Minor housekeeping to be done on the recruiting board, and then you get to hear all about the three caballeros and their Harrisonburg adventures. Today is set aside for me to brag about my forecasting abilities.
Board here; map here. Updates:
- ATH Germone Hopper and LB Timothy Cole committed to places not named UVA, so I'd remove them, except I already did. I'm a smart one that way. Clemson and Texas, respectively, if you're wondering.
- S Alex Carter also committed somewhere not named UVA (Stanford) so he too is gone.
- Moved WR Eugene Lewis and TE Joshua Parris from green to yellow.
- Moved DT Roderick Chungong and MLB Kaiwan Lewis from yellow to green.
- Moved OL Brock Stadnik from yellow to red.
- Added OG Andre Miles-Redmond to green.
Also, the board is starting to become a lot more populated with stars.
Both Scout and 24/7 came out with their early national lists this past week. Rivals probably won't be til May and as I recall ESPN waits til early June. With Scout it's a list of 300 and 24/7, naturally, lists 247 players. Here are the ones on the recruiting board:
Scout 300:
#6 - DE Noah Spence (red)
#14 - DT Eddie Goldman (red)
#25 - QB Zeke Pike (red)
#31 - WR Leonte Carroo (red)
#44 - RB Wes Brown (green)
#47 - CB Ronald Darby (red)
#54 - CB Geno Smith (red)
#63 - OT Brock Stadnik (red)
#87 - WR Eugene Lewis (yellow)
#103 - LB Noor Davis (yellow)
#135 - OLB Eli Harold (green)
#161 - MLB Kaiwan Lewis (green)
#163 - QB Devin Fuller (red)
#186 - DE Ken Ekanem (yellow)
#195 - DT Korren Kirven (red)
#205 - MLB Quanzell Lambert (yellow)
#288 - WR Joel Caleb (yellow)
#298 - S C.J. Prosise (green)
Positions are as listed by Scout, which is always the least accurate of all the services. That's a longish list, but don't get excited. Eight are red and most of those are getting close to being dropped right off the list. Barring any shockers the only red names on that list that are remotely likely to move up in the next few weeks are Fuller and Goldman and maybe Kirven. I'm close to moving Ekanem down from yellow too, as well as Brown to yellow from green. Of the names on that list, the ones that should pique your interest the most for now are Harold, K. Lewis, and Prosise.
Caleb, by the way, is quite a surprise at just 288 considering how many people are talking him up for top prospect in the Commonwealth.
Now for the 24/7 247. Or whatever name it's supposed to go by.
#3 - DT Eddie Goldman (red)
#17 - ATH Devin Fuller (red)
#18 - QB Zeke Pike (red)
#29 - CB Geno Smith (red)
#32 - WDE Noah Spence (red)
#34 - OLB Noor Davis (yellow)
#38 - WDE Eli Harold (green)
#55 - WR Joel Caleb (yellow)
#63 - DT Korren Kirven (red)
#64 - ATH Ronald Darby (red)
#72 - OT Brock Stadnik (red)
#97 - ILB Kwontie Moore (blue)
#125 - SDE Michael Moore (blue)
#127 - OLB Quanzell Lambert (yellow)
#139 - OLB Deontay McManus (yellow)
#150 - ATH Cyrus Jones (yellow)
#159 - WDE Ken Ekanem (yellow)
#168 - WR Canaan Severin (yellow)
#171 - RB Wes Brown (green)
#200 - OT Greg Pyke (red)
#202 - OT Adam Bisnowaty (green)
#219 - WR Eugene Lewis (yellow)
#220 - WR Anthony Cooper (blue)
#236 - DT Courtnye Wynn (blue)
#240 - ILB Kaiwan Lewis (green)
#245 - WR Leonte Carroo (red)
Again, positions as listed on the site. This is a much more Virginia-friendly list. If you're the optimistic type you're advised to use this one. Not just players UVA is "in on," there are four here who I do think will be Hoos (both Moores, Cooper, and Wynn) and a few other names to follow with great interest (Harold, Bisnowaty, K. Lewis.) This could be the result of the fact that 24/7 doesn't have affiliates for every team out there yet but does have a UVA affiliate.
Anyway, if that list holds, UVA is set up very well for a solid national ranking from at least one of the sites.
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NC State hired former Alabama coach Mark Gottfried to coach their basketball team, which I'm personally really disappointed about because I don't have even the slightest opinion about that. That leaves just one ACC program left that's looking for a coach, which is Miami after Frank Haith surprisingly jumped ship to Missouri. Haith was on the bottom tier of coaches in the league, but it's only about 50/50 they'll improve on him this late in the process.
So that leaves our jolly crew of Harrisonburg revelers: Ausar Walcott, Mike Price, and Devin Wallace, as you'll recall, who barged into a party one day in January and started harshing everyone's mellow by yelling and throwing punches. They chose this course of action because somebody was hollering racial slurs at them. You stay classy, JMU.
I told you back then that Racist Guy would be in hot water if he were identified, and lo and behold, he was and is. As well he should. Score one for me. I said also that the felony charges would disappear and they'd each get slapped with a misdemeanor or two after their lawyers worked out a deal, and score two for me because that's the way it went down.
So Walcott is free and clear in the eyes of the law and Price and Wallace have a year of probation each. None of them are free and clear in the eyes of the London; all remain suspended and probably will until semester grades are out. Many Hoo fans are of the opinion Walcott should be reinstated since he was cleared by the courts, but that's crap: just because he was found to have committed no crime doesn't mean he was conducting himself within the bounds of expectations for a UVA football players. I'm still of the opinion Wallace should be gone now that a conviction has been reached, as punishment for lying by omission to London about his previous run-in with the law. But I'm perfectly fine with continuing Walcott's suspension until he jumps through his hoops. Maybe there are fewer hoops since he apparently had the good sense not to throw a punch, but he still wasn't conducting himself professionally at all.
