Yup, that time again. The board is here and don't forget about the map here.
Ch-ch-changes:
- Removed RB Ronald Darby (Notre Dame), QB Zeke Pike (Auburn, Michigan, or Purdue) and CB Geno Smith (nowhere yet but I'm thinking not Virginia), all from red.
- Moved LB Ken Ekanem from yellow to red.
- Moved RB Wes Brown from green to yellow.
- Added TE Blake Bars and QB Chad Voytik to yellow.
It's getting on toward the spring slow season so there won't be a lot of movement in the coming weeks. Kelby Johnson and Diamonte Bailey were late-April commits last year, but they were surprises that weren't even on the recruiting board. Until June when UVA hosts its camp and sundry other events, expect things to slow down.
And because this is Virginia and we can't ever have nice things, Will Regan is transferring. So that leaves only four of Tony Bennett's much-heralded six-man recruiting class. I guess that's one reason you don't see those too often. I'm slightly gobsmacked, but I probably shouldn't be. Regan looked to me like one of the most likely members of that class to play some meaningful minutes right away; he also looked like a guy who had less of a ceiling and less room for improvement than the others. I was wrong about the first and the transfer suggests maybe I was right about the second. With Mike Scott coming back and James Johnson entering the fray for playing time, UVA essentially loses one big man (Will Sherrill) and gains two, not to mention whatever Darion Atkins and Paul Jesperson might do. And Akil Mitchell had obviously passed Regan on the depth chart by the end of the season.
So Regan might have looked at the wall and seen some writing, even if we didn't. We could've used the insurance but Regan was recruited by Michigan, Maryland, Stanford, Providence, Penn State, etc.....he probably sees himself as more than "insurance," and you can't hardly blame him.
The impact on scholarships: I don't think we'll bring in any last-minute candidates in the 2011 class, because that would make that a class of five and you just run into the same crunch problems the six-man 2010 class had. Guys don't like to be squeezed out. What it does is takes away the decision between a transfer player this summer (who would get to start playing in 2012-13) and a 2012 freshman. Now we can have both.
This seems like as good a time as any to debut the basketball depth chart I've been working on. You'd think this would've been easier, but in football, running backs are running backs. In basketball, Joe Harris is a shooting guard who sometimes plays power forward. So it has its own challenges. Anyway, that can be found on the same page as the football one.
Lastly, get excited: yesterday I said I would likely be able to start the flow of highlight videos again. Now I can guarantee it. The Cornell lacrosse game will be ready to go shortly and after that I've got a bunch more. It won't be all at once but you'll get sweet sweet video again in the coming weeks and months.
Showing posts with label regan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regan. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
catching up
Ordinarily I'd have the Duke preview tonight, but I've run out of different ways to say just how doomed we are, and you don't need me to tell you anyway. I have catching up to do after my long weekend, so I'm gonna do that instead. And skiing in New Mexico was awesome, thank you very much. Hidden gem of skiing in the West.
- First, a recruiting board update. There's a junior day tomorrow, and like you, I'd sure like to know if it's likely Mike London can pick up his first commitment for 2012. But I do get to make the calls on the recruiting board, so here are the updates:
- Added OT Mark Harrell and DT Nigel Williams to green.
- Added WR Romond Deloatch to yellow. Deloatch is one of the very few names on the board without an offer. He'd probably be green if he had one. Nobody's offered Deloatch at all (not even verbally which is the only kind allowed at the moment anyway - it's an academics thing) but he's the kind of player you recruit anyway and hope the grades follow. Lot of talent.
- Added WR Leonte Carroo to red.
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The Duke game isn't the only thing going on tomorrow anyway. The ACC swimming championships kick off tomorrow with the women's event. It's a four-day swim meet, culminating on Saturday, and the men have their turn next week. And your humble writer is a former high school swimmer so you have to listen to me go on about it.
Last year I scored out the psych sheet and found that the women would in all likelihood breeze to the championship. They proceeded to breeze to the championship. This year's psych sheet shows a closer meet, but one that should still end with our girls on the podium again. The scores:
Virginia - 791
North Carolina - 690
Florida State - 435
Maryland - 374
Virginia Tech - 309
Duke - 212
Miami - 212
Georgia Tech - 128
NC State - 103
Clemson - 93
Boston College - 60
What is a psych sheet, you may be asking yourself? A psych sheet seeds swimmers in each event based on their best time of the season. It's highly unofficial. Well, the times are real, but the meet isn't as simple as that. There are limits both statutory and practical on how many swimmers can swim in an event. And most times will drop. Disqualifications will be a factor - they always are. Oh, and it doesn't include the diving because most schools didn't include their divers' scores. But UVA is stacked with freestylers and the highest-scoring individual event for UVA on the psych sheet is the 400-yard individual medley (IM) - 100 yards of each stroke. Having the most and fastest freestylers and the best IMers is the way to win these meets. The psych sheet may be a pretty unofficial thing (the actual lineup won't be disclosed until the actual meet) but it tells you pretty well who to watch out for. The bottom three teams will be nonfactors in the individual events, and the only real threat to another repeat championship is Carolina.
Swimmers who'll shine for UVA include Claire Crippen (sister to the recently deceased Fran) in IM events; Liz Shaw in IM and butterfly; hotshot freshman Rachel Naurath in just about anything; Lauren Perdue in sprint freestyle; and Katya Bachrouche in distance events. The grueling 1650-yard freestyle (one mile) could see a 1-2 for UVA with Bachrouche and Anne Summer Myers.
The men go next week, at which time I'll score out their psych sheet and you'll have to listen to me blab about it all over again. It's my blog and the swimmers will get their time in the sun once a year. Besides, this should be the first ACC championship of the year for UVA, so you should be excited about that.
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The schedule slugs at the ACC finally got around to letting us know about the fall football slate. NC State returns to the ACC schedule, and Boston College disappears for another three years. Of course all the times are TBA - except one. A rare Thursday night appearance is in the offing, at Miami on October 27. (UVA doesn't do Thursday night home games, so the road is the only chance for one.)
Things I think:
- The bye week is where I was hoping it was: October. I hate September bye weeks, it sucks having two weeks of football and then missing one right away. And it was before the VMI game last year, as if we needed extra practice time for VMI. This year it precedes Georgia Tech, which is terrific.
- I was hoping, though, that the September 17 weekend would be filled with something a little easier than a trip to UNC. Because London continues to sell the "team on the rise" story, going on a long winning streak to start the season would be perfect for bolstering that sales pitch. The nonconference schedule is easy as pie (assuming William & Mary got all their upset-mindedness out of their system two years ago) with Southern Miss the toughest opponent. Indiana is going through a coaching change and isn't good anyway. Idaho is Idaho.
- The OOC gets a lot harder next year, since Indiana and USM are the tail end of home-and-home agreements, and Idaho is a one-off that doesn't involve a return trip. Try TCU and Penn State, with Louisiana Tech (looks to be very recently added to the VAsports.com future schedules page, also now updated here) filling the last spot.
*********************************************
Other things:
- Ron Mattes has taken the position of OL coach at Elon. A step up, because he was officially a graduate assistant last year, which doesn't pay. Too bad, because of the highly improved play of the O-line - Mattes surely had a hand in that. But you can't keep GA's around forever; they have a two-year shelf life, per NCAA rules. TE coach Scott Wachenheim is now the OL/TE coach, which was probably the plan eventually. London's being coy about the replacement GA that'll be hired, but the rumor - which I have no qualms whatsoever about shamelessly spreading - is that it'll be Marques Hagans.
- Will Sherrill looks like a maybe for both Duke, and the rest of the year. I hate to be like this, but: ah well. This was a bigger deal in December when he first got hurt, because there were still Things To Do. Now there aren't too many tangible things that this season can accomplish, so more playing time for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan can't hurt.
- As you can see, Tech is scared shitless of London's recruiting chops, and they gently nudged aside one of their most elder statesmen as a result. Billy Hite has been at Tech longer than Beamer, but he's kind of an old guy and not much of a recruiter. Shane Beamer is, and he'll take Hite's spot as RB coach. RBs don't really need much coaching, and the position is often used for a star recruiter (like Beamer Junior) or, in UVA's case, a sounding board for offensive strategy, like former offensive coordinator Mike Faragalli. Shane Beamer gives Tech an instant boost on the recruiting trail.
- Fluff piece on Stephen Bruno, likely shortstop. Fluffy but informative. Bruno steps into Tyler Cannon's biggish shoes at the most important infield position, but Bruno hit well last year in bench duty, and there shouldn't be much, if any, loss of firepower in the lineup from this change.
Speaking of baseball, I was going to start a season preview for baseball this week, but I decided it'd be better to wait. This is because I like being right, and seeing how the lineup looks in actual games instead of a lot of guesswork is a big step in that direction. The next two weekends are important - a tournament at Auburn and a home series against East Carolina - and Brian O'Connor will probably reveal his lineups then. So after the ECU series, which is the last weekend in February, look for all the baseball you can handle.
- First, a recruiting board update. There's a junior day tomorrow, and like you, I'd sure like to know if it's likely Mike London can pick up his first commitment for 2012. But I do get to make the calls on the recruiting board, so here are the updates:
- Added OT Mark Harrell and DT Nigel Williams to green.
- Added WR Romond Deloatch to yellow. Deloatch is one of the very few names on the board without an offer. He'd probably be green if he had one. Nobody's offered Deloatch at all (not even verbally which is the only kind allowed at the moment anyway - it's an academics thing) but he's the kind of player you recruit anyway and hope the grades follow. Lot of talent.
- Added WR Leonte Carroo to red.
*********************************************
The Duke game isn't the only thing going on tomorrow anyway. The ACC swimming championships kick off tomorrow with the women's event. It's a four-day swim meet, culminating on Saturday, and the men have their turn next week. And your humble writer is a former high school swimmer so you have to listen to me go on about it.
Last year I scored out the psych sheet and found that the women would in all likelihood breeze to the championship. They proceeded to breeze to the championship. This year's psych sheet shows a closer meet, but one that should still end with our girls on the podium again. The scores:
Virginia - 791
North Carolina - 690
Florida State - 435
Maryland - 374
Virginia Tech - 309
Duke - 212
Miami - 212
Georgia Tech - 128
NC State - 103
Clemson - 93
Boston College - 60
What is a psych sheet, you may be asking yourself? A psych sheet seeds swimmers in each event based on their best time of the season. It's highly unofficial. Well, the times are real, but the meet isn't as simple as that. There are limits both statutory and practical on how many swimmers can swim in an event. And most times will drop. Disqualifications will be a factor - they always are. Oh, and it doesn't include the diving because most schools didn't include their divers' scores. But UVA is stacked with freestylers and the highest-scoring individual event for UVA on the psych sheet is the 400-yard individual medley (IM) - 100 yards of each stroke. Having the most and fastest freestylers and the best IMers is the way to win these meets. The psych sheet may be a pretty unofficial thing (the actual lineup won't be disclosed until the actual meet) but it tells you pretty well who to watch out for. The bottom three teams will be nonfactors in the individual events, and the only real threat to another repeat championship is Carolina.
Swimmers who'll shine for UVA include Claire Crippen (sister to the recently deceased Fran) in IM events; Liz Shaw in IM and butterfly; hotshot freshman Rachel Naurath in just about anything; Lauren Perdue in sprint freestyle; and Katya Bachrouche in distance events. The grueling 1650-yard freestyle (one mile) could see a 1-2 for UVA with Bachrouche and Anne Summer Myers.
The men go next week, at which time I'll score out their psych sheet and you'll have to listen to me blab about it all over again. It's my blog and the swimmers will get their time in the sun once a year. Besides, this should be the first ACC championship of the year for UVA, so you should be excited about that.
*********************************************
The schedule slugs at the ACC finally got around to letting us know about the fall football slate. NC State returns to the ACC schedule, and Boston College disappears for another three years. Of course all the times are TBA - except one. A rare Thursday night appearance is in the offing, at Miami on October 27. (UVA doesn't do Thursday night home games, so the road is the only chance for one.)
