The spring game has come and gone, and now spring practice as well. The football team got to break in its fancy new practice facility, which is a vast improvement over walkthroughs on the JPJA floor. You'd think we'd have some answers as to how things might look in the fall, and it so happens we just might. I've been taking notes, and as usual here's what I think:
STUFF THAT GOT CLEARED UP:
-- Quarterback, sort of. Just having something resembling a depth chart at this stage of the game is an improvement over the past. At the beginning of spring practice it was clear that Phillip Sims had somehow worked his way to the bottom of it. Mike London made noises about how nothing's decided this is just a guide of sorts blah blah blah, but it became clear pretty quickly that Sims was being sent a message. David Watford and Greyson Lambert more or less split the first-team quarterback duties, and one starts to get the sense that Watford has a slight leg up on Lambert. And that Sims hasn't done anything to move out of the doldrums; his 8-for-18 spring game performance was something less than impressive.
-- Defensive line should be pretty sweet. The age-old question of whether we should rejoice or jump off a bridge when one unit dominates the other naturally applies. However, there's good reason to believe the D-line was showing off for real. David Dean in particular came in for high praise from all corners - including, most importantly, the coaches - and there's a good chance he becomes the disruptive three-tech we thought we'd get out of Chris Brathwaite. (For whom, praise be, the door is not closed for a return. It looks like he'll be trying to follow in the footsteps of Jameel Sewell.)
-- Wide receiver should also be in good shape. Good things are being said about the second line. Dominique Terrell had a Jeff White article devoted to his good work, CavsCorner had a flowery one about E.J. Scott, and Adrian Gamble is getting noticed too.
-- We do seem to have a starting linebacker corps. And Henry Coley in particular is stepping into the leadership gap left when Steve Greer and Laroy Reynolds graduated. Coley had a little disciplinary hiccup last year, and it's nice to see that seems to be resolved. Occasionally I've seen a couple hyperactive imaginations worrying that Coley's entrenchment at middle linebacker means Kwontie Moore is a bust, to which I say piffle: Coley has two years of experience on Moore. And Demeitre Brim is moving quickly to secure the strongside spot. UVA's front seven will not be among the most-hyped in the conference when the season begins, but it could have some eyes open and looking their way by November.
STUFF THAT DIDN'T:
-- We heard precious little out of the running back realm that was especially useful. Even if we had, Taquan Mizzell is still showing up in the fall ready to scramble whatever pecking order has been established. Even so, I was hoping to hear what that pecking order might have been, and specifically, where Clifton Richardson fits. In the pre-spring depth chart he's third, and didn't appear to make a strong upward move.
-- It's all well and good to know sort of where the quarterbacks stand, but we still don't have a starter.
-- The O-line. This is the real question mark. It would be getting a lot more attention if we had a settled quarterback situation. I think the running game in particular is the most at risk, because the interior of the line is the least secure. And David Watford may have an advantage at quarterback partly because he can scramble out of the way of incoming pass rushers much better than either Sims or Lambert.
Everything will get ten times more complex when the rubber hits the road in September, of course. But if I were to break things down as simple as possible, here in April, I'd say this: The defense has the bodies and the talent to be very good, and it depends on how well they take to Jon Tenuta's schemes. And how often they blitz into a screen pass. The offense depends on the line, and secondarily on the quarterback. Quarterback is going to get the attention, and let's hope the line doesn't because poor play will be much more readily apparent than quality play. But the offense will have the weapons it needs; we'll see if the line can let them shine.
***************************************************
Just a couple things I thought shouldn't wait til Monday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an excellent interview with George Adeosun. Refreshingly honest and insightful. And Joe Lunardi's "I need to justify my existence for the other ten months out of the year" early bracketology has UVA a four seed. This means absolutely nothing for next year's tourney but is interesting in the sense that we know the hoops team should do very well next year, but it's a little surprising to see the media powers-that-be thinking so highly of them as well. Much more surprising than Chris Nelson's decommitment, anyway. Dude visited damn near every school in Florida in the last two months. Nelson will probably land on his feet, and I do appreciate that he decided to get it over with rather than holding a spot until the last minute before committing elsewhere. UVA will be fine, as long as they snag Andrew Brown and/or Derrick Nnadi.