And - not at all condoning Price's decision to slug the 165-pound Nathan Yowell, who was being a twerp for no good reason other than an overabundance of Natty Light - but I'll bet Yowell never, ever again mouths off to three pissed-off football players, and has learned the definition of "middleweight."
Showing posts with label price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label price. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
game preview: Florida State
Date/Time: February 12, 3:00TV: RSN
History against the Noles: 17-18
Last matchup: FSU 69, UVA 50; 2/17/10; Charlottesville
Last game: Miami 70, UVA 68 (2/5); FSU 72, GT 63 (2/10)
Opposing blogs: Tomahawk Nation, Scalp 'Em
KenPom:
National: UVA #123; FSU #43
Offense: UVA #117; FSU #193
Defense: UVA #136; FSU #2
This is a day early; you get nothing tomorrow because I'm flying to New Mexico to go skiing. Skiing is the shit. I don't know if I'll have anything Monday or not. Possibly, bordering on probably. In fact, maybe it's kinda likely after all, because, having posted yesterday what passes for a lacrosse season preview, I now have baseball to get to. And other stuff. So yeah, posting on Monday. But not tomorrow.
Florida State, in a nutshell, plays defense. Amazing defense. If they could score like even a medium-good team instead of the Sun Belt-level output they have - note the KenPom national ranking of 193 out of 345 on offense - they'd be a top-16 outfit. But they don't, so they're not.
HOW WE CAN WIN
- Start hot. FSU's defense is insanely good. They block a ton of shots, so you can't count on driving to the hoop for layups. They're athletic as hell and can deny the three-point shot. You've got to loosen them up a little, and you can do this by hitting the first threes to make them respect the ability to do that. Otherwise they'll just swat every layup you try, they're that good at shot-blocking.
- Yet more active hands. One reason FSU is worse than mediocre on offense is because they turn the ball over a ton. Almost a quarter of their possessions end in turnovers, which is horrible. This worked against Clemson and it worked against Miami, with plenty of steals against both. FSU is also prone to losing the ball.
- Let Chris Singleton get what he gets, and deny everyone else. Singleton is FSU's go-to guy, but he's not actually an elite scorer like a Malcolm Delaney. FSU is deep, with pretty much everyone being capable of scoring, but they're basically a collection of role players. They can be stopped if your defense is stout enough. They're dangerous mostly only if you let them be. Singleton's an NBA talent, and at first glance he looks like the guy you ought to game-plan against, but he's just not gonna go off for 30 points all of a sudden. The defensive plan should focus on winning as many one-on-one matchups as we can and double-teaming the post when necessary.
HOW WE CAN LOSE
- Pass the ball around the perimeter until the shot clock reaches four, then hork up an ugly, off-balance three. This is our usual modus operandi against good defensive teams. It never works. It's the sort of thing I envision happening on a third or so of our possessions.
- Don't finish layups, regardless of whether or not we're fouled. If I were Leonard Hamilton, I'd be having my players go crazy-aggressive for the shot block any time a Hoo gets within eight feet of the basket, and don't worry if you foul. Like UVA can hit a free throw. And FSU runs deep - they can handle foul trouble. Getting slammed on the arms by someone intent on making triple sure the ball goes nowhere near the hoop is one thing, but any time there's a layup or dunk opportunity, it really needs to go through whether or not there's a foul, because otherwise those points will probably just get left there and not go on the board.
HOW THE GAME WILL GO
If this were a home game, I might look at our close games lately and find reason to be optimistic. FSU's conference losses are all on the road, and in fact they tend to play poorly there. At home, though, even Duke has felt their wrath. They've been beatable in Tallahassee only by teams named Ohio State. (OK, Florida beat them too, but still. By four, and Florida's ranked for a reason.) That alone is reason for great pessimism. Then there's FSU's defense. A really, really good defense against an offense made of spit and duct tape is a bad formula. At this point I've got no illusions that UVA'll finish out of the double digits in ACC tournament seeding, but I do think we've got one upset in us that'll make some other team's fans deploy swear words and strong pessimistic opinions about their future prospects. This is not that game.
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In what seems destined to be an ongoing story, here is the Cav Daily update on the Three Knuckleteers that got themselves in hot water in Harrisonburg. Let's pretend for a minute that everything printed in the papers - except the eyewitness account from the Cav Daily which we can assume is truthful but biased - is gospel truth; here is what we know so far:
- Wallace, Walcott, and Price (a name for a law firm if I ever heard one) are each charged with three misdemeanors ("assault and battery by mob") and one felony ("burglary-entering a dwelling with the intent to commit an assault") each.
- This is because they barged into what sounds like your average college party, which no doubt was in full swing at 1:30 in the morning, and started throwing punches. One guy got a split lip and eight stitches; the other trip to the hospital was probably something similar.
- This is the second time Wallace has been arrested for something, and he didn't tell either the coaches or the school. Neither did he bother ever going back to Harrisonburg for any court proceedings whatsoever, nor pay his fine.
These are the facts. The opinions, then:
- The felony charge will probably be dropped. Yes, they are each guilty as sin of the very letter of the wording, but the courts typically are loath to wring felony charges out of a simple college brawl, which happens all the time. As long as the defendants do the proper amount of yes-sir'ing and don't yell THE BITCH HAD IT COMING in court, their lawyers will plead this thing down to a misdemeanor or two each.