Things I think:
- The bye week is where I was hoping it was: October. I hate September bye weeks, it sucks having two weeks of football and then missing one right away. And it was before the VMI game last year, as if we needed extra practice time for VMI. This year it precedes Georgia Tech, which is terrific.
- I was hoping, though, that the September 17 weekend would be filled with something a little easier than a trip to UNC. Because London continues to sell the "team on the rise" story, going on a long winning streak to start the season would be perfect for bolstering that sales pitch. The nonconference schedule is easy as pie (assuming William & Mary got all their upset-mindedness out of their system two years ago) with Southern Miss the toughest opponent. Indiana is going through a coaching change and isn't good anyway. Idaho is Idaho.
- The OOC gets a lot harder next year, since Indiana and USM are the tail end of home-and-home agreements, and Idaho is a one-off that doesn't involve a return trip. Try TCU and Penn State, with Louisiana Tech (looks to be very recently added to the VAsports.com future schedules page, also now updated here) filling the last spot.
*********************************************
Other things:
- Ron Mattes has taken the position of OL coach at Elon. A step up, because he was officially a graduate assistant last year, which doesn't pay. Too bad, because of the highly improved play of the O-line - Mattes surely had a hand in that. But you can't keep GA's around forever; they have a two-year shelf life, per NCAA rules. TE coach Scott Wachenheim is now the OL/TE coach, which was probably the plan eventually. London's being coy about the replacement GA that'll be hired, but the rumor - which I have no qualms whatsoever about shamelessly spreading - is that it'll be Marques Hagans.
- Will Sherrill looks like a maybe for both Duke, and the rest of the year. I hate to be like this, but: ah well. This was a bigger deal in December when he first got hurt, because there were still Things To Do. Now there aren't too many tangible things that this season can accomplish, so more playing time for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan can't hurt.
- As you can see, Tech is scared shitless of London's recruiting chops, and they gently nudged aside one of their most elder statesmen as a result. Billy Hite has been at Tech longer than Beamer, but he's kind of an old guy and not much of a recruiter. Shane Beamer is, and he'll take Hite's spot as RB coach. RBs don't really need much coaching, and the position is often used for a star recruiter (like Beamer Junior) or, in UVA's case, a sounding board for offensive strategy, like former offensive coordinator Mike Faragalli. Shane Beamer gives Tech an instant boost on the recruiting trail.
- Fluff piece on Stephen Bruno, likely shortstop. Fluffy but informative. Bruno steps into Tyler Cannon's biggish shoes at the most important infield position, but Bruno hit well last year in bench duty, and there shouldn't be much, if any, loss of firepower in the lineup from this change.
Speaking of baseball, I was going to start a season preview for baseball this week, but I decided it'd be better to wait. This is because I like being right, and seeing how the lineup looks in actual games instead of a lot of guesswork is a big step in that direction. The next two weekends are important - a tournament at Auburn and a home series against East Carolina - and Brian O'Connor will probably reveal his lineups then. So after the ECU series, which is the last weekend in February, look for all the baseball you can handle.
Monday, January 10, 2011
now what?
The weekend brought two pretty significant clarifiers to the next two months of basketball. First, a loss to UNC that could easily have been a win, and second, the thoroughly unsurprising news that Mike Scott will undergo surgery and seek a medical redshirt.
Scott's news is barely even news, really. The longer he was out the more likely it became that he and the operating table would enter the ring for round two. It did come as a surprise that UVA held an 11-point lead in the second half against UNC. We learned that if we'd had Mike Scott, and if the refs ever called UNC for the moving screens and over-the-backs they commit, and if our guys really gut up and play nasty defense, and if they hit shots, and if they have a good, sold-out crowd at their back, they can almost win a game against a really good team.
Which naturally is a useless lesson on a team consisting of freshmen and Mustapha Farrakhan. I promise you there will be at least one game later this season where the team looks they have no idea why someone hung an iron circle over the pretty wooden playground, and they'll try to knock it right off its pegs. But it's nice, at least, to know what they're capable of when they play defense.
I do feel pretty confident in saying that would have been a win with Mike Scott. Once UNC figured out what we were up to on offense, they were able to use their superior athleticism to harass our guards on the perimeter and effectively put a stop to it. Hell, simply having Scott's five fouls would have been a plus; our bigs shuffled in and out all day with foul trouble. Will Regan and Akil Mitchell simply don't have the strength to consistently nullify the height disadvantage they had, and Will Sherrill is a gimp. (His effort in this game, and probably the rest of the games going forward, should not be overlooked. I refuse to go the the gym for an hour if my muscles are too damn sore from the day before; Sherrill's leg bone still isn't all in one proper piece and he goes diving onto the floor for loose balls. Then he asks to come out of the game because his tibia just bit him in the shin and gimps right back in a minute later because someone picked up a fourth foul.) Given these obstacles, the quality of defense played on the interior was astoundingly good. Regan and Mitchell are in for a baptism by fire these next two months, but that was a good start and matchup-wise they won't have it much rougher than that going forward.
The goal for the season, simply put, should be a winning record, for which we'll need to go 6-8 the rest of the way. Easily done if Mike Scott was in the lineup; a scratch-and-claw battle without. The lesson from UNC is that continuing to play like that will probably make it happen; the lesson from last season is there's no telling how many times we'll see it.
**********************************************
A quick recruiting board update is in order, with two removals due to commitments: QB Gary Nova to Rutgers and WR Demetri Knowles to Tech. Knowles is blazing fast, and the UVA staff probably would have accepted his commitment in the summer when UVA was his only offer, but he dawdled. It became clear as time went on that guys like Darius Jennings and Dominique Terrell were keeping UVA in their minds, and the class started filling up for serious, so the bus left the station. When's the last time Tech was picking up UVA's leftovers and not the other way round?
A 2012 recruiting board is in the works and should debut soonish.
Scott's news is barely even news, really. The longer he was out the more likely it became that he and the operating table would enter the ring for round two. It did come as a surprise that UVA held an 11-point lead in the second half against UNC. We learned that if we'd had Mike Scott, and if the refs ever called UNC for the moving screens and over-the-backs they commit, and if our guys really gut up and play nasty defense, and if they hit shots, and if they have a good, sold-out crowd at their back, they can almost win a game against a really good team.
Which naturally is a useless lesson on a team consisting of freshmen and Mustapha Farrakhan. I promise you there will be at least one game later this season where the team looks they have no idea why someone hung an iron circle over the pretty wooden playground, and they'll try to knock it right off its pegs. But it's nice, at least, to know what they're capable of when they play defense.
I do feel pretty confident in saying that would have been a win with Mike Scott. Once UNC figured out what we were up to on offense, they were able to use their superior athleticism to harass our guards on the perimeter and effectively put a stop to it. Hell, simply having Scott's five fouls would have been a plus; our bigs shuffled in and out all day with foul trouble. Will Regan and Akil Mitchell simply don't have the strength to consistently nullify the height disadvantage they had, and Will Sherrill is a gimp. (His effort in this game, and probably the rest of the games going forward, should not be overlooked. I refuse to go the the gym for an hour if my muscles are too damn sore from the day before; Sherrill's leg bone still isn't all in one proper piece and he goes diving onto the floor for loose balls. Then he asks to come out of the game because his tibia just bit him in the shin and gimps right back in a minute later because someone picked up a fourth foul.) Given these obstacles, the quality of defense played on the interior was astoundingly good. Regan and Mitchell are in for a baptism by fire these next two months, but that was a good start and matchup-wise they won't have it much rougher than that going forward.
The goal for the season, simply put, should be a winning record, for which we'll need to go 6-8 the rest of the way. Easily done if Mike Scott was in the lineup; a scratch-and-claw battle without. The lesson from UNC is that continuing to play like that will probably make it happen; the lesson from last season is there's no telling how many times we'll see it.
**********************************************
A quick recruiting board update is in order, with two removals due to commitments: QB Gary Nova to Rutgers and WR Demetri Knowles to Tech. Knowles is blazing fast, and the UVA staff probably would have accepted his commitment in the summer when UVA was his only offer, but he dawdled. It became clear as time went on that guys like Darius Jennings and Dominique Terrell were keeping UVA in their minds, and the class started filling up for serious, so the bus left the station. When's the last time Tech was picking up UVA's leftovers and not the other way round?
A 2012 recruiting board is in the works and should debut soonish.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
christmas wrap
It's Christmastime, the time of blessed hope and salvation and biblically exciting stuff like that, so I'll send you off into the holiday break proclaiming the good news about a few things that probably have UVA fans a little bit jittery.
- Mike Scott. "ARGH" almost turned into "ARRRRGGHGGGHGHGHHG" when it was learned about half an hour before the Oregon game tipped off that Scott had had ankle surgery and would be out of the lineup.....and then his absence nearly caused a loss to one of the nation's utter worst teams. Fortunately, the Hoos escaped with a 50-49 win over Norfolk State (after handling Oregon impressively which would have been a lot more exciting had they not just lost to Idaho last night.) Assane Sene's tip of KT Harrell's missed free throw was the difference between gnashing our collective teeth over a loss that should never happen, and shrugging our collective shoulders in a way that says, "well, we play five freshmen, what did you expect?"
Because Scott's surgery was one of those arthroscopic deals, hope remains intact that he (and possibly Will Sherrill too) can be back for the Iowa State game on New Year's Eve Eve. The wake-up call sent by Norfolk State should remind everyone that tonight's Seattle game shouldn't be taken for granted either, but there still remains a very large, shiny silver lining to these two injuries: minutes for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan that wouldn't otherwise be there. Mitchell snagged six boards in 17 minutes against Norfolk State, so things are looking up on the development front.
- Ralph Friedgen. The Fridge's firing at Maryland has a lot of media wonks wondering, "COTY fired after an 8-4 season? Why, how can this be??" Actually, it's pretty logical. Disappointing to those of us who hoped that this season would give the Maryland admin reason to allow their program to further stagnate for a couple more years, but logical nonetheless. It's not hard to look at Maryland's roster and incoming prospects and realize that 8-4 is about the peak for the program as it is now. If 8-4 and a crappy invite to the Military Bowl is the best you'll ever do under the current coach, it's time to cut bait. The Terps are totally unable to protect this house on the recruiting trail: Maryland is, pound for pound, one of the better states in the country for football talent, and these days teams all around the East Coast and Midwest just waltz in there and take what they want. Of the top 20 prospects in Maryland, the Fridge convinced just two of them to commit to the Twerps, and one of them (Jeremiah Hendy) just decommitted. UVA has five of the Rivals top 20 and could add a sixth in Darius Jennings. You can see why the Maryland brass thinks this is an unacceptable situation.
The unfortunate part of this is that Maryland is after Mike Leach, and they'll probably get him. Some folks, myself included, were hoping they'd hire Mike Locksley from New Mexico, but they're not that stupid. However. Leach is well known for being an offensive genius and for turning Texas Tech into a national title contender, if only briefly. Even so, his teams were more often of the 8-5 variety than the 11-2 type. And even in his better years, 9-win type seasons, he stumbled too frequently against the Colorados of the world to pose a major Big 12 threat. Against ACC competition that doesn't feature a Texas or an Oklahoma, Maryland fans will be thinking multiple Orange Bowls with Leach, but don't you worry: if Mike London is the right guy for our program, then he'll win his share and then some against Maryland. And if not, then it won't matter who coaches Maryland.
- Demetrious Nicholson: yessss. Consider the defensive back situation moved up a peg from "still worrisome" to "more or less addressed." UVA adds another marquee name to the '11 class, and a threat to start from Day 1. Cornerback is now officially the strength of the class, with Nicholson teaming up with Brandon Phelps (among others) to wrest the title from the defensive line.
Recruiting board is updated accordingly, as is the depth chart because it needed it. (The recruiting board also sees the departure of Travis Hughes to UNC and Blake Countess to Michigan. Both are about the best result I could hope for without them actually committing to UVA: Hughes' other choices were VT and Maryland.)