Showing posts with label scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scott. Show all posts
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
christmas presents
Technically it's already 2013 and Christmas was a week ago, but it's still not too late to look back at the year 2012 that was, and see who got a nice pile of presents from Santa and who got.....something else. Without much further ado, the Naughty and Nice List from 2012.
-- Teresa Sullivan. Let's face it, the top story of 2012 didn't take place on the field or in any locker room. It started with the email that showed up in your inbox if you're an alum, announcing President Sullivan's abrupt "resignation," and more or less ended a couple weeks later with her reinstatement. In between was a raging firestorm that caught national media attention. The grace and class displayed by the president at the time was exemplary.
-- Mike Scott. Now plying his trade with the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, Scott did something at UVA that's been all too rare for Virginia fans: he lived up to his potential. Actually, he rather exceeded it. His transformation from emotional fireball and rebound specialist to a complete basketball player was a joy to watch, and when an ESPN columnist failed to include Scott in the conversation for national player of the year, UVA fans did it for him. And they were backed up by KenPom, whose statguruizing placed Scott among the top ten players in the country. That was the kind of notoriety that had been sorely missing from UVA hoops of late.
-- John Swofford. Look, Swoff has his critics. Sometimes they're right. But I don't consider myself one of them. If the ACC falls apart, it'll be difficult to blame the conference commissioner, who's been creative, and mostly successful thus far, in his attempts to hold the league together. His success in attracting Notre Dame, a school that gives the ACC badly needed cachet, should not be overlooked. And even though the Irish aren't technically a football member of the league, their five games a season against ACC teams is not really that far from a full schedule, and should give the ACC a few barganing chips at the all-important TV rights negotiating table, which is really where leagues are held together or destroyed.
-- Tony Bennett. Let's take a second and acknowledge our basketball coach, who got the Hoos to the tournament probably ahead of schedule, despite watching attrition and injuries whittle his team down to six and a half scholarship players by season's end. And this season he has them threatening to go back to the Dance, again despite a major obstacle in the form of the extreme youth of his charges and a nagging foot injury to the team's only scholarship senior.
-- Mike Rocco, pre-transfer. Let's face it: having Phillip Sims transfer in was a potential boon for UVA's offense, but it was also a really awkward situation. During the season, Rocco handled the see-sawing as well as anyone could have demanded. Few quarterbacks in UVA's recent history have been jerked around as much as Rocco was.
-- Most of the ACC's presidents, both current and future. Their statement of solidarity doesn't guarantee anything long-term about the stability of the ACC, but it was the most they could've done under the circumstances and much appreciated by those of us who like the ACC, dammit.
-- Helen Dragas. Stipulated: that it's the Board of Visitors' job to hire and fire the school president, that UVA faces a number of challenges that are not exactly existential but must not be underestimated, and that I have no real idea whether or not Teresa Sullivan is the person to handle those challenges. That said, Dragas's orchestration of Sullivan's resignation this summer, sans actual BOV vote, was far more reminiscent of a banana-republic military coup than the lofty ideals of American governance. It angered practically everyone associated with the school and cast UVA in a poor national light. The story, fortunately, had a happy ending, and one hopes the board is a little bit chastened, as well as smarter, for the experience.
-- Wallace Loh. The University of Maryland president who engineered the Terps' move to the Big Ten flat-out admitted that the only knowledge he had of athletic conferences was that "there are games." This is a man with a PhD from Michigan, faculty stints at Texas, Houston, Vanderbilt, Washington, has been a dean at Colorado and Washington and a provost at Iowa, and is now president of Maryland. All of these are schools with big-time college football in big-time conferences. This is a man who's spent 30 years with his head so far buried in ivory-tower academia, in ambitious pursuit of the position he now holds, and hasn't learned anything about the athletic organizations to which his school belongs except "there are games." And this is the kind of person in charge of making decisions about college athletics. (But who would certainly be appalled at the idea of a non-degree-holding football fan being in charge of any academic decisions at his school.) The truth here really is that Jim Delany played Loh like a fiddle, and the ACC is worse off for it.