- Kyle Kelly, the JMU student quoted in the Cav Daily, is probably telling the truth, mostly, but I don't buy the babe-in-the-woods line about "gee, I have no idea why they'd want to fight." Maybe he doesn't, but someone does. If there were racial slurs being thrown around (and this is credible because Kelly mentions it right off the bat, rather than this coming out as a statement some weeks later) and if the police pinpoint the speaker (very unlikely, but you never know) then that person's in hot water too. Regardless, fights always take two sides to start.
- Even so. What the fuck, gentlemen. How hard is it to just flip the bird and walk away from the house?
- Wallace should be gone. I don't blame London for not giving him the ax right away, because there are facts to be found. But if he's not kicked off the team, it sends the message that if you get in a little court trouble out of town, the best thing to do is never tell anyone. It's pretty obvious Wallace never bothered showing up for any of the court proceedings from his previous minor-in-possession or whatever he got. I bet he doesn't even know his damn sentence. Or didn't. He figured he'd just blow the whole thing right off and hide it from Coach. Then he's stupid enough to go back to Harrisonburg. And get in more trouble. MIPs (that's what we call 'em here in Michigan) are never a big deal in my book - I really don't care and neither does anyone except the media - but not telling Coach, and blowing off the proceedings, is. So is this little beatdown. Wallace should be kicked off this team.
- Price and Walcott's scholarships should hang in the balance until the semester grades are out. No spring practice. After a while they can come back and lift, but make them jump through every hoop in front of them to try and keep that scholarship. Study their asses off, follow all the provisions of their eventual sentence and be there for every court date, and get exceptional grades. And definitely no more JMU trips for either of them or any partying at other schools. The usual show-me-you're-serious stuff. And then, if they make it, suspend them for two games of the season. That's how I'd roll with this if it were me.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
the lacrosse schedule
If you're ready for UVA to finally be a dominant force in college athletics, then you're ready for lacrosse season. That kicks off officially on Saturday the 19th, so to get you prepared, here's a primer on the opponents UVA faces off against this year. The opponents are typically almost identical from year to year, with just a couple changes each season. The ACC has just four teams, so UVA is free to schedule just about whomever they like, and that means big-time rivalries outside the conference.
UVA is ranked #1 in the coaches' poll, and 2nd in the media poll, to start the season - a familiar position. The trick has been staying there.
Quick explanation of the categories below: Preseason rank is first the media poll, then the coaches'. The computer is the final LaxPower computer rankings from 2010.
Drexel - Sat., February 19 - Home
Conference: CAA
Preseason rank: 16th/18th
2010 computer: 14th
Last season: W, 11-8
Drexel has been the season-opening game since 2002 and probably will be for a while. It's a good, medium-tough test to open the season; they were even good for an upset in 2007. They return most of their scorers and a solid goalie, and gave UVA a run last season; they led 7-6 to start the fourth quarter, and it took a three-goal outburst in the final four minutes to secure the win.
Mount St. Mary's - Tue., February 22 - Home
Conference: MAAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 32nd
Last season: W, 15-7; W, 18-4 (NCAA)
A familiar opponent, and not a good one. MSM earned the MAAC autobid to the tournament last year by upsetting somewhat favored Siena in their conference tournament. The Mount, as they go by, has been on the receiving end of a lot of UVA-administered curbstompings. The regular season game wasn't as close as it looked, as they did half that scoring against our third string. Typically this is a good game to find out about the freshmen and sophomores that'll be making themselves known this season, because Dom Starsia tends to go easy on using the first lineup. They do have a dangerous attackman in junior Cody Lehrer, who'll provide a good test for our rebuilt defense.
Stony Brook - Sat., February 26 - Away
Conference: America East
Preseason rank: 8th/6th
2010 computer: 8th
Last season: W, 13-8; W, 10-9 (NCAA)
This used to be easier, but Stony Brook is situated smack in the middle of Long Island, which is like being in Florida for football. Now they're the hot pick to be lacrosse's Butler. And the game is at their place, which came awfully close to being a house of horrors last year in the NCAA tournament. Stellar face-off man Adam Rand is back, which is the biggest reason this is a hugely dangerous game. WE CANNOT WIN FACE-OFFS and I will probably complain about this twenty thousand times this spring. Rand won 18 of 23 against us last May, causing UVA lacrosse fans to repeatedly throw heavy objects at the TV. The good news is, Stony Brook breaks in a new goalie this year, which could end up being their Achilles heel against our especially fearsome attack. But, you can't score without the ball, and Stony Brook returns two of a three-headed scoring monster in Jordan McBride and Tom Compitello. Could be just as tough a game as Syracuse.
VMI - Mon., February 28 - Home
Conference: MAAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 57th
Last season: W, 20-6
That's "57th of 60." VMI is a doormat. Last year's game saw UVA's starting goalie Adam Ghitelman pulled at halftime, and by the time the final horn sounded we were down to the fourth string. A tune-up scrimmage for the big fish at the end of the week...
Syracuse - Fri., March 4 - Away
Conference: Big East
Preseason rank: 1st/2nd
2010 computer: 3rd
Last season: W, 11-10
How close are these games? The announcers mentioned during last year's game that the all-time series between the two schools was dead even - in goals. So of course UVA took the game by a single point: the usual margin of victory. Make no mistake, this is a clash of the titans, and barring a loss to Stony Brook the previous weekend, it'll be for the #1 ranking. (And to think, it almost wasn't even on TV.) And this, too, is on the road, in the enormous Carrier Dome, where UVA/Syracuse has been known to draw 16,000 fans. Both teams have outstanding senior goalies with very similar traits. Syracuse is actually missing its top two scorers from last year, but the leading goal-scorer (Stephen Keogh) returns, and Syracuse is always obnoxiously deep so it hardly matters.