That finishes it up. Christmas break commences now. As mentioned earlier, posting resumes on either the 28th or 29th, but probably the 29th since I have a busy 28th. Unless something sufficiently awesome happens between now and then, and I feel like breaking out the laptop. Merry Christmas. Here's hoping Santa brings you everything you asked for, and with luck he'll stop by the McCue Center chimney and drop off a playmaking wide receiver.
- Mike Scott. "ARGH" almost turned into "ARRRRGGHGGGHGHGHHG" when it was learned about half an hour before the Oregon game tipped off that Scott had had ankle surgery and would be out of the lineup.....and then his absence nearly caused a loss to one of the nation's utter worst teams. Fortunately, the Hoos escaped with a 50-49 win over Norfolk State (after handling Oregon impressively which would have been a lot more exciting had they not just lost to Idaho last night.) Assane Sene's tip of KT Harrell's missed free throw was the difference between gnashing our collective teeth over a loss that should never happen, and shrugging our collective shoulders in a way that says, "well, we play five freshmen, what did you expect?"
Because Scott's surgery was one of those arthroscopic deals, hope remains intact that he (and possibly Will Sherrill too) can be back for the Iowa State game on New Year's Eve Eve. The wake-up call sent by Norfolk State should remind everyone that tonight's Seattle game shouldn't be taken for granted either, but there still remains a very large, shiny silver lining to these two injuries: minutes for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan that wouldn't otherwise be there. Mitchell snagged six boards in 17 minutes against Norfolk State, so things are looking up on the development front.
- Ralph Friedgen. The Fridge's firing at Maryland has a lot of media wonks wondering, "COTY fired after an 8-4 season? Why, how can this be??" Actually, it's pretty logical. Disappointing to those of us who hoped that this season would give the Maryland admin reason to allow their program to further stagnate for a couple more years, but logical nonetheless. It's not hard to look at Maryland's roster and incoming prospects and realize that 8-4 is about the peak for the program as it is now. If 8-4 and a crappy invite to the Military Bowl is the best you'll ever do under the current coach, it's time to cut bait. The Terps are totally unable to protect this house on the recruiting trail: Maryland is, pound for pound, one of the better states in the country for football talent, and these days teams all around the East Coast and Midwest just waltz in there and take what they want. Of the top 20 prospects in Maryland, the Fridge convinced just two of them to commit to the Twerps, and one of them (Jeremiah Hendy) just decommitted. UVA has five of the Rivals top 20 and could add a sixth in Darius Jennings. You can see why the Maryland brass thinks this is an unacceptable situation.
The unfortunate part of this is that Maryland is after Mike Leach, and they'll probably get him. Some folks, myself included, were hoping they'd hire Mike Locksley from New Mexico, but they're not that stupid. However. Leach is well known for being an offensive genius and for turning Texas Tech into a national title contender, if only briefly. Even so, his teams were more often of the 8-5 variety than the 11-2 type. And even in his better years, 9-win type seasons, he stumbled too frequently against the Colorados of the world to pose a major Big 12 threat. Against ACC competition that doesn't feature a Texas or an Oklahoma, Maryland fans will be thinking multiple Orange Bowls with Leach, but don't you worry: if Mike London is the right guy for our program, then he'll win his share and then some against Maryland. And if not, then it won't matter who coaches Maryland.
- Demetrious Nicholson: yessss. Consider the defensive back situation moved up a peg from "still worrisome" to "more or less addressed." UVA adds another marquee name to the '11 class, and a threat to start from Day 1. Cornerback is now officially the strength of the class, with Nicholson teaming up with Brandon Phelps (among others) to wrest the title from the defensive line.
Recruiting board is updated accordingly, as is the depth chart because it needed it. (The recruiting board also sees the departure of Travis Hughes to UNC and Blake Countess to Michigan. Both are about the best result I could hope for without them actually committing to UVA: Hughes' other choices were VT and Maryland.)
That finishes it up. Christmas break commences now. As mentioned earlier, posting resumes on either the 28th or 29th, but probably the 29th since I have a busy 28th. Unless something sufficiently awesome happens between now and then, and I feel like breaking out the laptop. Merry Christmas. Here's hoping Santa brings you everything you asked for, and with luck he'll stop by the McCue Center chimney and drop off a playmaking wide receiver.
Monday, November 15, 2010
weekend review
No recruiting news and no major depth chart news (I hope)** which is good because there are other sports besides football going on.
**Not counting Ras-I Dowling's unfortunate season-ending broken ankle. Dowling's been out so much this season it doesn't really have an impact on the depth chart.
But first, football anyway. High school playoffs and not-playoffs:
Collegiate 28, St. Christopher's 16: In a rematch of last week's game, Thompson Brown's season ends in the VIS Division I semifinals. Brown, again playing tight end rather than running back, caught two passes for 16 yards.
Petersburg 22, Meadowbrook 21: The Richmond-area schools still had one last regular-season game to play. Kevin Green and Petersburg played their way into the playoffs; Green threw for one touchdown, one 2PC, 103 yards, and added 84 yards and another 2PC on the ground. This was all before the fourth quarter: Green was injured on the first play of the fourth, and returned, but only to hand the ball off.
L.C. Bird 41, Midlothian 0: Anthony Harris was 8/12 for 133 yards and two touchdowns.
H.D. Woodson 14, Coolidge 2: Just one catch for Darius Redman in Woodson's first-round win. (I totally misread the Post's recitation of Woodson's playoff scenarios last week. No bye like I managed to think they had.)
Hampton 36, Lake Taylor 7: Productive day for David Watford, who accounted for 233 yards of total offense and 3 touchdowns.
Other scores:
Hermitage 41, Patrick Henry 28 (Diamonte Bailey)
Bayside 26, Cox 15 (Ross Burbank)
Stone Bridge 55, JEB Stuart 0 (Rob Burns)
I.C. Norcom 24, Churchland 18 (Kameron Mack)
Phoebus 49, Warwick 0 (Caleb Taylor)
Good Counsel 44, Gonzaga 0 (Vincent Croce)
DeMatha 34, St. John's 20 (Kelby Johnson/Jordan Lomax)
Damascus 21, Linganore 7 (Brandon Phelps)
Archbishop Curley 15, Boys' Latin 7 (Marco Jones)
Woodland Hills 29, Mt. Lebanon 22 (Tim Cwalina)
Playoff scenarios:
- Losses mean the seasons for Cwalina, Jones, and Burbank are over. Cox's loss was to be expected and it being even as close as it was, is an accomplishment. Jones and Boys' Latin were losers of a 50/50 kind of matchup; for Cwalina, the loss in the WPIAL second round was a mild upset as Mt. Lebanon hadn't lost all season.
- Two games next week will pit future Hoos against one another. DeMatha rematches with Good Counsel for the WCAC title; DeMatha won the regular season battle in the kind of game you expect between the two powerhouses. Norcom and Hampton lost only one game each all season; they face off next week.
- Hermitage faces Varina in the Central Region Division 6 semifinals; Hermitage won the regular season game between the two, 17-12.
- L.C. Bird goes against Highland Springs in the Central Region Division 5 semifinals.
- Stone Bridge faces South Lakes in the Northern Region Division 5 semis.
- The Eastern Region Division 5 semis features the aforementioned Norcom/Hampton matchup, as well as Phoebus vs. Great Bridge.
- In Maryland, the 3A West final is undefeated Damascus vs. Quince Orchard, a rematch of a close September game.
- The DCIAA championship game is H.D. Woodson vs. Ballou.
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Basketball extravaganza! The opening game against William & Mary gave us a lot to digest, mostly involving the surprise redshirt decision for James Johnson.
First, the game: it went about as well as you'd hope. UVA fans were hoping to get an answer to the question, "which freshman will make the biggest splash?" That turned out to be Billy Baron and his 5-for-6 three-point shooting, prompting every loyal Hoo fan with a rudimentary knowledge of classic movies to declare that it was "time for the old Billy Baroo."
The admittedly way too early conclusion from the game, at least as far as point guard is concerned, is that the position is well under control. Most of the team played well, as you'd hope against a rebuilding CAA team, but Baron's shooting and the overall play of Jontel Evans (3-for-4, 7 assists, 1 turnover in 31 minutes) meant that for one game at least, point guard was in good hands. (Baron is going to be on the court with Evans a lot, so he's not solely a point guard.)
But the bigger news is Johnson's redshirt. A redshirt for someone shouldn't come as a surprise. Too many candidates for the rotation, not enough spots in it. With Zeglinski out and Johnson redshirting, that leaves 10 players, and I think you'll see all of them on the court regularly until Sammy returns, at which point some other decisions will have to be made.
The impact this season is that the second-biggest guy on the team won't see the court. It'll cause matchup problems, to be sure, against big teams. But most of those teams were already going to beat hell out of us, James Johnson or no James Johnson, and they were probably going to abuse us in the post and on the boards, Johnson or no Johnson. Will the decision to redshirt Johnson cost us any wins? My guess is no. It'll probably turn some losses into ugly losses, but Johnson, like the rest of the freshman, is a 99% unknown quantity and therefore reasonably replaceable with other 99% unknown quantities (mainly Will Regan.)
Big-picture-wise, Johnson remains of course technically a member of the 2010 recruiting class, but for practical purposes this gives us the big man Bennett wanted in the '11 class. Only with a year of development in a college program rather than one more year playing overmatched competition in high school.
Tonight: USC-Upstate, which lost 66-35 on Saturday to a young and probably overmatched-in-the-Big-Ten Michigan squad. (Does that sound like anyone you know?) Upstate is probably the second-worst team we'll see all year and should present little more resistance than a speed bump.
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In Euro-football news, there's good news and bad news. The good news is a home game to start the NCAA tournament; the bad news is, UVA is unseeded, meaning a road trip if they beat first-round opponent Old Dominion.
ODU is a middling CAA team, earning an at-large pick despite not even earning a bid to the four-team CAA tournament. Like UVA, their biggest strength is in net, and like UVA, they struggle to score. Biggest win and likely reason for entry into the tournament: a 2-1 win over then-#2 North Carolina. Keeper Evan Newton is the CAA's first-team goalie, with stats just slightly worse than UVA's own Diego Restrepo. Neither team is much of an offensive powerhouse, so expect a low-scoring game. That's on Thursday.
The second-seeded ladies face Ohio State in the, uh, eighth-finals on Saturday after eliminating Lehigh and South Carolina. With the region's top seed, Maryland, out in the second round, the road to the final four is laid out clearly before them; if they get there, they'll probably have to try and get past UNC, which as you know is a women's soccer school before it's a basketball school.
It's a biggish week for UVA sporting events, so a quick schedule to keep you kept up on it all:
Monday: hoops vs. USC-Upstate
Thursday: men's soccer vs. ODU, and basketball at Stanford
Friday: field hockey, a Final Four matchup against UNC
Saturday: football at Boston College, of course, and women's soccer against Ohio State
Sunday: men's soccer at Penn State, if they win on Thursday
EDIT: Oops. Forgot the AP Poll thing. It's right here and updated for this week. Two notes:
- Overvotes returned to sanity. There aren't that many. Honestly, if I had to do it again I'd have used standard deviations instead of a single inflexible number, but this is still showing enough interesting trends that the results are useful.
- Central Florida presented an interesting case. Should they be considered an ACC or SEC regional team? I went back and forth and decided on the ACC for the simple reason that the state of Florida has two ACC teams and one SEC. So it's a little more ACC country. I guess. Anyway, it turned out not to matter. Both the SEC and ACC writers overrated them by a huge, huge margin as compared to the rest of the country. So did the ACC/SEC crossover voters. A useful data point indeed. Keep in mind that it's a lot harder to get a big bias number for the 25th team than it is for teams higher up, because there's no way of knowing whether, say, a Big Ten voter thinks they're the 26th best team or the 35th best team. Unranked in a ballot is unranked and by default, is considered a "ranking" of 26th. So the fact that Oklahoma at 19th, for example, gets a bias from Big 12 voters this week of 1.23 places probably means that Big 12 voters really do consider them 1.23 spots higher than the rest of the country. Florida gets a bias of 1.18 places from SEC voters, but it should be more because being ranked 24th means you show up unranked on a lot of ballots.