-- Mike Rocco, post-transfer. The flip side of Rocco's good behavior during the season was that he let loose the frustration afterwards. He wasn't speaking untruths, but even some truths are better left out of the public eye.
-- Foot bones. And those slightly above the foot, as well, like in the ankle area. Broken bones have sidelined Jontel Evans, put an early end to Assane Sene's UVA career, and canceled the season for Malcolm Brogdon as well. These foot injuries represent one of the bigger threats to UVA's hoops season.
-- Mike London's clock management. The failure to call timeout at the end of the VT game is a much-pilloried decision (for the wrong reasons, and the criticism is misguided in that it obscures a much more egregious error earlier in the sequence) but it really was little more than a symptom of a larger problem: London barely knows what he's doing at the end of a half. Sometimes he is left without a timeout when he really needs one; other times he leaves them on the board. At least Pete Gillen had a philosophy, however maddening.
-- Special teams. The #1 reason why UVA did not go bowling. And make no mistake, for all its flaws, it should have been in a bowl. Simply beat Maryland and Wake Forest, two other non-bowl teams in the ACC, and UVA finds itself most likely in the Independence Bowl. Not a great assignment to be sure, but better than where we found ourselves in real life.
-- Teresa Sullivan. Let's face it, the top story of 2012 didn't take place on the field or in any locker room. It started with the email that showed up in your inbox if you're an alum, announcing President Sullivan's abrupt "resignation," and more or less ended a couple weeks later with her reinstatement. In between was a raging firestorm that caught national media attention. The grace and class displayed by the president at the time was exemplary.
-- Mike Scott. Now plying his trade with the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, Scott did something at UVA that's been all too rare for Virginia fans: he lived up to his potential. Actually, he rather exceeded it. His transformation from emotional fireball and rebound specialist to a complete basketball player was a joy to watch, and when an ESPN columnist failed to include Scott in the conversation for national player of the year, UVA fans did it for him. And they were backed up by KenPom, whose statguruizing placed Scott among the top ten players in the country. That was the kind of notoriety that had been sorely missing from UVA hoops of late.
-- John Swofford. Look, Swoff has his critics. Sometimes they're right. But I don't consider myself one of them. If the ACC falls apart, it'll be difficult to blame the conference commissioner, who's been creative, and mostly successful thus far, in his attempts to hold the league together. His success in attracting Notre Dame, a school that gives the ACC badly needed cachet, should not be overlooked. And even though the Irish aren't technically a football member of the league, their five games a season against ACC teams is not really that far from a full schedule, and should give the ACC a few barganing chips at the all-important TV rights negotiating table, which is really where leagues are held together or destroyed.
-- Tony Bennett. Let's take a second and acknowledge our basketball coach, who got the Hoos to the tournament probably ahead of schedule, despite watching attrition and injuries whittle his team down to six and a half scholarship players by season's end. And this season he has them threatening to go back to the Dance, again despite a major obstacle in the form of the extreme youth of his charges and a nagging foot injury to the team's only scholarship senior.
-- Mike Rocco, pre-transfer. Let's face it: having Phillip Sims transfer in was a potential boon for UVA's offense, but it was also a really awkward situation. During the season, Rocco handled the see-sawing as well as anyone could have demanded. Few quarterbacks in UVA's recent history have been jerked around as much as Rocco was.
-- Most of the ACC's presidents, both current and future. Their statement of solidarity doesn't guarantee anything long-term about the stability of the ACC, but it was the most they could've done under the circumstances and much appreciated by those of us who like the ACC, dammit.