Vermont - Tue., March 8 - Home
Conference: America East
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 49th
Last season: W, 18-7
Finished 3-13 and in the bottom half of their conference last year and picked even lower this year. UVA is the highlight of their schedule, but this is a team that inhabits the bottom quarter of college lacrosse, the last of the punching bags before the real gauntlet begins.
Cornell - Sat., March 12 - Baltimore
Conference: Ivy League
Preseason rank: 7th/8th
2010 computer: 10th
Last season: W, 12-4
Last year I was all worried because of the previous season's tournament debacle in Foxborough, and we went out and had one of the easiest games of the year. In Ithaca. Go figure. Adam Ghitelman stood on his head and saved 14 of 17 shots on goal against him. Cornell relied on a two-man freak show to score most of their goals; the playmaking half, Rob Pannell, is back, but scorer Ryan Hurley is gone. This has the feeling of a team that might be a touch overrated to start the season, because of the loss of Hurley and a number of their better defenders. But the Ivy League is no slouch of a lacrosse league and they should still be the best team in it.
Ohio State - Sat., March 19 - Home
Conference: ECAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 28th
Last season: N/A
This is one of the two new games on the schedule, and you bet your sweet bippy I'm friggin' thrilled about this. You could say it replaces the Towson game, but Towson's a quality team so I prefer to assume Good Stony Brook replaces Towson while Ohio State replaces Medium-Crappy Stony Brook. The Midwest is trying to get a foothold in college lacrosse, and OSU scored a surprise win over Cornell in the NCAA tournament in 2008, but since then they've regressed a bit. Got some young scoring punch, but a lousy faceoff man, so they probably won't be able to take advantage of our #1 weakness. (Have I mentioned we suck at faceoffs? We suck at faceoffs.) OSU's a relatively new arrival on the scene - it's only in the last decade or so that they've gotten serious about D-I lacrosse, and they've been taking it three steps forward and two steps back. This is a team I'd love to assist with the latter process.
Johns Hopkins - Sat., March 26 - Away
Conference: Independent
Preseason rank: 11th/11th
2010 computer: 12th
Last season: W, 15-6
This has been a surprisingly one-sided series lately, and it shouldn't be that way. Really. Hopkins, obviously, is not the kind of team UVA should be beating by a combined score of 34-14 in the last two games, but we have. It's a big rivalry that's been a bit tarnished lately, not least because Hopkins - normally a tournament fixture - had to claw their way in last year and then bowed out uncompetitively to Duke in the first round. Not a good season, especially not by Hopkins' standards. And Hopkins was slammed by senior departures, too. They did get a head start in net by replacing faltering senior Michael Gvozden with freshman Pierce Bassett - in fact, that switch happened in the middle of the UVA game, and was permanent. It didn't stop UVA shots from finding the back of the net with impunity, and it didn't improve things much on the record sheet, but it did put an end to the blowouts until that Duke game. Unfortunately, though, I don't think this'll be Hopkins's year for a return to glory.
Maryland - Sat., April 2 - Home
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 4th/4th
2010 computer: 4th
Last season: W, 11-10; W, 11-6 (ACC)
Sadly for me, Maryland fired coach Dave Cottle after last season, on account of being tired of being NCAA bridesmaids. Never could get them to the finals. Cottle was enormously entertaining when he was angry. His face looked like a big square, squinty strawberry. Maryland took a bit of a flyer on Harvard head coach John Tillman, who was once an assistant down the road at Navy and appeared to have the Crimson inching upwards in the Ivy League hierarchy. UVA has had Maryland's number lately the same way Duke's had ours, but that means nothing come game time. The good news is, evil UVA nemesis Will Yeatman, who stood 8-foot-10 and weighed 450 pounds, is gone - the guy played tight end on the football team and was kind of big for that position too, let alone the lacrosse field, and he always seemed to rack up hat tricks against UVA. The bad news is, basically everyone else returns, except the goalie. It's the ACC, yo - it's a dogfight every year.
North Carolina - Sat., April 9 - Home
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 3rd/3rd
2010 computer: 5th
Last season: W, 7-5
Seriously, the ACC has four teams in it, and they're all in the top five. We should never have let Syracuse stay in the Big East. The only things you need to really know about Carolina are that they're still really damn good; and Billy "Sidney Crosby" Bitter is still on the team, just as he has been since nineteen-dickety-three, so you'll get to hear his name a lot whether or not UNC is actually participating in the game in front of your nose.
Duke - Sat., April 16 - Away
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 5th/5th
2010 computer: 2nd
Last season: L, 9-13; W, 16-12 (ACC); L, 13-14 (NCAA)
If somehow Duke could lose in the opposite ACC semifinal game every year, we'd never lose an ACC championship. The regular seasons lately, not to mention the ACC tournament except for getting the monkey off our back last year, have all boiled down to sweeping our way to the #1 ranking and then having to play Duke and having it all go for naught. Figures they'd land in our way in the NCAAs in 2010. Beating them in the ACC semis last year was nice - really nice - but until we can get an actual win streak going against them I figure it doesn't matter who their actual players are: a monkey in a Duke uniform would score a timely goal against us simply because the fates have decreed it.
Pennsylvania - Sat., April 30 - Home
Conference: Ivy League
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 30th
Last season: N/A
Despite playing in the lacrosse-strong Ivy League and their location in and around lacrosse hotbeds, Penn is no real threat. The ACC tournament precedes this game; it's something the team's been doing lately, playing a medium-bad team to stay fresh for the NCAAs.