If rankings went to 30, those voters that didn't rank UCF might pile a few more teams on top of them and their average would go down. (The only way that calculated average of 25.19 would stay the same is if every voter that didn't rank UCF ranked them 26th.) So UCF's number of 2.02 from the ACC (and just under 1 from the SEC, if that were the case) is astonishing.
**Not counting Ras-I Dowling's unfortunate season-ending broken ankle. Dowling's been out so much this season it doesn't really have an impact on the depth chart.
But first, football anyway. High school playoffs and not-playoffs:
Collegiate 28, St. Christopher's 16: In a rematch of last week's game, Thompson Brown's season ends in the VIS Division I semifinals. Brown, again playing tight end rather than running back, caught two passes for 16 yards.
Petersburg 22, Meadowbrook 21: The Richmond-area schools still had one last regular-season game to play. Kevin Green and Petersburg played their way into the playoffs; Green threw for one touchdown, one 2PC, 103 yards, and added 84 yards and another 2PC on the ground. This was all before the fourth quarter: Green was injured on the first play of the fourth, and returned, but only to hand the ball off.
L.C. Bird 41, Midlothian 0: Anthony Harris was 8/12 for 133 yards and two touchdowns.
H.D. Woodson 14, Coolidge 2: Just one catch for Darius Redman in Woodson's first-round win. (I totally misread the Post's recitation of Woodson's playoff scenarios last week. No bye like I managed to think they had.)
Hampton 36, Lake Taylor 7: Productive day for David Watford, who accounted for 233 yards of total offense and 3 touchdowns.
Other scores:
Hermitage 41, Patrick Henry 28 (Diamonte Bailey)
Bayside 26, Cox 15 (Ross Burbank)
Stone Bridge 55, JEB Stuart 0 (Rob Burns)
I.C. Norcom 24, Churchland 18 (Kameron Mack)
Phoebus 49, Warwick 0 (Caleb Taylor)
Good Counsel 44, Gonzaga 0 (Vincent Croce)
DeMatha 34, St. John's 20 (Kelby Johnson/Jordan Lomax)
Damascus 21, Linganore 7 (Brandon Phelps)
Archbishop Curley 15, Boys' Latin 7 (Marco Jones)
Woodland Hills 29, Mt. Lebanon 22 (Tim Cwalina)
Playoff scenarios:
- Losses mean the seasons for Cwalina, Jones, and Burbank are over. Cox's loss was to be expected and it being even as close as it was, is an accomplishment. Jones and Boys' Latin were losers of a 50/50 kind of matchup; for Cwalina, the loss in the WPIAL second round was a mild upset as Mt. Lebanon hadn't lost all season.
- Two games next week will pit future Hoos against one another. DeMatha rematches with Good Counsel for the WCAC title; DeMatha won the regular season battle in the kind of game you expect between the two powerhouses. Norcom and Hampton lost only one game each all season; they face off next week.
- Hermitage faces Varina in the Central Region Division 6 semifinals; Hermitage won the regular season game between the two, 17-12.
- L.C. Bird goes against Highland Springs in the Central Region Division 5 semifinals.
- Stone Bridge faces South Lakes in the Northern Region Division 5 semis.
- The Eastern Region Division 5 semis features the aforementioned Norcom/Hampton matchup, as well as Phoebus vs. Great Bridge.
- In Maryland, the 3A West final is undefeated Damascus vs. Quince Orchard, a rematch of a close September game.
- The DCIAA championship game is H.D. Woodson vs. Ballou.
**************************************************
Basketball extravaganza! The opening game against William & Mary gave us a lot to digest, mostly involving the surprise redshirt decision for James Johnson.
First, the game: it went about as well as you'd hope. UVA fans were hoping to get an answer to the question, "which freshman will make the biggest splash?" That turned out to be Billy Baron and his 5-for-6 three-point shooting, prompting every loyal Hoo fan with a rudimentary knowledge of classic movies to declare that it was "time for the old Billy Baroo."
The admittedly way too early conclusion from the game, at least as far as point guard is concerned, is that the position is well under control. Most of the team played well, as you'd hope against a rebuilding CAA team, but Baron's shooting and the overall play of Jontel Evans (3-for-4, 7 assists, 1 turnover in 31 minutes) meant that for one game at least, point guard was in good hands. (Baron is going to be on the court with Evans a lot, so he's not solely a point guard.)
But the bigger news is Johnson's redshirt. A redshirt for someone shouldn't come as a surprise. Too many candidates for the rotation, not enough spots in it. With Zeglinski out and Johnson redshirting, that leaves 10 players, and I think you'll see all of them on the court regularly until Sammy returns, at which point some other decisions will have to be made.
The impact this season is that the second-biggest guy on the team won't see the court. It'll cause matchup problems, to be sure, against big teams. But most of those teams were already going to beat hell out of us, James Johnson or no James Johnson, and they were probably going to abuse us in the post and on the boards, Johnson or no Johnson. Will the decision to redshirt Johnson cost us any wins? My guess is no. It'll probably turn some losses into ugly losses, but Johnson, like the rest of the freshman, is a 99% unknown quantity and therefore reasonably replaceable with other 99% unknown quantities (mainly Will Regan.)
Big-picture-wise, Johnson remains of course technically a member of the 2010 recruiting class, but for practical purposes this gives us the big man Bennett wanted in the '11 class. Only with a year of development in a college program rather than one more year playing overmatched competition in high school.
Tonight: USC-Upstate, which lost 66-35 on Saturday to a young and probably overmatched-in-the-Big-Ten Michigan squad. (Does that sound like anyone you know?) Upstate is probably the second-worst team we'll see all year and should present little more resistance than a speed bump.
*************************************************
In Euro-football news, there's good news and bad news. The good news is a home game to start the NCAA tournament; the bad news is, UVA is unseeded, meaning a road trip if they beat first-round opponent Old Dominion.
ODU is a middling CAA team, earning an at-large pick despite not even earning a bid to the four-team CAA tournament. Like UVA, their biggest strength is in net, and like UVA, they struggle to score. Biggest win and likely reason for entry into the tournament: a 2-1 win over then-#2 North Carolina. Keeper Evan Newton is the CAA's first-team goalie, with stats just slightly worse than UVA's own Diego Restrepo. Neither team is much of an offensive powerhouse, so expect a low-scoring game. That's on Thursday.
The second-seeded ladies face Ohio State in the, uh, eighth-finals on Saturday after eliminating Lehigh and South Carolina. With the region's top seed, Maryland, out in the second round, the road to the final four is laid out clearly before them; if they get there, they'll probably have to try and get past UNC, which as you know is a women's soccer school before it's a basketball school.
It's a biggish week for UVA sporting events, so a quick schedule to keep you kept up on it all:
Monday: hoops vs. USC-Upstate
Thursday: men's soccer vs. ODU, and basketball at Stanford
Friday: field hockey, a Final Four matchup against UNC
Saturday: football at Boston College, of course, and women's soccer against Ohio State
Sunday: men's soccer at Penn State, if they win on Thursday
EDIT: Oops. Forgot the AP Poll thing. It's right here and updated for this week. Two notes:
- Overvotes returned to sanity. There aren't that many. Honestly, if I had to do it again I'd have used standard deviations instead of a single inflexible number, but this is still showing enough interesting trends that the results are useful.
- Central Florida presented an interesting case. Should they be considered an ACC or SEC regional team? I went back and forth and decided on the ACC for the simple reason that the state of Florida has two ACC teams and one SEC. So it's a little more ACC country. I guess. Anyway, it turned out not to matter. Both the SEC and ACC writers overrated them by a huge, huge margin as compared to the rest of the country. So did the ACC/SEC crossover voters. A useful data point indeed. Keep in mind that it's a lot harder to get a big bias number for the 25th team than it is for teams higher up, because there's no way of knowing whether, say, a Big Ten voter thinks they're the 26th best team or the 35th best team. Unranked in a ballot is unranked and by default, is considered a "ranking" of 26th. So the fact that Oklahoma at 19th, for example, gets a bias from Big 12 voters this week of 1.23 places probably means that Big 12 voters really do consider them 1.23 spots higher than the rest of the country. Florida gets a bias of 1.18 places from SEC voters, but it should be more because being ranked 24th means you show up unranked on a lot of ballots.
If rankings went to 30, those voters that didn't rank UCF might pile a few more teams on top of them and their average would go down. (The only way that calculated average of 25.19 would stay the same is if every voter that didn't rank UCF ranked them 26th.) So UCF's number of 2.02 from the ACC (and just under 1 from the SEC, if that were the case) is astonishing.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
bastaball, part 1
It's Maryland week, oddly late in the season for it, and I thought about mailing it in and just writing SCREW THE TERPS until it was time for the game preview, but nah. Maybe let's talk basketball instead.
Last year, despite having a totally new coach and no idea how his methods would play out, I felt frisky enough to make a few predictions, some of which even came true:
- The team would score more than 45 points in every game. (They did, and that was in response to a Doug Gottlieb column where he - I think at least half-seriously - suggested that'd be about their average.)
- The team would make a postseason tournament beyond the ACC one. (They probably would have played in the CBI had the administration shown an interest, but it costs money to play in that tournament.)
- The team would finish higher than 11th (their '08-'09 showing.) That was the big guarantee, and I was looking really fucking smart about that until they wrapped up the regular season with a truly epic nine-game losing streak. They still did, technically, finishing in a three-way tie at next-to-last and earning the 9th seed in the ACC tournament.
Last year I offered up a best-case and worst-case scenario for each player, and I'll do that again this year. The problem last year was that the worst-case scenario was exactly what happened to too many players:
- Mustapha Farrakhan was indeed wildly inconsisent, just as he had been the previous year.
- Jamil Tucker got benched. Then he left.
- Sammy Zeglinski, like Mu, reprised his previous-year performance.
- Sylven Landesberg only marginally improved his jump shot and the remainder of his game besides driving to the hoop. Then he left.
- Tristan Spurlock glued his ass to the bench by not learning how to play Bennett's defense. Then he left.
- Solomon Tat actually played.
In some cases, it was worse than the worst-case. I definitely did not foresee Will Sherrill playing significant time, though I did suggest that if any of the walk-ons did play much it would foretell difficulties in the extreme. And lo it came to pass. This is why they lost 16 games.
But it wasn't all bad. Some of the best-cases played out as well:
- Jontel Evans proved a quality defender and dependable with the ball....at least until he aimed it at the basket.
- Sammy Zeglinski had an astoundingly good first half of the season. Both his best- and worst-cases came true, weirdly.
- Jeff Jones shot the ball very well. (But then he left.)
- Mike Scott generated 8 double-doubles, and missed three more by just one board.
This is why they looked so good in the early going.
This year, predictions are going to be a lot harder to come by. More than half the team is freshmen. Think about that. It means a lot of facepalm basketball, plenty of inconsistency, and a couple blowout losses. But all these guys are Tony Bennett's kind of guys, and the biggest surprise of all would be to see any of them benched for slackitude. We will, though, offer best- and worst-cases again. It'll be an interesting what-was-I-thinking kind of exercise next year, no doubt, to go through and see how I did, but I'm doing it anyway. Half today, half tomorrow. (Sorry, scrappy walk-on Thomas Rogers. I'm leaving out the walk-on this year. Just got nothing to go on, and besides, he got only garbage time in the Roanoke exhibition.) As with last year, in numerical order....
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case: Develops a jumper that falls at least often enough to keep defenders honest. Indispensible defender.
Worst-case: Still can't shoot, and loses the handle too much.
Evans defended his way into the rotation last year, and defense - particularly on-ball defense - will probably always be his trademark. He's gonna get his steals. The nice thing about being a good defender is that it's not a skill that leaves you. Question is, will he ever be able to shoot? Maybe he used up too much good-shooting karma in one wild, miraculous, buzzer-beating heave against Miami that arced damn near into the rafters and dropped straight through the net.