-- Helen Dragas. Stipulated: that it's the Board of Visitors' job to hire and fire the school president, that UVA faces a number of challenges that are not exactly existential but must not be underestimated, and that I have no real idea whether or not Teresa Sullivan is the person to handle those challenges. That said, Dragas's orchestration of Sullivan's resignation this summer, sans actual BOV vote, was far more reminiscent of a banana-republic military coup than the lofty ideals of American governance. It angered practically everyone associated with the school and cast UVA in a poor national light. The story, fortunately, had a happy ending, and one hopes the board is a little bit chastened, as well as smarter, for the experience.
-- Wallace Loh. The University of Maryland president who engineered the Terps' move to the Big Ten flat-out admitted that the only knowledge he had of athletic conferences was that "there are games." This is a man with a PhD from Michigan, faculty stints at Texas, Houston, Vanderbilt, Washington, has been a dean at Colorado and Washington and a provost at Iowa, and is now president of Maryland. All of these are schools with big-time college football in big-time conferences. This is a man who's spent 30 years with his head so far buried in ivory-tower academia, in ambitious pursuit of the position he now holds, and hasn't learned anything about the athletic organizations to which his school belongs except "there are games." And this is the kind of person in charge of making decisions about college athletics. (But who would certainly be appalled at the idea of a non-degree-holding football fan being in charge of any academic decisions at his school.) The truth here really is that Jim Delany played Loh like a fiddle, and the ACC is worse off for it.
-- Mike Rocco, post-transfer. The flip side of Rocco's good behavior during the season was that he let loose the frustration afterwards. He wasn't speaking untruths, but even some truths are better left out of the public eye.
-- Foot bones. And those slightly above the foot, as well, like in the ankle area. Broken bones have sidelined Jontel Evans, put an early end to Assane Sene's UVA career, and canceled the season for Malcolm Brogdon as well. These foot injuries represent one of the bigger threats to UVA's hoops season.
-- Mike London's clock management. The failure to call timeout at the end of the VT game is a much-pilloried decision (for the wrong reasons, and the criticism is misguided in that it obscures a much more egregious error earlier in the sequence) but it really was little more than a symptom of a larger problem: London barely knows what he's doing at the end of a half. Sometimes he is left without a timeout when he really needs one; other times he leaves them on the board. At least Pete Gillen had a philosophy, however maddening.
-- Special teams. The #1 reason why UVA did not go bowling. And make no mistake, for all its flaws, it should have been in a bowl. Simply beat Maryland and Wake Forest, two other non-bowl teams in the ACC, and UVA finds itself most likely in the Independence Bowl. Not a great assignment to be sure, but better than where we found ourselves in real life.
Friday, December 7, 2012
season preview: Clemson
Tennessee reactions below this.
Clemson Tigers
Media prediction: 8th of 12
Last season:
Record: 16-15 (8-8) - ACC 7 seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 76th of 345
Returning scoring: 46.5%
Returning rebounding: 55.6%
Returning assists: 31.9%
2011-2012 all-ACC:
1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: G Andre Young
Defensive: G Andre Young
Rookie: none
(Italics indicate departed player.)
Starting lineup:
PG: Rod Hall (So.)
SG: DaMarcus Harrison (So.)
SF: K.J. McDaniels (So.)
PF: Bernard Sullivan (So.)
C: Devin Booker (Sr.)
Bench:
F Milton Jennings (Sr.)
G Adonis Filer (Fr.)
G Jordan Roper (Fr.)
C Landry Nnoko (Fr.)
Coach: Brad Brownell (3rd season)
ACC schedule:
Twice: Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Once: Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Wake Forest
The ACC is starting to regain its basketball footing, largely on the strength of teams like Clemson - the occupiers of the middle ranks that last year were upset on a regular basis and this year are showing more signs of life. Clemson is off to an OK start; at least, they're not a threat to go 3-3 against instate opponents again, a record that was aided by losses to Coastal Carolina and College of Charleston.
They're not, like, world-beaters, of course. They got blown out on their home floor by not-that-good Purdue in the ACC/B1G Challenge; being down 20 at halftime is a bad sign for the future of the contest. But they were improving. That improved start, though, has been derailed somewhat by a few guys who are definitely not going to win any Team Player awards. Oft-suspended senior forward Milton Jennings finds himself back in the doghouse (he missed last year's first game against UVA, among others, for ignoring his classroom duties) and starting guard T.J. Sapp left the team just a couple days ago, throwing a fit after being yanked from the South Carolina game in the first minute for hoisting up a stupid shot.
