVA; Clemson 3-0 over BC

National rankings:

Baseball America: UVA unranked; Clemson unranked
Collegiate Baseball: UVA unranked; Clemson unranked
NCBWA: UVA #30; Clemson #23
Perfect Game: UVA unranked; Clemson #37
Coaches: UVA unranked; Clemson unranked
Composite: UVA unranked; Clemson unranked

Opposing blogs: Shakin' the Southland

Clemson lineup:

C: Spencer Kieboom (.232-1-9)
1B: Jon McGibbon (.208-1-8)
2B: Steve Wilkerson (.394-0-11)
3B: Richie Shaffer (.358-4-16)
SS: Jason Stolz (.299-1-6)
LF: Dominic Attanasio (.179-0-6)
CF: Thomas Brittle (.259-0-5)
RF: Brad Felder (.208-3-9)
DH: Phil Pohl (.324-3-21)

Pitching probables:

Friday: Scott Silverstein (1-2, 2.22, 28 Ks) vs. Kevin Brady (1-1, 2.89, 31 Ks)
Saturday: Branden Kline (3-2, 3.69, 29 Ks) vs. Dominic Leone (3-1, 5.09, 16 Ks)
Sunday: Artie Lewicki (0-1, 4.95, 17 Ks) vs. Kevin Pohle (3-0, 1.09, 19 Ks)

Before we begin, lemme just get this off my chest: this series always screws with my head because "Tigers baseball" is something I've been a fan of since I was four.  Just not the Clemson version.  Anyway.

I don't like to use the word "reeling," specifically because sportswriters do like it, and it's thus heavily overused.  It'd probably be fair to use it, though, if the Hoos fail to take two of three this weekend.  After blowing two leads in Tallahassee (three, really, but Saturday was so ugly you can't really count it) and going from a chance to take two of three from FSU to getting swept, it'd put a major crimp in this season's plans if we can't get a series win here.  Remember that only the top 8 make the ACC tournament.

-- UVA at the plate

Believe it or not, the Hoos actually lead the conference in batting average.  Hitting was not really the problem last weekend, although despite the ACC-leading numbers, the bats aren't quite what we're used to.  Production has been solid, but not spectacular.

Clemson has an extreme dearth of left-handed pitching; there are just two southpaws on the roster, one of whom hasn't pitched at all and the other having thrown just 1.1 innings.  The full diet of right-handed throwers means we may not see much of Mitchell Shifflett; the outfield is where the lineup has the most flexibility, and you should expect mostly to see the switch-hitting Reed Gragnani and lefty Mike Papi.  (Shifflett is batting .400, so will he sit the whole weekend?  Uh, no.  But still.)

Friday's starter Kevin Brady is a real flamethrower; his fastball sits in the mid 90s, easy, and reaches 96.  A tough assignment for college hitters.  On Saturday, the Hoos will face Dominic Leone, whose ERA for the season sat at 6.61 before he was able to work that down a bit against Boston College's anemic lineup.  (Why why why can't we play BC this year?  On second thought - we lost to them once, so forget it.  Ugh.)  Leone's K/BB ratio is a fingernail's width above 1, not a good sign for his future.  Sunday, there's Kevin Pohle, whose 1.09 ERA looks gaudy, but is bound to rise; he's allowing a .263 opponent's BA and by himself has given up one-fourth of the extra-base hits allowed by Clemson pitching.

Overall, the UVA bats should be able to find success, particularly on Saturday and Sunday.  Fireballers like Brady can be unpredictable, but Brady is probably the best pitcher on either squad.  If UVA can get past him and get a Friday win, we can start feeling very good about the weekend at large.

-- UVA in the field

Surprisingly, Whit Mayberry will not get a start this weekend; I can only guess that's the result of the arm trouble that shut him down early last Monday.  Ugh ugh ugh.  After a sparkling outing last Sunday, Branden Kline gets the same spot in the rotation this week, and Artie Lewicki will take Mayberry's place in the rotation.

Clemson's lineup is alternately frightening and laughable.  You've got to be extra careful pitching to Richie Shaffer, who has four homers already and is hitting .358, and has 21 walks too.  In other words he's like Clemson's version of St. James Ramsey, only without the ability to cure cancer.  (Probably.)  Leadoff hitter Steve Wilkerson is hitting .394, and if he walked a little more he'd approach a .500 OBP.  Phil Pohl is also a worthy hitter.

However, it drops off pretty quick, and pretty steeply.  Clemson hasn't been able to settle on a left fielder, because neither Dominic Attanasio nor Tyler Slaton can get themselves to the Mendoza Line.  At first base, which ought to be a position of production, Jon McGibbon is hitting .208.  So is RF Brad Felder, but at least he's like a miniature Rob Deer with a little pop to go with his terrible batting average.

At least there's lefty-righty balance; the whole outfield bats left-handed, as does McGibbon, and Wilkerson is a switch-hitter.  Still, the key is getting past the top four hitters.  There might not be a more disparate lineup in the conference.  The top of it is why anyone thinks Clemson is any good.  Five through nine is why they might not make the NCAA tourney.

-- Outlook

Must get the series win here.  Taking only one game would drop us to 3-6 and give us a tremendous uphill climb, and the tourney committee will not look kindly upon the Wright State/Seton Hall debacle.  We have to make up for our OOC screwups with a strong showing in the conference, and we're not gonna have a strong showing in-conference if we can't beat flawed teams like Clemson.  The Tigers, too, are fighting for their tournament lives, and probably saying the same thing.  It's only March and we already face must-win scenarios?  Sadly, yes.