Whatever the case, opponents quickly learned that Evans was best left alone. He was dared to shoot and usually either didn't, or missed. And he can't shoot free throws, either. Otherwise his point guard skills are strong; the defense having already been mentioned, he's also not a bad distributor and takes good care of the ball. If Evans can develop even just enough offense of his own to go along with his defense, it'll be a big leap forward for the team. With Sammy Zeglinski out early, Evans will have every opportunity to take the reins and be the leader that the starting point guard is expected to be. The ability to put the ball in the net from further out than a layup, and doing it often enough to keep defenses honest when he's on the court, will round him out very nicely.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case: On the plus side of inconsistent.
Worst-case: On the minus side of inconsistent, and sees his minutes get eaten up by freshmen as the season wears on.
Mu is a senior now, and you know what you're getting out of him. Hoping for him to suddenly drop his inconsistent self, especially when his teammates these days are mostly freshmen and therefore likely to be plenty inconsistent themselves, is just kidding yourself. Mu is going to, at times, electrify the crowd, and at times he will be a brick factory.
The hope is that growing into a senior will make the hot streaks last longer than the cold ones. I'm not too confident about that, but the saving grace is that as a junior, the non-shooting aspects of his game did improve rather significantly. He's gotten to the point where, if he's hitting jumpers he's one of the best players on the court, and if he's not, at least that's the only way he's hurting the team. But the fact remains, his primary job is hitting shots. If he can't do that, chances are he'll watch his minutes diminish.
#4 - Will Regan
Best-case: Early development into the quintessential glue guy. Top-notch post-defender.
Worst-case: Redshirts.
Tony Bennett is talking about the possibility of redshirting a frontcourt guy, and while Akil Mitchell is usually the name mentioned along those lines, Regan wouldn't surprise me either. Might surprise me less. Regan only played eight minutes in the Roanoke exhibition.
Keep in mind, that's worst-case for this season. It means we get no contribution from him in '10-'11, but that's really not the worst thing that can happen in the big picture.
But if he does play, it means he's playing defense. Regan will get his buckets largely by brute force and the occasional SUPRIZE three-pointer, not slick post moves. He can in fact shoot, as evidenced by Michigan and John Beilein's heavy recruitment, but I don't get the idea he'll be asked to be all over the court like that just yet. Learn the interior requirements first, young grasshopper. If Regan doesn't redshirt, and he can come in, defend the post, grab lots of rebounds, get a putback bucket or two, and basically be a serviceable replacement to give Mike Scott a breather, we'll be on the right track here.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case: Still drops everything thrown his way.
As with Farrakhan, we know what we're getting here. Or at least, we know what we're not getting here, and that's a dominant offensive player. Sene was a total black hole on offense last year, with the worst hands most of us had ever seen. Passes into the post were out of the question; you just hoped the ball would stick to his hands on a rebound, let alone an entry pass. Only three times did Sene score more than two points last year.
That best-case is exactly what I wrote last year, and with good reason. For one, Sene committed an unreal 6.3 fouls per 40 minutes last year. We don't need to rely on Sene to score, but if a seven-foot guy can't be better than most people on the court at getting rebounds, then something is wrong. He's shown flashes of a rebounding ability, but with the consistency of Mustapha Farrakhan shooting a 3 from the corner.
It's really a make-or-break year for Sene. If he can't be a rebounder and a shot-blocker and stay out of foul trouble when given significant minutes, he'll be passed up on the depth chart by the crowd of freshmen. His minutes will go to Regan and James Johnson, and he'll be on the court next year only because of a lack of depth, not for what he really brings. But if he can be the kind of difference-maker that only a seven-footer can - that is, alter the opposition's offensive game plan when he's in the game - he might just be one of the most important guys on the court.
#12 - Joe Harris
Best-case: Can shoot.
Worst-case: Can't shoot.
Seems to come down to shooting a lot, doesn't it? It's been this team's biggest weak point the past few years, and that's really saying something. Harris was recruited because he's supposedly exceedingly good at putting the ball in the basket from long distances, and early returns are promising on that point. Whether or not he's also good at things like defense and passing and stuff, we don't really know yet and won't really care until we know whether he can shoot. (Tony Bennett's thought process goes precisely the opposite direction, by the way, but there isn't enough backcourt depth to keep Harris off the court.)
Harris will instantly become one of the team's most popular players if he shows a knack for hitting three-pointers. Keith Friel is still one of the decade's most popular players. If he doesn't, he'll absolutely be the most nondescript guy we got. So no pressure.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case: Thinks the second half of the season is the first half, because he missed the first half, and plays like the first-half Sammy of old.
Worst-case: Slowed, Majestic Mapp-style, by the surgeries he's had, and loses his shooting touch entirely. Gets hurt again.
Sammy's torrid start to the season was a huge reason UVA was figuring prominently in January bracketology predictions, and his drop off a cliff sometime around mid-January was a huge reason UVA didn't go to any postseason at all. Unfortunately he'll be out til around that mid-January time-frame, recovering from knee surgery.
When he returns, he'll bolster an exceedingly young point guard rotation. Sammy established himself as someone who could be trusted without reservation with the ball in his hand, until his shot stopped dropping. That seemed to affect the rest of his game, too. Mike Scott is very emotional, Mu is streaky, and Will Sherrill doesn't have the ball in his hands very often - those are your three captains, but Sammy is best equipped to be the steady, calming veteran presence on the court. I think he'll do very well in that role, and in addition he's got a good nose for loose balls and is a better-than-average rebounder for a guard. So, shooting or not, he's become a more or less indispensible member of the team, and one of the few that you can establish a good baseline for. (That two of these - Evans being another - are point guards, bodes well.)
Still, at this point most folks are going to be holding their breath a little. Nobody likes being hit with an injury-prone tag, and the Majestic Mapp reference is a little unfair, but Sammy's kind of getting there. Fortunately, the injuries are unrelated, but a reinjury would be one of the more unfortunate things that could happen.
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Tomorrow: Part two, with Mike Scott and most of the freshmen.
Last year, despite having a totally new coach and no idea how his methods would play out, I felt frisky enough to make a few predictions, some of which even came true:
- The team would score more than 45 points in every game. (They did, and that was in response to a Doug Gottlieb column where he - I think at least half-seriously - suggested that'd be about their average.)
- The team would make a postseason tournament beyond the ACC one. (They probably would have played in the CBI had the administration shown an interest, but it costs money to play in that tournament.)
- The team would finish higher than 11th (their '08-'09 showing.) That was the big guarantee, and I was looking really fucking smart about that until they wrapped up the regular season with a truly epic nine-game losing streak. They still did, technically, finishing in a three-way tie at next-to-last and earning the 9th seed in the ACC tournament.
Last year I offered up a best-case and worst-case scenario for each player, and I'll do that again this year. The problem last year was that the worst-case scenario was exactly what happened to too many players:
- Mustapha Farrakhan was indeed wildly inconsisent, just as he had been the previous year.
- Jamil Tucker got benched. Then he left.
- Sammy Zeglinski, like Mu, reprised his previous-year performance.
- Sylven Landesberg only marginally improved his jump shot and the remainder of his game besides driving to the hoop. Then he left.
- Tristan Spurlock glued his ass to the bench by not learning how to play Bennett's defense. Then he left.
- Solomon Tat actually played.
In some cases, it was worse than the worst-case. I definitely did not foresee Will Sherrill playing significant time, though I did suggest that if any of the walk-ons did play much it would foretell difficulties in the extreme. And lo it came to pass. This is why they lost 16 games.
But it wasn't all bad. Some of the best-cases played out as well:
- Jontel Evans proved a quality defender and dependable with the ball....at least until he aimed it at the basket.
- Sammy Zeglinski had an astoundingly good first half of the season. Both his best- and worst-cases came true, weirdly.
- Jeff Jones shot the ball very well. (But then he left.)
- Mike Scott generated 8 double-doubles, and missed three more by just one board.
This is why they looked so good in the early going.
This year, predictions are going to be a lot harder to come by. More than half the team is freshmen. Think about that. It means a lot of facepalm basketball, plenty of inconsistency, and a couple blowout losses. But all these guys are Tony Bennett's kind of guys, and the biggest surprise of all would be to see any of them benched for slackitude. We will, though, offer best- and worst-cases again. It'll be an interesting what-was-I-thinking kind of exercise next year, no doubt, to go through and see how I did, but I'm doing it anyway. Half today, half tomorrow. (Sorry, scrappy walk-on Thomas Rogers. I'm leaving out the walk-on this year. Just got nothing to go on, and besides, he got only garbage time in the Roanoke exhibition.) As with last year, in numerical order....
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case: Develops a jumper that falls at least often enough to keep defenders honest. Indispensible defender.
Worst-case: Still can't shoot, and loses the handle too much.
Evans defended his way into the rotation last year, and defense - particularly on-ball defense - will probably always be his trademark. He's gonna get his steals. The nice thing about being a good defender is that it's not a skill that leaves you. Question is, will he ever be able to shoot? Maybe he used up too much good-shooting karma in one wild, miraculous, buzzer-beating heave against Miami that arced damn near into the rafters and dropped straight through the net.
Whatever the case, opponents quickly learned that Evans was best left alone. He was dared to shoot and usually either didn't, or missed. And he can't shoot free throws, either. Otherwise his point guard skills are strong; the defense having already been mentioned, he's also not a bad distributor and takes good care of the ball. If Evans can develop even just enough offense of his own to go along with his defense, it'll be a big leap forward for the team. With Sammy Zeglinski out early, Evans will have every opportunity to take the reins and be the leader that the starting point guard is expected to be. The ability to put the ball in the net from further out than a layup, and doing it often enough to keep defenses honest when he's on the court, will round him out very nicely.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case: On the plus side of inconsistent.
Worst-case: On the minus side of inconsistent, and sees his minutes get eaten up by freshmen as the season wears on.
Mu is a senior now, and you know what you're getting out of him. Hoping for him to suddenly drop his inconsistent self, especially when his teammates these days are mostly freshmen and therefore likely to be plenty inconsistent themselves, is just kidding yourself. Mu is going to, at times, electrify the crowd, and at times he will be a brick factory.
The hope is that growing into a senior will make the hot streaks last longer than the cold ones. I'm not too confident about that, but the saving grace is that as a junior, the non-shooting aspects of his game did improve rather significantly. He's gotten to the point where, if he's hitting jumpers he's one of the best players on the court, and if he's not, at least that's the only way he's hurting the team. But the fact remains, his primary job is hitting shots. If he can't do that, chances are he'll watch his minutes diminish.
#4 - Will Regan
Best-case: Early development into the quintessential glue guy. Top-notch post-defender.
Worst-case: Redshirts.
Tony Bennett is talking about the possibility of redshirting a frontcourt guy, and while Akil Mitchell is usually the name mentioned along those lines, Regan wouldn't surprise me either. Might surprise me less. Regan only played eight minutes in the Roanoke exhibition.
Keep in mind, that's worst-case for this season. It means we get no contribution from him in '10-'11, but that's really not the worst thing that can happen in the big picture.
But if he does play, it means he's playing defense. Regan will get his buckets largely by brute force and the occasional SUPRIZE three-pointer, not slick post moves. He can in fact shoot, as evidenced by Michigan and John Beilein's heavy recruitment, but I don't get the idea he'll be asked to be all over the court like that just yet. Learn the interior requirements first, young grasshopper. If Regan doesn't redshirt, and he can come in, defend the post, grab lots of rebounds, get a putback bucket or two, and basically be a serviceable replacement to give Mike Scott a breather, we'll be on the right track here.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case: Still drops everything thrown his way.
As with Farrakhan, we know what we're getting here. Or at least, we know what we're not getting here, and that's a dominant offensive player. Sene was a total black hole on offense last year, with the worst hands most of us had ever seen. Passes into the post were out of the question; you just hoped the ball would stick to his hands on a rebound, let alone an entry pass. Only three times did Sene score more than two points last year.
That best-case is exactly what I wrote last year, and with good reason. For one, Sene committed an unreal 6.3 fouls per 40 minutes last year. We don't need to rely on Sene to score, but if a seven-foot guy can't be better than most people on the court at getting rebounds, then something is wrong. He's shown flashes of a rebounding ability, but with the consistency of Mustapha Farrakhan shooting a 3 from the corner.