That's two starters down in the span of about a week. Wherever Clemson goes from here, they'll have to do it with a thin lineup because I would guess that Jennings's indefinite suspension is going to stay that way. I had very little respect for Jennings's game last year. It was sloppy and undisciplined. In the small sample size of five games, it was much better this season; now, the Tigers must rely on Bernard Sullivan at power forward.
Somewhere inside Sullivan is a talented player, but that player has yet to rise to the surface. Sullivan hasn't been much help on the offensive end yet this season; hasn't sank a shot in five games, in fact. The loss of Jennings shifts the scoring burden outside. Point guard Rod Hall has taken it upon himself to score a little more, which he's been able to do but at some expense of ball control, committing half his season turnover total in the past two games. (Clemson's played seven.) Hall, though, is doing a nice job taking over for Clemson's best departed player, Andre Young.
Clemson's best players are forwards, though. Without Jennings, the only senior leadership they have left is center Devin Booker. Booker is Clemson's only real height anymore, except for rotation-fringe freshman center Landry Nnoko, and Booker's only 6'8". Booker's an excellent rebounder on both ends of the court, and a soild, efficient player overall, though he occasionally takes threes, and shouldn't. I think Clemson's biggest threat, though, is wing K.J. McDaniels. McDaniels played in a reserve role last year, and showed some signs of what he can do, but has truly blossomed this year. He's a long, rangy type who blocks hell of shots, he rebounds; think Darion Atkins, but with three-point range in his arsenal.
Rounding out the starting lineup is guard DaMarcus Harrison, a transfer in from BYU. Harrison has good athleticism and can get to the rim, but hasn't figured out the art of the three-ball yet; he shot 26.5% last year and has started this year 3-for-16, which is....lousy. Clemson brings freshmen Adonis Filer and Jordan Roper off the bench for a four-guard rotation that used to be five, Filer being Hall's backup at point. He's been rather inefficient this year, as freshman PGs tend to be; the smallish Roper has been a better shooter so far, but doesn't draw any fouls. They'll go small at times, out of necessity, otherwise Booker and Sullivan would never get off the court.
In this one shot at a pre-expansion 18-game schedule, Clemson drew a pretty good one; they'll see UNC and Duke only once each. They also get Wake only once, but you can't be choosy. They may struggle against bigger teams if they don't reinstate Jennings, and are awfully young and inexperienced, but Brad Brownell has them, like many ACC teams, on a slow but steady upward trajectory. They'll probably hover around .500 in the league again, but whereas last year that wasn't good enough for any postseason play, it should be this time around, particularly since their overall record won't also be mired around the midpoint mark.
******************************************************
I have very little to say about last night's win over Tennessee, other than that, yes, we are probably looking at a tournament season as long as we take care of business in the conference. By which I mean score 10 or 11 wins. Also as long as the injury bug doesn't kick us in the face again. Which it's trying very hard to do, what with Jontel Evans going off and not coming back. Whitey Reid assures us, however, that it's just a flare-up. Not that I don't believe Whitelaw, who tends to know what he's talking about, but I also know what happens to Virginia players whose injuries are only temporary. Like when Mike Scott's ankle surgery flared back up. That was cool.
Anyway, Bub will miss the Mississippi Valley State game, which we could probably win if we sent five folding chairs out for the opening tip, and after that is exam break, so there's plenty of rest available. I want Evans back before the ACC schedule starts, though; you saw how rusty he was against Wisconsin. (Plus he's one of my favorite players because he wakes up every morning and puts "What's good world" on the twittermachine. It's the little things. It's not a morning twitter check to see what news the world has produced for me until "What's good world" has popped up on there. So I don't want his senior season derailed by a stupid balky foot.)