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The story around our own team this season is the Bratton twins and the rest of their senior class, which was quite the recruiting story when they signed in 2007. Rhamel and Shamel are amazing athletes, specializing in the "argh don't shoot that what are you thinkYESSSSSS!!!" In years past UVA's headline players have typically been attackmen - think Danny Glading or Ben Rubeor - but the Brattons are offensive midfielders, meaning a lot of our highlight goals will be slung at the net from long distance. Which is always exciting. The offense is going to be a powerhouse; the question is whether the defense can keep up. There'll be a lot of inexperience back there, and hopefully not too much reliance on Adam Ghitelman in net. Ghitelman is one of the best goalies in the country with the ball already on his stick, and has the ability to suddenly decide nothing's going in the net and play like the Incredible HulkGoalie. And then he'll let in a floater from twenty yards. Hopefully as a senior he'll put it all together and play like an MVP. If the defense gels early, the team will be mighty and unstoppable (except by monkeys in Duke jerseys); if not, it'll be a slightly bumpy year.
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A little clarity on the football roster situation today:
- Space just got a little less tight with Torrey Mack's apparently academic-related attrition. We can afford this. As I've mentioned Mack was facing perform-or-else time this offseason with Kevin Parks taking off the redshirt and Clifton Richardson entering. Perry Jones, a year behind, had already lapped him. This means that Richardson's a lock and a half not to redshirt, barring injury. The scholarship count: 90.
- So those suspensions the other day: annoyingly police-related, after all. Oh, and Devin Wallace conveniently neglected to mention a previous run-in with the law to Mike London, who showed remarkable self-restraint in not ripping his head completely off. At least I assume so. At this point I'd put Walcott's and Price's return at 50/50, depending on what happens with that felony charge. And that's probably optimistic. (I'm so fucking glad I finally got to use the words "felony charge" in conjunction with UVA football. I think this signals our return to the big-time, don't you? The big programs down south go through this every year.) There are so many different ways Wallace could find himself disassociated with UVA that Vegas is opening a line:
100/1: UVA Judiciary boots him
100/1: UVA Honor boots him
50/1: Craig Littlepage boots him
25/1: Kind of hard to play college football in jail
1/1: London considers this strikes two, three, four, and five and congratulates Jared Detrick on his fifth year of scholarship football, courtesy of his numbnuts teammate
I always considered Detrick a strong possibility to be cut, but not if Ausar Walcott spends much time in the clink. Big hit to the linebacking corps, for sure. Mike Price is a problem only if Anthony Mihota goes down with injury, which, he's an offensive lineman so that's actually very possible. Cody Wallace is your only other center.
As for Devin Wallace, who, yes, is almost definitely a goner, if not for this little issue then for hiding the other one: the article said two of three assault victims were hospitalized. The third guy managed to escape serious injury probably because it was Wallace who tried to tackle him. oh SNAP.
UVA is ranked #1 in the coaches' poll, and 2nd in the media poll, to start the season - a familiar position. The trick has been staying there.
Quick explanation of the categories below: Preseason rank is first the media poll, then the coaches'. The computer is the final LaxPower computer rankings from 2010.
Drexel - Sat., February 19 - Home
Conference: CAA
Preseason rank: 16th/18th
2010 computer: 14th
Last season: W, 11-8
Drexel has been the season-opening game since 2002 and probably will be for a while. It's a good, medium-tough test to open the season; they were even good for an upset in 2007. They return most of their scorers and a solid goalie, and gave UVA a run last season; they led 7-6 to start the fourth quarter, and it took a three-goal outburst in the final four minutes to secure the win.
Mount St. Mary's - Tue., February 22 - Home
Conference: MAAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 32nd
Last season: W, 15-7; W, 18-4 (NCAA)
A familiar opponent, and not a good one. MSM earned the MAAC autobid to the tournament last year by upsetting somewhat favored Siena in their conference tournament. The Mount, as they go by, has been on the receiving end of a lot of UVA-administered curbstompings. The regular season game wasn't as close as it looked, as they did half that scoring against our third string. Typically this is a good game to find out about the freshmen and sophomores that'll be making themselves known this season, because Dom Starsia tends to go easy on using the first lineup. They do have a dangerous attackman in junior Cody Lehrer, who'll provide a good test for our rebuilt defense.
Stony Brook - Sat., February 26 - Away
Conference: America East
Preseason rank: 8th/6th
2010 computer: 8th
Last season: W, 13-8; W, 10-9 (NCAA)
This used to be easier, but Stony Brook is situated smack in the middle of Long Island, which is like being in Florida for football. Now they're the hot pick to be lacrosse's Butler. And the game is at their place, which came awfully close to being a house of horrors last year in the NCAA tournament. Stellar face-off man Adam Rand is back, which is the biggest reason this is a hugely dangerous game. WE CANNOT WIN FACE-OFFS and I will probably complain about this twenty thousand times this spring. Rand won 18 of 23 against us last May, causing UVA lacrosse fans to repeatedly throw heavy objects at the TV. The good news is, Stony Brook breaks in a new goalie this year, which could end up being their Achilles heel against our especially fearsome attack. But, you can't score without the ball, and Stony Brook returns two of a three-headed scoring monster in Jordan McBride and Tom Compitello. Could be just as tough a game as Syracuse.
VMI - Mon., February 28 - Home
Conference: MAAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 57th
Last season: W, 20-6
That's "57th of 60." VMI is a doormat. Last year's game saw UVA's starting goalie Adam Ghitelman pulled at halftime, and by the time the final horn sounded we were down to the fourth string. A tune-up scrimmage for the big fish at the end of the week...