It's really a make-or-break year for Sene. If he can't be a rebounder and a shot-blocker and stay out of foul trouble when given significant minutes, he'll be passed up on the depth chart by the crowd of freshmen. His minutes will go to Regan and James Johnson, and he'll be on the court next year only because of a lack of depth, not for what he really brings. But if he can be the kind of difference-maker that only a seven-footer can - that is, alter the opposition's offensive game plan when he's in the game - he might just be one of the most important guys on the court.
#12 - Joe Harris
Best-case: Can shoot.
Worst-case: Can't shoot.
Seems to come down to shooting a lot, doesn't it? It's been this team's biggest weak point the past few years, and that's really saying something. Harris was recruited because he's supposedly exceedingly good at putting the ball in the basket from long distances, and early returns are promising on that point. Whether or not he's also good at things like defense and passing and stuff, we don't really know yet and won't really care until we know whether he can shoot. (Tony Bennett's thought process goes precisely the opposite direction, by the way, but there isn't enough backcourt depth to keep Harris off the court.)
Harris will instantly become one of the team's most popular players if he shows a knack for hitting three-pointers. Keith Friel is still one of the decade's most popular players. If he doesn't, he'll absolutely be the most nondescript guy we got. So no pressure.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case: Thinks the second half of the season is the first half, because he missed the first half, and plays like the first-half Sammy of old.
Worst-case: Slowed, Majestic Mapp-style, by the surgeries he's had, and loses his shooting touch entirely. Gets hurt again.
Sammy's torrid start to the season was a huge reason UVA was figuring prominently in January bracketology predictions, and his drop off a cliff sometime around mid-January was a huge reason UVA didn't go to any postseason at all. Unfortunately he'll be out til around that mid-January time-frame, recovering from knee surgery.
When he returns, he'll bolster an exceedingly young point guard rotation. Sammy established himself as someone who could be trusted without reservation with the ball in his hand, until his shot stopped dropping. That seemed to affect the rest of his game, too. Mike Scott is very emotional, Mu is streaky, and Will Sherrill doesn't have the ball in his hands very often - those are your three captains, but Sammy is best equipped to be the steady, calming veteran presence on the court. I think he'll do very well in that role, and in addition he's got a good nose for loose balls and is a better-than-average rebounder for a guard. So, shooting or not, he's become a more or less indispensible member of the team, and one of the few that you can establish a good baseline for. (That two of these - Evans being another - are point guards, bodes well.)
Still, at this point most folks are going to be holding their breath a little. Nobody likes being hit with an injury-prone tag, and the Majestic Mapp reference is a little unfair, but Sammy's kind of getting there. Fortunately, the injuries are unrelated, but a reinjury would be one of the more unfortunate things that could happen.
**********************************
Tomorrow: Part two, with Mike Scott and most of the freshmen.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
big-picture recruiting
Slow news day today. There's no midweek lacrosse game and baseball is taking on Towson, which is terrible. I thought I'd take the opportunity to take an early stab at projecting the 2011 recruiting classes in both basketball and football. Not with names, mostly, but a big-picture kind of look.
FOOTBALL
There are 14 seniors departing after the 2010 season, and the team is one shy of the limit of 85 after Riko Smalls' departure, so there are 15 for-sure openings. There is always attrition and you can always count on some redshirt juniors not being asked back for a fifth year. I think there are two or three candidates for that. So a class size of roughly 20, plus or minus a couple, is what I'd expect.
On offense, the staff is probably going to be pretty judicious with the offers they send out at the skill positions. Lazor's offense doesn't need a whole lot of receivers; in fact, with Adrian Gamble on board, the staff probably wouldn't have a lot of heartache if he was the only one. There are a couple guys on that board that you take no matter what, like maybe Quinta Funderburke, but the numbers at receiver look about right for now.
Same for running back. Clifton Richardson is basically onboard already and Nyjee Fleming appears likely enough to follow; once those two are in the bank, that'll be all we need. Quarterback too; London scooped up everyone he could find at the end of the last recruiting cycle and the only real reason to take one this year is the principle that you basically want one every year because you never know. They've offered who they like, if they find another they like they'll offer him too, but there's already a whole bunch coming in the fall and there's no need to cram a whole bunch more into that tight a space. One is all we need.
O-line, however, is a place where you always, always want to stack up as much depth as you can, and take three or four in every class. Thus the offer cannon has been readied. Between the Rivals offer list and the recruiting board here, there are probably 10 or 12 linemen already out there for the looking, and maybe one of them will end up at UVA. Offers are going to be flowing out of Charlottesville to offensive lineman all spring and summer.
So on offense: say two running backs, one or two receivers, a quarterback, and 3-4 linemen. Throw in a likely tight end as well, and of the target 20 scholarships, about 9 or 10 for the offense.
There's a slightly greater need on defense. Starting with the defensive line, where thanks to the switch from the 3-4 to 4-3, defensive tackles are suddenly in demand, big time. One is already in the house (David Dean), I really like our chances with DE Rob Burns, and we still need more. Ends and tackles alike have been offered with regularity, and my thought is that four, maybe even five linemen is the target.
So you'd think that linebacker would take a corresponding drop in demand, but I'd guess not. The staff moved Ausar Walcott and LoVante' Battle down to linebacker with the idea of increasing the speed at that position, but what that did to the numbers is give us five scholarship sophomore linebackers, and six scholarship linebackers in all the other classes combined. That means two things: one, someone like Battle or Connor McCartin is a prime candidate to put the redshirt back on this year so as to even out the numbers a bit, and two, in the long-term - like, 2012 or 2013 - we're going to be slammed with departures if we don't do something to soften the blow. That means at least two, possibly three linebackers in this class of 2011. Travis Hughes and Curtis Grant are both take-no-matter-what prospects if we can get either one, and there are a couple other LB's in blue on the recruiting board. Offers will continue to roll here.
And hey, we're suddenly thin in the secondary too, thanks to the aforementioned position switches. Plus, one of my biggest heartaches over Groh's recruiting was the near-complete lack of true cornerbacks recently. I think Demetrious Nicholson is one of the biggest must-gets in the class for that reason. Must collect defensive backs - both safeties and cornerbacks. There's already one in Matt Bailey, but five defensive backs is not too many, split about evenly between CB and safety. Four seems like a more likely number.
All told, that's 4-5 linemen, 2-3 linebackers, and 4-5 DBs. No way do we clock in at all three upper limits, but I think UVA takes 10 defensive players at a minimum and probably more like 11, maybe 12.
BASKETBALL
Basketball recruiting is grimy as hell, so I try to avoid it as a topic, but this is big-picture stuff so it's OK. There is an open scholarship in 2010 and it looks like it's going unfilled, except for maybe giving it to Will Sherrill as a senior present. Regardless, it makes four openings in 2011.
Tony Bennett's no dummy, and he knows that tying ten scholarships in two classes (it'd be six in the '10 class and four in '11) makes for some ugly numbers. You don't want your back against the wall when it's time for them to go. So Bennett's actively going for a two-year transfer. This would have a lot of benefits, but one of them is that his scholarship would free up again in 2013, one year before this six-man monstrosity of a class finishes their eligibility. Help spread the schollies around. If he can't get Justin Hamilton, and I hope I hope I hope I hope he can, he'll find someone else.
That leaves three for the '11 class, which is a perfectly normal size. And one of them is a stone-cold lock to go to a big man as long as Tony can find one that can fog a mirror and not be a defensive neanderthal. You know as well as I do that if Marshall Plumlee wants to be that guy at UVA, there's a spot for him.
Two big men would be an even better deal for the class and that's probably what Bennett will press for. Thing is, though, of the six coming in 2010, only two really qualify as big guys. Being as we lose Mike Scott and Sherrill after this season, that'll leave us with - as of now - Assane Sene, James Johnson, and Will Regan to man the interior. Hence the push for Hamilton and Plumlee. If by some miracle we get both, then what we'll need is a 6'8" power forward type. If we don't, then whoever has the best combination of size and skills, whether that be a seven-foot tree or another Scott type that can be asked to bang down low despite being a bit undersized for the job.
Lastly, a point guard. The guard offers out so far are all point guards. About the only true, honest-to-god point guard we'll have going forward is Jontel Evans. Sammy is a two guard with some one-ish abilities, and Billy Baron is a point guard on the same concept of having your best athlete play quarterback: whatever gets the ball in his hands the most. Baron might stick at the one, or shift to the two.
Bottom line here: the 2011 class has some very, very clearly defined needs. A true point guard and a true center. And a pony, while we're asking. We're awfully needy at both positions, but so is 90% of the nation. If Bennett can score one player who perfectly fits the description of a true 1 or a true 5, that'll be pretty good. To make a safe prediction: three guys in the class - two tall and one short. Plumlee tops the wish list; Angelo Chol would look pretty good as Tall Guy #2. I sort of suspect the point guard will be someone we haven't heard of yet. Someone who plays Bennett Ball, whatever that is.
FOOTBALL
There are 14 seniors departing after the 2010 season, and the team is one shy of the limit of 85 after Riko Smalls' departure, so there are 15 for-sure openings. There is always attrition and you can always count on some redshirt juniors not being asked back for a fifth year. I think there are two or three candidates for that. So a class size of roughly 20, plus or minus a couple, is what I'd expect.
On offense, the staff is probably going to be pretty judicious with the offers they send out at the skill positions. Lazor's offense doesn't need a whole lot of receivers; in fact, with Adrian Gamble on board, the staff probably wouldn't have a lot of heartache if he was the only one. There are a couple guys on that board that you take no matter what, like maybe Quinta Funderburke, but the numbers at receiver look about right for now.
Same for running back. Clifton Richardson is basically onboard already and Nyjee Fleming appears likely enough to follow; once those two are in the bank, that'll be all we need. Quarterback too; London scooped up everyone he could find at the end of the last recruiting cycle and the only real reason to take one this year is the principle that you basically want one every year because you never know. They've offered who they like, if they find another they like they'll offer him too, but there's already a whole bunch coming in the fall and there's no need to cram a whole bunch more into that tight a space. One is all we need.
O-line, however, is a place where you always, always want to stack up as much depth as you can, and take three or four in every class. Thus the offer cannon has been readied. Between the Rivals offer list and the recruiting board here, there are probably 10 or 12 linemen already out there for the looking, and maybe one of them will end up at UVA. Offers are going to be flowing out of Charlottesville to offensive lineman all spring and summer.
So on offense: say two running backs, one or two receivers, a quarterback, and 3-4 linemen. Throw in a likely tight end as well, and of the target 20 scholarships, about 9 or 10 for the offense.
There's a slightly greater need on defense. Starting with the defensive line, where thanks to the switch from the 3-4 to 4-3, defensive tackles are suddenly in demand, big time. One is already in the house (David Dean), I really like our chances with DE Rob Burns, and we still need more. Ends and tackles alike have been offered with regularity, and my thought is that four, maybe even five linemen is the target.
So you'd think that linebacker would take a corresponding drop in demand, but I'd guess not. The staff moved Ausar Walcott and LoVante' Battle down to linebacker with the idea of increasing the speed at that position, but what that did to the numbers is give us five scholarship sophomore linebackers, and six scholarship linebackers in all the other classes combined. That means two things: one, someone like Battle or Connor McCartin is a prime candidate to put the redshirt back on this year so as to even out the numbers a bit, and two, in the long-term - like, 2012 or 2013 - we're going to be slammed with departures if we don't do something to soften the blow. That means at least two, possibly three linebackers in this class of 2011. Travis Hughes and Curtis Grant are both take-no-matter-what prospects if we can get either one, and there are a couple other LB's in blue on the recruiting board. Offers will continue to roll here.
And hey, we're suddenly thin in the secondary too, thanks to the aforementioned position switches. Plus, one of my biggest heartaches over Groh's recruiting was the near-complete lack of true cornerbacks recently. I think Demetrious Nicholson is one of the biggest must-gets in the class for that reason. Must collect defensive backs - both safeties and cornerbacks. There's already one in Matt Bailey, but five defensive backs is not too many, split about evenly between CB and safety. Four seems like a more likely number.