But. The game itself. Slightly less of a brick factory than Tennessee's Georgetown contest, but still. I tell you what, though, once our guys get a little better at finishing at the rim, these games might not be all that close. I don't know how many points we leave on the board that way, but it's probably eight to ten, in both the Wiscy and UT games. But I'm continually amazed at the array of offensive skills Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins have picked up. It's like the ghost of Mike Scott still haunts the floor. A few of those shots that they put in were some of Mike Scott's favorites.
Four cuppycakes now stand between us today and the ACC season opening with a bang against UNC. No reason we shouldn't wrap up the old year at 11-2 and start the new one feeling fully confident about our chances (probably only to be smacked back to earth by zebras in thinly disguised Carolina colors.)
Clemson Tigers
Last season:
Record: 16-15 (8-8) - ACC 7 seed
Postseason: none
KenPom: 76th of 345
Returning scoring: 46.5%
Returning rebounding: 55.6%
Returning assists: 31.9%
2011-2012 all-ACC:
1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: none
HM: G Andre Young
Defensive: G Andre Young
Rookie: none
(Italics indicate departed player.)
Starting lineup:
PG: Rod Hall (So.)
SG: DaMarcus Harrison (So.)
SF: K.J. McDaniels (So.)
PF: Bernard Sullivan (So.)
C: Devin Booker (Sr.)
Bench:
F Milton Jennings (Sr.)
G Adonis Filer (Fr.)
G Jordan Roper (Fr.)
C Landry Nnoko (Fr.)
Coach: Brad Brownell (3rd season)
ACC schedule:
Twice: Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Once: Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Wake Forest
The ACC is starting to regain its basketball footing, largely on the strength of teams like Clemson - the occupiers of the middle ranks that last year were upset on a regular basis and this year are showing more signs of life. Clemson is off to an OK start; at least, they're not a threat to go 3-3 against instate opponents again, a record that was aided by losses to Coastal Carolina and College of Charleston.
They're not, like, world-beaters, of course. They got blown out on their home floor by not-that-good Purdue in the ACC/B1G Challenge; being down 20 at halftime is a bad sign for the future of the contest. But they were improving. That improved start, though, has been derailed somewhat by a few guys who are definitely not going to win any Team Player awards. Oft-suspended senior forward Milton Jennings finds himself back in the doghouse (he missed last year's first game against UVA, among others, for ignoring his classroom duties) and starting guard T.J. Sapp left the team just a couple days ago, throwing a fit after being yanked from the South Carolina game in the first minute for hoisting up a stupid shot.
That's two starters down in the span of about a week. Wherever Clemson goes from here, they'll have to do it with a thin lineup because I would guess that Jennings's indefinite suspension is going to stay that way. I had very little respect for Jennings's game last year. It was sloppy and undisciplined. In the small sample size of five games, it was much better this season; now, the Tigers must rely on Bernard Sullivan at power forward.
Somewhere inside Sullivan is a talented player, but that player has yet to rise to the surface. Sullivan hasn't been much help on the offensive end yet this season; hasn't sank a shot in five games, in fact. The loss of Jennings shifts the scoring burden outside. Point guard Rod Hall has taken it upon himself to score a little more, which he's been able to do but at some expense of ball control, committing half his season turnover total in the past two games. (Clemson's played seven.) Hall, though, is doing a nice job taking over for Clemson's best departed player, Andre Young.
Clemson's best players are forwards, though. Without Jennings, the only senior leadership they have left is center Devin Booker. Booker is Clemson's only real height anymore, except for rotation-fringe freshman center Landry Nnoko, and Booker's only 6'8". Booker's an excellent rebounder on both ends of the court, and a soild, efficient player overall, though he occasionally takes threes, and shouldn't. I think Clemson's biggest threat, though, is wing K.J. McDaniels. McDaniels played in a reserve role last year, and showed some signs of what he can do, but has truly blossomed this year. He's a long, rangy type who blocks hell of shots, he rebounds; think Darion Atkins, but with three-point range in his arsenal.