Syracuse - Fri., March 4 - Away
Conference: Big East
Preseason rank: 1st/2nd
2010 computer: 3rd
Last season: W, 11-10
How close are these games? The announcers mentioned during last year's game that the all-time series between the two schools was dead even - in goals. So of course UVA took the game by a single point: the usual margin of victory. Make no mistake, this is a clash of the titans, and barring a loss to Stony Brook the previous weekend, it'll be for the #1 ranking. (And to think, it almost wasn't even on TV.) And this, too, is on the road, in the enormous Carrier Dome, where UVA/Syracuse has been known to draw 16,000 fans. Both teams have outstanding senior goalies with very similar traits. Syracuse is actually missing its top two scorers from last year, but the leading goal-scorer (Stephen Keogh) returns, and Syracuse is always obnoxiously deep so it hardly matters.
Vermont - Tue., March 8 - Home
Conference: America East
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 49th
Last season: W, 18-7
Finished 3-13 and in the bottom half of their conference last year and picked even lower this year. UVA is the highlight of their schedule, but this is a team that inhabits the bottom quarter of college lacrosse, the last of the punching bags before the real gauntlet begins.
Cornell - Sat., March 12 - Baltimore
Conference: Ivy League
Preseason rank: 7th/8th
2010 computer: 10th
Last season: W, 12-4
Last year I was all worried because of the previous season's tournament debacle in Foxborough, and we went out and had one of the easiest games of the year. In Ithaca. Go figure. Adam Ghitelman stood on his head and saved 14 of 17 shots on goal against him. Cornell relied on a two-man freak show to score most of their goals; the playmaking half, Rob Pannell, is back, but scorer Ryan Hurley is gone. This has the feeling of a team that might be a touch overrated to start the season, because of the loss of Hurley and a number of their better defenders. But the Ivy League is no slouch of a lacrosse league and they should still be the best team in it.
Ohio State - Sat., March 19 - Home
Conference: ECAC
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 28th
Last season: N/A
This is one of the two new games on the schedule, and you bet your sweet bippy I'm friggin' thrilled about this. You could say it replaces the Towson game, but Towson's a quality team so I prefer to assume Good Stony Brook replaces Towson while Ohio State replaces Medium-Crappy Stony Brook. The Midwest is trying to get a foothold in college lacrosse, and OSU scored a surprise win over Cornell in the NCAA tournament in 2008, but since then they've regressed a bit. Got some young scoring punch, but a lousy faceoff man, so they probably won't be able to take advantage of our #1 weakness. (Have I mentioned we suck at faceoffs? We suck at faceoffs.) OSU's a relatively new arrival on the scene - it's only in the last decade or so that they've gotten serious about D-I lacrosse, and they've been taking it three steps forward and two steps back. This is a team I'd love to assist with the latter process.
Johns Hopkins - Sat., March 26 - Away
Conference: Independent
Preseason rank: 11th/11th
2010 computer: 12th
Last season: W, 15-6
This has been a surprisingly one-sided series lately, and it shouldn't be that way. Really. Hopkins, obviously, is not the kind of team UVA should be beating by a combined score of 34-14 in the last two games, but we have. It's a big rivalry that's been a bit tarnished lately, not least because Hopkins - normally a tournament fixture - had to claw their way in last year and then bowed out uncompetitively to Duke in the first round. Not a good season, especially not by Hopkins' standards. And Hopkins was slammed by senior departures, too. They did get a head start in net by replacing faltering senior Michael Gvozden with freshman Pierce Bassett - in fact, that switch happened in the middle of the UVA game, and was permanent. It didn't stop UVA shots from finding the back of the net with impunity, and it didn't improve things much on the record sheet, but it did put an end to the blowouts until that Duke game. Unfortunately, though, I don't think this'll be Hopkins's year for a return to glory.
Maryland - Sat., April 2 - Home
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 4th/4th
2010 computer: 4th
Last season: W, 11-10; W, 11-6 (ACC)
Sadly for me, Maryland fired coach Dave Cottle after last season, on account of being tired of being NCAA bridesmaids. Never could get them to the finals. Cottle was enormously entertaining when he was angry. His face looked like a big square, squinty strawberry. Maryland took a bit of a flyer on Harvard head coach John Tillman, who was once an assistant down the road at Navy and appeared to have the Crimson inching upwards in the Ivy League hierarchy. UVA has had Maryland's number lately the same way Duke's had ours, but that means nothing come game time. The good news is, evil UVA nemesis Will Yeatman, who stood 8-foot-10 and weighed 450 pounds, is gone - the guy played tight end on the football team and was kind of big for that position too, let alone the lacrosse field, and he always seemed to rack up hat tricks against UVA. The bad news is, basically everyone else returns, except the goalie. It's the ACC, yo - it's a dogfight every year.
North Carolina - Sat., April 9 - Home
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 3rd/3rd
2010 computer: 5th
Last season: W, 7-5
Seriously, the ACC has four teams in it, and they're all in the top five. We should never have let Syracuse stay in the Big East. The only things you need to really know about Carolina are that they're still really damn good; and Billy "Sidney Crosby" Bitter is still on the team, just as he has been since nineteen-dickety-three, so you'll get to hear his name a lot whether or not UNC is actually participating in the game in front of your nose.