All told, that's 4-5 linemen, 2-3 linebackers, and 4-5 DBs. No way do we clock in at all three upper limits, but I think UVA takes 10 defensive players at a minimum and probably more like 11, maybe 12.
BASKETBALL
Basketball recruiting is grimy as hell, so I try to avoid it as a topic, but this is big-picture stuff so it's OK. There is an open scholarship in 2010 and it looks like it's going unfilled, except for maybe giving it to Will Sherrill as a senior present. Regardless, it makes four openings in 2011.
Tony Bennett's no dummy, and he knows that tying ten scholarships in two classes (it'd be six in the '10 class and four in '11) makes for some ugly numbers. You don't want your back against the wall when it's time for them to go. So Bennett's actively going for a two-year transfer. This would have a lot of benefits, but one of them is that his scholarship would free up again in 2013, one year before this six-man monstrosity of a class finishes their eligibility. Help spread the schollies around. If he can't get Justin Hamilton, and I hope I hope I hope I hope he can, he'll find someone else.
That leaves three for the '11 class, which is a perfectly normal size. And one of them is a stone-cold lock to go to a big man as long as Tony can find one that can fog a mirror and not be a defensive neanderthal. You know as well as I do that if Marshall Plumlee wants to be that guy at UVA, there's a spot for him.
Two big men would be an even better deal for the class and that's probably what Bennett will press for. Thing is, though, of the six coming in 2010, only two really qualify as big guys. Being as we lose Mike Scott and Sherrill after this season, that'll leave us with - as of now - Assane Sene, James Johnson, and Will Regan to man the interior. Hence the push for Hamilton and Plumlee. If by some miracle we get both, then what we'll need is a 6'8" power forward type. If we don't, then whoever has the best combination of size and skills, whether that be a seven-foot tree or another Scott type that can be asked to bang down low despite being a bit undersized for the job.
Lastly, a point guard. The guard offers out so far are all point guards. About the only true, honest-to-god point guard we'll have going forward is Jontel Evans. Sammy is a two guard with some one-ish abilities, and Billy Baron is a point guard on the same concept of having your best athlete play quarterback: whatever gets the ball in his hands the most. Baron might stick at the one, or shift to the two.
Bottom line here: the 2011 class has some very, very clearly defined needs. A true point guard and a true center. And a pony, while we're asking. We're awfully needy at both positions, but so is 90% of the nation. If Bennett can score one player who perfectly fits the description of a true 1 or a true 5, that'll be pretty good. To make a safe prediction: three guys in the class - two tall and one short. Plumlee tops the wish list; Angelo Chol would look pretty good as Tall Guy #2. I sort of suspect the point guard will be someone we haven't heard of yet. Someone who plays Bennett Ball, whatever that is.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
crystal ball into the future: BC and beyond
For this post, I consulted the magic 8-ball to find out what the offseason and beyond might look like for Tony Bennett and his squad. "O Magic 8-Ball, will we see any good news at all between now and the tip-off of '10-'11?" Damn thing must be broken, because the only response I ever got back was, "Reply Hazy, Try Again Later."
That ol' thing has been quite the Debbie Downer these days anyway. Will we win the BC game tomorrow? "Outlook Not So Good." Will Sylven Landesberg be sticking around for next year? "My Sources Say No." What about Tristan Spurlock? "Better Not Tell You Now."
The problem with tournaments, now, is that every team but one goes home unhappy. The season will end with a loss, so what's really at stake here is whether the season will end on a one-game losing streak or a ten-gamer. Gee, how uplifting. But I'll tell you right now, a win tomorrow would change the outlook for next season considerably. I doubt it would change much as far as roster makeup goes, and the players that return will be the same ones that played in the tournament game whether it was a win or a loss. But it's all a matter of perspective, see. If we lose, that specter of a ten-game losing streak to end the season will hang over the team all summer long. If we win, the party line will go something like this: "We won that game without Sylven Landesberg and that's how the team will look next season too, but just wait until we add all those talented freshmen to the roster." Which is a decidely rosier outlook.
So how to get that win? It'll be tough. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because we came close against Maryland without Sylven, we can do the same or better against Boston College, a worse team. There's no doubt in my mind Maryland had game-planned for a week to stop Sylven Landesberg, and that plan had to go right out the window at game time. Maryland had to wing it, which can be a recipe for disaster in the other guy's arena. If there's some real Ewing Theory action going on, I'll believe it when I see it.
Honestly, and harshly, the loss of Calvin Baker for the game likely won't have any effect on our prospects. Here's the weird thing about the BC game from last week: There was actually an effective inside game on offense. This is weird because BC is a bigger team from 1 to 5. I witnessed Sammy Zeglinski try to guard BC's 6'8" forward Joe Trapani, it was comical. Sammy looked like a midget. And yet Mike Scott had 13 points and Jerome Meyinsse had a perfect shooting night on his way to 12, and even Assane Sene's hands looked functional instead of like they were grafted on the wrong arms as usual. The first half was the standard-issue abortion on offense that we've gotten sadly used to, but the second half was actually a competitive basketball game.
And Baker? Didn't get into the game. If I had to guess I'd say that the size disparity had at least a role in that decision, but the point is, Bennett's already game-planned once for BC without Baker, so doing it again isn't going to be a big deal. And where game planning is concerned, we do have one edge. Even though it'll be no surprise to BC that Landesberg is out, it's still something different they have to plan for, whereas on the other hand, we've already seen what they got and it's not changing. Now it's time for the X's and O's wizard to prove his mettle. That's what Bennett was hailed for when he got here. If there was ever a time this season to pull some defensive adjustments out of a hat, it's now. Get that done, and with a little luck maybe the lid will come off the rim for the shooters too, and a win is reachable. It'd be a shame to waste Meyinsse's channeling of the spirit of Jason Rogers and not let it be worth just one simple win.
And it's a win that would be worth its weight in gold on the recruiting trail. How do you spin a ten-game losing streak to recruits? Answer: however you want, but they're still going to Maryland. Tony was able to use the promise of a bright new day last year, and did a marvelous job, but the shine will be gone. Get the win and it's a lot easier to brush the whole season off as a series of unfortunate events.
Whatever happens on the recruiting trail isn't going to do anything for anyone for a while, though. We don't even know who'll be left on this roster come August, let alone a year from August. Let's start with who won't be. Obviously, we lose the seniors - Baker, Meyinsse, and Tat. From a talent perspective, this is no loss, but from the hard work and hustle standpoint, it leaves a big, big leadership gap. Tat is the guy the coaches - both Bennett and Leitao - have put in when they want to make a point to the rest of the team that they're not hustling hard enough, and Meyinsse, besides being Tat's equal in the hard work department, is probably smarter than you and a big character guy to boot.
Then there's Landesberg, and you can go ahead and plan for next season without him. Bennett can talk all he likes about the door being open for his return, but to paraphrase another illustrious basketball coach, Sylven Landesberg is not walking through that door. When a phrase like this shows up on the school's own offical site....
But that wouldn't be the half of it if you go with everything you read. The list of players who at some point or another has been speculated (often baselessly) as being ready to transfer the moment the season is over is long and distinguished. Spurlock, obviously. Jontel Evans. Mike Scott? Jeff Jones? Assane Sene? All names that have been tossed around by people ranging from the media to message board schlocks. I'll be the first to say I don't have a friggin' clue, although this is at least encouraging on the Spurlock front.
Neither do I know which freshman is going to come in and have the biggest impact. But I do know somebody will. There's practically no choice in the matter. Even if everyone but Landesberg stays, that's only seven members of the rotation left, plus Spurlock. We'll probably have the ACC Freshman of the Year by default; who else has such a big class coming in and so much room for them? If I had to guess, I'd say the complete and utter lack of big-man offense outside of Scott opens up the biggest opportunity for James Johnson and Will Regan. Seems obvious, eh? Don't forget to pack your post game, boys.
So: predictions out of the crystal ball? Well, you just got one easy one: freshmen are going to be huge on this team next year. And that alone fogs up the whole picture. You never know with freshmen. You just never do. Here's another one: The keepers of the faith need to bar the door, because it's going to get worse before it gets better. I don't see us winning tomorrow. And then comes the offseason and a lot of bad news with it. At some point, Landesberg will make the announcement he's gone. Somebody else might also. Recruiting targets will go elsewhere. And then the season will start, and it's pretty hard to see an improvement when your top player departs. There are reasons to think that this season was in fact much better than it looked, and I'll get to them separately. And maybe when I sit down and really hash out the competition and we get a better bead on things, it'll start looking better than it does at the tail end of a huge losing streak. And let's not forget either: Tony Bennett was hired to put a long-term, sustainable stamp on this program, not for instant gratification. That's the most important thing to remember. But for now, the bottom line up front is this: It's hard to see the prospects for next season being any better than they were when Dave Leitao was still the coach.
That ol' thing has been quite the Debbie Downer these days anyway. Will we win the BC game tomorrow? "Outlook Not So Good." Will Sylven Landesberg be sticking around for next year? "My Sources Say No." What about Tristan Spurlock? "Better Not Tell You Now."
The problem with tournaments, now, is that every team but one goes home unhappy. The season will end with a loss, so what's really at stake here is whether the season will end on a one-game losing streak or a ten-gamer. Gee, how uplifting. But I'll tell you right now, a win tomorrow would change the outlook for next season considerably. I doubt it would change much as far as roster makeup goes, and the players that return will be the same ones that played in the tournament game whether it was a win or a loss. But it's all a matter of perspective, see. If we lose, that specter of a ten-game losing streak to end the season will hang over the team all summer long. If we win, the party line will go something like this: "We won that game without Sylven Landesberg and that's how the team will look next season too, but just wait until we add all those talented freshmen to the roster." Which is a decidely rosier outlook.
So how to get that win? It'll be tough. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because we came close against Maryland without Sylven, we can do the same or better against Boston College, a worse team. There's no doubt in my mind Maryland had game-planned for a week to stop Sylven Landesberg, and that plan had to go right out the window at game time. Maryland had to wing it, which can be a recipe for disaster in the other guy's arena. If there's some real Ewing Theory action going on, I'll believe it when I see it.
Honestly, and harshly, the loss of Calvin Baker for the game likely won't have any effect on our prospects. Here's the weird thing about the BC game from last week: There was actually an effective inside game on offense. This is weird because BC is a bigger team from 1 to 5. I witnessed Sammy Zeglinski try to guard BC's 6'8" forward Joe Trapani, it was comical. Sammy looked like a midget. And yet Mike Scott had 13 points and Jerome Meyinsse had a perfect shooting night on his way to 12, and even Assane Sene's hands looked functional instead of like they were grafted on the wrong arms as usual. The first half was the standard-issue abortion on offense that we've gotten sadly used to, but the second half was actually a competitive basketball game.
And Baker? Didn't get into the game. If I had to guess I'd say that the size disparity had at least a role in that decision, but the point is, Bennett's already game-planned once for BC without Baker, so doing it again isn't going to be a big deal. And where game planning is concerned, we do have one edge. Even though it'll be no surprise to BC that Landesberg is out, it's still something different they have to plan for, whereas on the other hand, we've already seen what they got and it's not changing. Now it's time for the X's and O's wizard to prove his mettle. That's what Bennett was hailed for when he got here. If there was ever a time this season to pull some defensive adjustments out of a hat, it's now. Get that done, and with a little luck maybe the lid will come off the rim for the shooters too, and a win is reachable. It'd be a shame to waste Meyinsse's channeling of the spirit of Jason Rogers and not let it be worth just one simple win.
And it's a win that would be worth its weight in gold on the recruiting trail. How do you spin a ten-game losing streak to recruits? Answer: however you want, but they're still going to Maryland. Tony was able to use the promise of a bright new day last year, and did a marvelous job, but the shine will be gone. Get the win and it's a lot easier to brush the whole season off as a series of unfortunate events.