Rounding out the starting lineup is guard DaMarcus Harrison, a transfer in from BYU. Harrison has good athleticism and can get to the rim, but hasn't figured out the art of the three-ball yet; he shot 26.5% last year and has started this year 3-for-16, which is....lousy. Clemson brings freshmen Adonis Filer and Jordan Roper off the bench for a four-guard rotation that used to be five, Filer being Hall's backup at point. He's been rather inefficient this year, as freshman PGs tend to be; the smallish Roper has been a better shooter so far, but doesn't draw any fouls. They'll go small at times, out of necessity, otherwise Booker and Sullivan would never get off the court.
In this one shot at a pre-expansion 18-game schedule, Clemson drew a pretty good one; they'll see UNC and Duke only once each. They also get Wake only once, but you can't be choosy. They may struggle against bigger teams if they don't reinstate Jennings, and are awfully young and inexperienced, but Brad Brownell has them, like many ACC teams, on a slow but steady upward trajectory. They'll probably hover around .500 in the league again, but whereas last year that wasn't good enough for any postseason play, it should be this time around, particularly since their overall record won't also be mired around the midpoint mark.
******************************************************
I have very little to say about last night's win over Tennessee, other than that, yes, we are probably looking at a tournament season as long as we take care of business in the conference. By which I mean score 10 or 11 wins. Also as long as the injury bug doesn't kick us in the face again. Which it's trying very hard to do, what with Jontel Evans going off and not coming back. Whitey Reid assures us, however, that it's just a flare-up. Not that I don't believe Whitelaw, who tends to know what he's talking about, but I also know what happens to Virginia players whose injuries are only temporary. Like when Mike Scott's ankle surgery flared back up. That was cool.
Anyway, Bub will miss the Mississippi Valley State game, which we could probably win if we sent five folding chairs out for the opening tip, and after that is exam break, so there's plenty of rest available. I want Evans back before the ACC schedule starts, though; you saw how rusty he was against Wisconsin. (Plus he's one of my favorite players because he wakes up every morning and puts "What's good world" on the twittermachine. It's the little things. It's not a morning twitter check to see what news the world has produced for me until "What's good world" has popped up on there. So I don't want his senior season derailed by a stupid balky foot.)
But. The game itself. Slightly less of a brick factory than Tennessee's Georgetown contest, but still. I tell you what, though, once our guys get a little better at finishing at the rim, these games might not be all that close. I don't know how many points we leave on the board that way, but it's probably eight to ten, in both the Wiscy and UT games. But I'm continually amazed at the array of offensive skills Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins have picked up. It's like the ghost of Mike Scott still haunts the floor. A few of those shots that they put in were some of Mike Scott's favorites.
Four cuppycakes now stand between us today and the ACC season opening with a bang against UNC. No reason we shouldn't wrap up the old year at 11-2 and start the new one feeling fully confident about our chances (probably only to be smacked back to earth by zebras in thinly disguised Carolina colors.)
Monday, November 12, 2012
hurricane mike
ACC expansion is generally seen as a necessary evil, something we could do without and yet must have in order to prevent even worse outcomes. And yet it's not without its perks. We don't get to see much of Clemson or NC State any more, but 12 games a year have to be played against somebody. The somebody that has replaced traditional yet unremarkable (in the sense that nothing especially historic has ever happened against them, unless you had some kind of nostalgia for a decades-long losing streak to Clemson) opponents is Miami. It's a funny pairing. I don't remember particular details of most of the BCS championship games that've occurred since its inception, but I do remember quite a bit of the one Miami played in, against Ohio State, including where I was at the time (home from school for the holidays, at a friend's house playing poker) and never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that the powerhouse Hurricanes would, in less than a decade, figure more strongly than almost any other team in UVA lore of the 21st century. "UVA owns Miami" would've exploded my mind at the time. They were on another plane back then.
That's a slightly misguided meme, actually, as we're only 5-4 against them since ACC expansion. They won the first two matchups (three if you count the mid-90s bowl game) and not that long ago, demolished the Hoos so badly (52-17) that the ripple effects from the game went backward two days in time and caused me to write this, likely the most accurate game preview I've ever penned.