Duke - Sat., April 16 - Away
Conference: ACC
Preseason rank: 5th/5th
2010 computer: 2nd
Last season: L, 9-13; W, 16-12 (ACC); L, 13-14 (NCAA)
If somehow Duke could lose in the opposite ACC semifinal game every year, we'd never lose an ACC championship. The regular seasons lately, not to mention the ACC tournament except for getting the monkey off our back last year, have all boiled down to sweeping our way to the #1 ranking and then having to play Duke and having it all go for naught. Figures they'd land in our way in the NCAAs in 2010. Beating them in the ACC semis last year was nice - really nice - but until we can get an actual win streak going against them I figure it doesn't matter who their actual players are: a monkey in a Duke uniform would score a timely goal against us simply because the fates have decreed it.
Pennsylvania - Sat., April 30 - Home
Conference: Ivy League
Preseason rank: NR/NR
2010 computer: 30th
Last season: N/A
Despite playing in the lacrosse-strong Ivy League and their location in and around lacrosse hotbeds, Penn is no real threat. The ACC tournament precedes this game; it's something the team's been doing lately, playing a medium-bad team to stay fresh for the NCAAs.
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The story around our own team this season is the Bratton twins and the rest of their senior class, which was quite the recruiting story when they signed in 2007. Rhamel and Shamel are amazing athletes, specializing in the "argh don't shoot that what are you thinkYESSSSSS!!!" In years past UVA's headline players have typically been attackmen - think Danny Glading or Ben Rubeor - but the Brattons are offensive midfielders, meaning a lot of our highlight goals will be slung at the net from long distance. Which is always exciting. The offense is going to be a powerhouse; the question is whether the defense can keep up. There'll be a lot of inexperience back there, and hopefully not too much reliance on Adam Ghitelman in net. Ghitelman is one of the best goalies in the country with the ball already on his stick, and has the ability to suddenly decide nothing's going in the net and play like the Incredible HulkGoalie. And then he'll let in a floater from twenty yards. Hopefully as a senior he'll put it all together and play like an MVP. If the defense gels early, the team will be mighty and unstoppable (except by monkeys in Duke jerseys); if not, it'll be a slightly bumpy year.
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A little clarity on the football roster situation today:
- Space just got a little less tight with Torrey Mack's apparently academic-related attrition. We can afford this. As I've mentioned Mack was facing perform-or-else time this offseason with Kevin Parks taking off the redshirt and Clifton Richardson entering. Perry Jones, a year behind, had already lapped him. This means that Richardson's a lock and a half not to redshirt, barring injury. The scholarship count: 90.
- So those suspensions the other day: annoyingly police-related, after all. Oh, and Devin Wallace conveniently neglected to mention a previous run-in with the law to Mike London, who showed remarkable self-restraint in not ripping his head completely off. At least I assume so. At this point I'd put Walcott's and Price's return at 50/50, depending on what happens with that felony charge. And that's probably optimistic. (I'm so fucking glad I finally got to use the words "felony charge" in conjunction with UVA football. I think this signals our return to the big-time, don't you? The big programs down south go through this every year.) There are so many different ways Wallace could find himself disassociated with UVA that Vegas is opening a line:
100/1: UVA Judiciary boots him
100/1: UVA Honor boots him
50/1: Craig Littlepage boots him
25/1: Kind of hard to play college football in jail
1/1: London considers this strikes two, three, four, and five and congratulates Jared Detrick on his fifth year of scholarship football, courtesy of his numbnuts teammate
I always considered Detrick a strong possibility to be cut, but not if Ausar Walcott spends much time in the clink. Big hit to the linebacking corps, for sure. Mike Price is a problem only if Anthony Mihota goes down with injury, which, he's an offensive lineman so that's actually very possible. Cody Wallace is your only other center.
As for Devin Wallace, who, yes, is almost definitely a goner, if not for this little issue then for hiding the other one: the article said two of three assault victims were hospitalized. The third guy managed to escape serious injury probably because it was Wallace who tried to tackle him. oh SNAP.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
the recruit: Jay Whitmire
Name: Jay Whitmire
Position: OT
Hometown: Alexandria
School: T.C. Williams
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 290
ESPN: 77; three stars; #70 OT
Rivals: 5.7; three stars; #43 OT; VA #14
Scout: three stars; #30 OT
Other offers: Notre Dame, Penn State, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Maryland, NC State, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Duke
This is the good part. Because by this time room in the class was getting way crammed, and the coaches got real choosy about who they took a commitment from, and managed to close on most of the best targets besides. Jay Whitmire was one of the top Northern Va. targets of the year, and got a whole big list of offers real early. The ankle sprain that caused him to miss almost half the season probably prevented a few more, but regardless he was entertaining overtures from Notre Dame as late as November, a couple weeks before his commitment to UVA.
Whitmire is the top OL commit of the class by both offers and scouting services. "Athletic" is the word that gets tossed around the most; you are permitted to believe it on account of the lacrosse he plays. A 290-pound guy playing lacrosse is athletic.
On account of being an offensive lineman and missing half the year, there's not much to say about Whitmire's season, though he did happen to collect a few sacks on the defensive side. Whitmire was easily a Washington Post All-Met pick as a junior; the injury kept him off the list this fall. It probably also cost him his fourth star with Scout, though they didn't drop him too many places in their OT rankings. The rankings can be cruel to a guy with an injury.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry. Whitmire reminds me muchly of Sean Cascarano, except that Cascarano's about 20 pounds lighter and staggeringly ginger. Both are very athletic tackles with similar rankings (if ESPN had bothered) and accolades coming out of high school, and Cascarano's looking like a guy who's going to be very hard to keep off the field in his redshirt sophomore year. If not a starter, he'll still be in the rotation. Whitmire should have a similar timeline. As 98% of linemen do, he'll redshirt, and once 2012 arrives it's not hard to see Whitmire nosing into the two-deep as a redshirt freshman. Following that year, Oday Aboushi and Aaron Van Kuiken graduate, and we should see a lot of Whitmire after that.