Whatever happens on the recruiting trail isn't going to do anything for anyone for a while, though. We don't even know who'll be left on this roster come August, let alone a year from August. Let's start with who won't be. Obviously, we lose the seniors - Baker, Meyinsse, and Tat. From a talent perspective, this is no loss, but from the hard work and hustle standpoint, it leaves a big, big leadership gap. Tat is the guy the coaches - both Bennett and Leitao - have put in when they want to make a point to the rest of the team that they're not hustling hard enough, and Meyinsse, besides being Tat's equal in the hard work department, is probably smarter than you and a big character guy to boot.
Then there's Landesberg, and you can go ahead and plan for next season without him. Bennett can talk all he likes about the door being open for his return, but to paraphrase another illustrious basketball coach, Sylven Landesberg is not walking through that door. When a phrase like this shows up on the school's own offical site....
Landesberg, who is unlikely to return to UVa, stopped by JPJ and talked with his teammates Tuesday morning.....then you know it's over. Period. Jeff White doesn't need sources inside the program, he is the source inside the program, and there's no way something like that gets up there without it being beyond true. So now you know where Billy Baron's scholarship is coming from.
But that wouldn't be the half of it if you go with everything you read. The list of players who at some point or another has been speculated (often baselessly) as being ready to transfer the moment the season is over is long and distinguished. Spurlock, obviously. Jontel Evans. Mike Scott? Jeff Jones? Assane Sene? All names that have been tossed around by people ranging from the media to message board schlocks. I'll be the first to say I don't have a friggin' clue, although this is at least encouraging on the Spurlock front.
Neither do I know which freshman is going to come in and have the biggest impact. But I do know somebody will. There's practically no choice in the matter. Even if everyone but Landesberg stays, that's only seven members of the rotation left, plus Spurlock. We'll probably have the ACC Freshman of the Year by default; who else has such a big class coming in and so much room for them? If I had to guess, I'd say the complete and utter lack of big-man offense outside of Scott opens up the biggest opportunity for James Johnson and Will Regan. Seems obvious, eh? Don't forget to pack your post game, boys.
So: predictions out of the crystal ball? Well, you just got one easy one: freshmen are going to be huge on this team next year. And that alone fogs up the whole picture. You never know with freshmen. You just never do. Here's another one: The keepers of the faith need to bar the door, because it's going to get worse before it gets better. I don't see us winning tomorrow. And then comes the offseason and a lot of bad news with it. At some point, Landesberg will make the announcement he's gone. Somebody else might also. Recruiting targets will go elsewhere. And then the season will start, and it's pretty hard to see an improvement when your top player departs. There are reasons to think that this season was in fact much better than it looked, and I'll get to them separately. And maybe when I sit down and really hash out the competition and we get a better bead on things, it'll start looking better than it does at the tail end of a huge losing streak. And let's not forget either: Tony Bennett was hired to put a long-term, sustainable stamp on this program, not for instant gratification. That's the most important thing to remember. But for now, the bottom line up front is this: It's hard to see the prospects for next season being any better than they were when Dave Leitao was still the coach.
Monday, June 29, 2009
the recruit: Will Regan
Name: Will Regan
Position: PF/C
Hometown: Williamsville, NY
School: The Nichols School
Height: 6'8"
Weight: 220
Rivals: 3-stars
Scout: 3-stars, #17 C
ESPN: 86, #58 PF
You maybe have noticed I don't do a whole lot of basketball recruiting stuff. I try to keep up with the ups and downs of the football process, and heaven knows I don't even do the world's best job of that; today's commitment (who I'll get to later this week) isn't even someone who's on the board, let alone in the blue section of it. But basketball? Except for the end of the process (which we're getting to today) and the big-picture stuff, I mostly ignore it. This is because I hate it. It's a shady world filled with shady characters trying to leech off of the process and the players, and the best coaches play the game and navigate the system only just enough to land the players they want and still stay clean as far as the NCAA rulebook is concerned. Football is a little different; there are a hell of a lot more players to keep track of, most of whom are no threat to endorse shoes at any point in their careers. It's not squeaky clean but at least you usually only have to deal with the player, his parents, and his school coach, and not with the added presence of a handler, wannabe agents, and AAU coaches.
Anyway, this is the point where I jump into the process: the exciting part. This is a little more exciting because Will Regan is Tony Bennett's first commitment as a Hoo, and one that goes a long way toward quelling any doubts about his recruiting ability. If you read my first Examiner.com article (warning: shameless self-promotion) you'd know I'm really, really pleased with this pickup.
The ratings are really kinda tthhbbppttt. Don't be fooled. One, Regan's due for a boost whenever they shuffle the rankings. He's performed well and made a name for himself at summer tournaments and camps, including, obviously, the NBA Camp in Charlottesville, otherwise Bennett wouldn't have pushed for him. Two, Regan's got offers from all sorts of quality places. Tournament schools like Michigan, Arizona State, Siena, Maryland. And places that have a tradition like Providence, Stanford, and St. John's. OK, so not the UNC's and Kansases of the world, but still.
And Regan dominates his high school competition. He averages a double-double, and not a chintzy one either, and turns in games with lines like, 32 points, 13 boards, 10 blocks. He joined some excellent company in winning Western New York Player of the Year honors as a junior (and by the way, last year, being the first sophomore in 14 years to be named to the first team there); how do Jonny Flynn and Christian Laettner sound as company to join in that category? Catch me if I'm getting ahead of myself, but Regan sounds ready to make the jump right now. That's probably just me drinking the Kool-Aid, but it's really delicious Kool-Aid and you should try some.
So what are the skills Regan brings to the table? One thing that jumps out at you in just about every scouting report - I'm not even going to bother linking anything because I'd have to link everything - is "fundamentally sound." Now, if you've read enough scouting reports on high school basketball players, you've probably alread picked up on the code: "fundamentally sound" usually means "slightly gumpy unskilled white guy." OK, but there's a grain of truth to the code, because there are no slightly gumpy unskilled fundamentally unsound white guys playing in a level of basketball higher than the Atlantic Sun Conference. So: plays decent defense, posts up well, makes the right passes, not going to suddenly blow by a defender and throw down a monster windmill dunk. The thing that should separate him from a lot of the competition, be his calling card if you will, is that he can shoot the three-pointer. How do we know? Because Michigan was all over Regan this winter. John Beilein will have all his guys outside the arc shooting threes. A 6'8" power forward who can knock down a three is exactly what he wants three of on the court at all times, and Michigan was recruiting him very hard. "Premiere big-man target" is high praise and that was as late as the end of March. It's a testament to Bennett's recruiting efforts that Regan spent the winter not really talking about UVA - Maryland, Michigan, and Stanford kept popping up - then somewhere between the beginning of April and end of May, we'd joined the conversation. Helped that Michigan landed a very similar player (Evan Smotrycz) ten days after that report, who blew up in a very big way shortly afterwards.
So I'm really jazzed, here. All hail Tony Bennett and whoever decided to build that wicked fancy beautiful new addition to Rouss Hall for the Comm-school, because that's where Regan will spend his classroom days. Terrific baller and zero worries about academics; there's nothing not to love about this. Great, great start to the class of 2010.
Afterword: if we could just get through one weekend without any more celebrity carnage, that'd be really awesome. The King of Pop was a shock and a half, but Billy Mays too? What did Billy Mays ever do to anyone? Cable TV is a less awesomer place for this. Commercials on ESPNUVA will never be the same again. It's a damn shame. Now there's nothing but Vince the Shamwow Guy to brighten things up. May there be a restaurant in Heaven that serves Big City Sliders and wipes the tables with OxiClean.
Here's a little YouTubeage: one for Billy (parody-style) and another for Jacko.
Position: PF/C
Hometown: Williamsville, NY
School: The Nichols School
Height: 6'8"
Weight: 220
Rivals: 3-stars
Scout: 3-stars, #17 C
ESPN: 86, #58 PF
You maybe have noticed I don't do a whole lot of basketball recruiting stuff. I try to keep up with the ups and downs of the football process, and heaven knows I don't even do the world's best job of that; today's commitment (who I'll get to later this week) isn't even someone who's on the board, let alone in the blue section of it. But basketball? Except for the end of the process (which we're getting to today) and the big-picture stuff, I mostly ignore it. This is because I hate it. It's a shady world filled with shady characters trying to leech off of the process and the players, and the best coaches play the game and navigate the system only just enough to land the players they want and still stay clean as far as the NCAA rulebook is concerned. Football is a little different; there are a hell of a lot more players to keep track of, most of whom are no threat to endorse shoes at any point in their careers. It's not squeaky clean but at least you usually only have to deal with the player, his parents, and his school coach, and not with the added presence of a handler, wannabe agents, and AAU coaches.
Anyway, this is the point where I jump into the process: the exciting part. This is a little more exciting because Will Regan is Tony Bennett's first commitment as a Hoo, and one that goes a long way toward quelling any doubts about his recruiting ability. If you read my first Examiner.com article (warning: shameless self-promotion) you'd know I'm really, really pleased with this pickup.
The ratings are really kinda tthhbbppttt. Don't be fooled. One, Regan's due for a boost whenever they shuffle the rankings. He's performed well and made a name for himself at summer tournaments and camps, including, obviously, the NBA Camp in Charlottesville, otherwise Bennett wouldn't have pushed for him. Two, Regan's got offers from all sorts of quality places. Tournament schools like Michigan, Arizona State, Siena, Maryland. And places that have a tradition like Providence, Stanford, and St. John's. OK, so not the UNC's and Kansases of the world, but still.
And Regan dominates his high school competition. He averages a double-double, and not a chintzy one either, and turns in games with lines like, 32 points, 13 boards, 10 blocks. He joined some excellent company in winning Western New York Player of the Year honors as a junior (and by the way, last year, being the first sophomore in 14 years to be named to the first team there); how do Jonny Flynn and Christian Laettner sound as company to join in that category? Catch me if I'm getting ahead of myself, but Regan sounds ready to make the jump right now. That's probably just me drinking the Kool-Aid, but it's really delicious Kool-Aid and you should try some.
So what are the skills Regan brings to the table? One thing that jumps out at you in just about every scouting report - I'm not even going to bother linking anything because I'd have to link everything - is "fundamentally sound." Now, if you've read enough scouting reports on high school basketball players, you've probably alread picked up on the code: "fundamentally sound" usually means "slightly gumpy unskilled white guy." OK, but there's a grain of truth to the code, because there are no slightly gumpy unskilled fundamentally unsound white guys playing in a level of basketball higher than the Atlantic Sun Conference. So: plays decent defense, posts up well, makes the right passes, not going to suddenly blow by a defender and throw down a monster windmill dunk. The thing that should separate him from a lot of the competition, be his calling card if you will, is that he can shoot the three-pointer. How do we know? Because Michigan was all over Regan this winter. John Beilein will have all his guys outside the arc shooting threes. A 6'8" power forward who can knock down a three is exactly what he wants three of on the court at all times, and Michigan was recruiting him very hard. "Premiere big-man target" is high praise and that was as late as the end of March. It's a testament to Bennett's recruiting efforts that Regan spent the winter not really talking about UVA - Maryland, Michigan, and Stanford kept popping up - then somewhere between the beginning of April and end of May, we'd joined the conversation. Helped that Michigan landed a very similar player (Evan Smotrycz) ten days after that report, who blew up in a very big way shortly afterwards.
So I'm really jazzed, here. All hail Tony Bennett and whoever decided to build that wicked fancy beautiful new addition to Rouss Hall for the Comm-school, because that's where Regan will spend his classroom days. Terrific baller and zero worries about academics; there's nothing not to love about this. Great, great start to the class of 2010.
Afterword: if we could just get through one weekend without any more celebrity carnage, that'd be really awesome. The King of Pop was a shock and a half, but Billy Mays too? What did Billy Mays ever do to anyone? Cable TV is a less awesomer place for this. Commercials on ESPNUVA will never be the same again. It's a damn shame. Now there's nothing but Vince the Shamwow Guy to brighten things up. May there be a restaurant in Heaven that serves Big City Sliders and wipes the tables with OxiClean.
Here's a little YouTubeage: one for Billy (parody-style) and another for Jacko.
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