**********************************************
A little housecleaning of the news on the street is in order:
- You know by now that Billy Baron packed up and went back to Rhode Island. I suppose it was inevitable that one of the six freshmen in this class would get squeezed out of the rotation enough to want to leave. Still, it's weird that our association with Baron was less than a year long; the guy only committed last March. Hate to say it after sending so much praise his way when he committed, but the impact here is minimal. Obviously it's got no effect on this year, and Baron was going to have to wait until at least 2012-'13 to get a real shot on the court, especially if Malcolm Brogdon turns out to be just as much all that as he's supposed to.
- Pick three different positions on the football team where we can least afford to have the inevitable attrition this offseason. How about cornerback, center, and linebacker? Welcome to your average UVA offseason. It never fucking fails. It's exactly the way things go at UVA that the guys acting like dumbasses would be the ones standing in between the starters and the totally untested freshmen - or the starters themselves with freshman backups.
In case you're too lazy to click the link, that's starting LB Ausar Walcott, potential starting CB Devin Wallace, and backup C Mike Price, all suspended indefinitely for the ever-popular "conduct detrimental to the team." Walcott's been in trouble with the law in the past, though as I recall it was something really dumb and nothing that went past "why don't you cool off in the back of the car here and then go home." This isn't police stuff, fortunately. Also fortunately, it's not actually the attrition we're waiting for; these three knuckleheads will probably be back after they demonstrate appropriate contrition, dedication, etc. etc.
- The men's tennis team is deserving of at least a quick mention - they're ranked #1, and they've played 67 matches this season and lost two. Eh, not bad. The indoor nationals are approaching - UVA hosted and won them last year - and they'll be going for four in a row in Seattle in a couple weeks. The outdoor season is the real deal (that's the one that earns you an actual NCAA championship) but the men are dominating this season in a way they didn't last year.
Position: OT
Hometown: Alexandria
School: T.C. Williams
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 290
ESPN: 77; three stars; #70 OT
Rivals: 5.7; three stars; #43 OT; VA #14
Scout: three stars; #30 OT
Other offers: Notre Dame, Penn State, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Maryland, NC State, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Duke
This is the good part. Because by this time room in the class was getting way crammed, and the coaches got real choosy about who they took a commitment from, and managed to close on most of the best targets besides. Jay Whitmire was one of the top Northern Va. targets of the year, and got a whole big list of offers real early. The ankle sprain that caused him to miss almost half the season probably prevented a few more, but regardless he was entertaining overtures from Notre Dame as late as November, a couple weeks before his commitment to UVA.
Whitmire is the top OL commit of the class by both offers and scouting services. "Athletic" is the word that gets tossed around the most; you are permitted to believe it on account of the lacrosse he plays. A 290-pound guy playing lacrosse is athletic.
On account of being an offensive lineman and missing half the year, there's not much to say about Whitmire's season, though he did happen to collect a few sacks on the defensive side. Whitmire was easily a Washington Post All-Met pick as a junior; the injury kept him off the list this fall. It probably also cost him his fourth star with Scout, though they didn't drop him too many places in their OT rankings. The rankings can be cruel to a guy with an injury.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry. Whitmire reminds me muchly of Sean Cascarano, except that Cascarano's about 20 pounds lighter and staggeringly ginger. Both are very athletic tackles with similar rankings (if ESPN had bothered) and accolades coming out of high school, and Cascarano's looking like a guy who's going to be very hard to keep off the field in his redshirt sophomore year. If not a starter, he'll still be in the rotation. Whitmire should have a similar timeline. As 98% of linemen do, he'll redshirt, and once 2012 arrives it's not hard to see Whitmire nosing into the two-deep as a redshirt freshman. Following that year, Oday Aboushi and Aaron Van Kuiken graduate, and we should see a lot of Whitmire after that.
**********************************************
A little housecleaning of the news on the street is in order:
- You know by now that Billy Baron packed up and went back to Rhode Island. I suppose it was inevitable that one of the six freshmen in this class would get squeezed out of the rotation enough to want to leave. Still, it's weird that our association with Baron was less than a year long; the guy only committed last March. Hate to say it after sending so much praise his way when he committed, but the impact here is minimal. Obviously it's got no effect on this year, and Baron was going to have to wait until at least 2012-'13 to get a real shot on the court, especially if Malcolm Brogdon turns out to be just as much all that as he's supposed to.
- Pick three different positions on the football team where we can least afford to have the inevitable attrition this offseason. How about cornerback, center, and linebacker? Welcome to your average UVA offseason. It never fucking fails. It's exactly the way things go at UVA that the guys acting like dumbasses would be the ones standing in between the starters and the totally untested freshmen - or the starters themselves with freshman backups.
In case you're too lazy to click the link, that's starting LB Ausar Walcott, potential starting CB Devin Wallace, and backup C Mike Price, all suspended indefinitely for the ever-popular "conduct detrimental to the team." Walcott's been in trouble with the law in the past, though as I recall it was something really dumb and nothing that went past "why don't you cool off in the back of the car here and then go home." This isn't police stuff, fortunately. Also fortunately, it's not actually the attrition we're waiting for; these three knuckleheads will probably be back after they demonstrate appropriate contrition, dedication, etc. etc.
- The men's tennis team is deserving of at least a quick mention - they're ranked #1, and they've played 67 matches this season and lost two. Eh, not bad. The indoor nationals are approaching - UVA hosted and won them last year - and they'll be going for four in a row in Seattle in a couple weeks. The outdoor season is the real deal (that's the one that earns you an actual NCAA championship) but the men are dominating this season in a way they didn't last year.
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