But slightly misguided is still only slightly. UVA horned in on 70 years of Miami history by making their last game in their venerable old stadium a memorable one, if not exactly in the way the in-attendance Hurricane dignitaries hoped. And the Hoos now carry a three-year winning streak against Miami, utterly unthinkable in the glamour days of The U. The way in which the latest entry finished up eroded most of whatever personal resistance I had left to the "we own them" meme.
It's hard not to think that way when Miami is responsible for some of the best memories of the London era, to say nothing of one of the top three games of the Groh era. A UVA team that would eventually finish 1-7 in conference play dominated a top-25 Miami squad thanks in part to the best hit of John-Kevin Dolce's career. Mike Rocco hit Perry Jones between the numbers on a simple slant and the Miami defense forgot to be anywhere near the ball, leading to technically the longest touchdown throw of Rocco's career. And then......that.
"That" is what happened on Saturday. Rocco hit Darius Jennings and Jake McGee for near-identical touchdowns, making Miami the fourth victim of Rocco's heartbreaking ways. They fall in line behind Indiana, Penn State, and Florida State. Resilience is in this man's character, winning his countenance and mien. There's a reason I don't fall all over myself for scout-wowing spirals. The best thing in a quarterback is what Rocco has: the inability to enter a game behind on the scoreboard and conceive of the possibility of losing.
I told you on Thursday I wasn't ready to believe in fairy tales, and then the fairy tale fairy, who does not like my attitude, gave us a football game right from the Brothers Grimm. Now there's only two ways we can go from here: all the way up or all the way down. Which you think will happen depends on how long you've been a UVA fan and whether you've learned any lessons in that time.
Further items in brief.....
-- I guess we might as well get used to the quarterback platoon. I'm a pretty firm believer in not screwing with what's working (which is a big part of the reason I was all pro-Rocco to begin with.) The coaches did the right thing, however, in breaking the rotation at the end and sticking with the hot hand; Rocco's final drive marked the first time all game that either quarterback had had three series in a row, not counting the clock-killing handoff to finish off the first half.
-- Maybe it's because I'm an ACC fan that I didn't find the NFL's replacement refs to be so bad. These guys constantly find new and amusing ways to make court jesters of themselves, the latest being a personal foul on "unknown player." The safety was also a hideously bad call, and this particular crew must have a copy of the rulebook that omits any mention of facemask penalties.
-- Special teams continue to suck.
-- Dominique Terrell had a game and a half, did he not? This is the first game we've seen our wide receiver recruiting efforts really pay off in the form of a terrifying passing assault. Terrell, Darius Jennings, and Tim Smith all had huge catches and excellent games overall, supplemented nicely by McGee and E.J. Scott. There's a reason we were really excited to reel those guys in, and that was it.
-- Second best tweet of the day: Michael Phillips' suggestion that a coaching rotation be implemented in which Groh coaches October and London gets November. Undefeated season recipe right there. Londonvember is really gonna be a thing if we somehow manage to go bowling, and don't tell me you didn't miss Grohtober just a little bit during the Maryland and Wake games. Best tweet of the day: CavsCorner's Brad Franklin with "Seriously, Mike London is trolling Randy Edsall SOOOOOOO hard with these QBs."
-- Steve Greer is gonna be missed more than any other graduating senior next year.
-- Of all the possible outcomes this season could have generated, the following is the least likely when viewed from back in August: UVA and Virginia Tech have identical 4-6, 2-4 records in November. VT and Georgia Tech were considered the mainest challengers for the Coastal Division, and played to a 20-17 overtime battle in the first game of the season for each. Who'd've guessed that the close score meant they both suck, not that they're both awesome?
Prediction review....
-- UVA extends Miami's streak of allowing 200 rushing yards one more game. Somehow, we didn't manage this. Good Lord, we didn't even make it to 100 and still scored 41 points.
-- Mike Rocco runs for at least 25 yards. No, and in fact, he was sacked a couple times which took a big chunk out of the 17-yard gain he had early on.
-- For the second game in a row, Phillip Sims is the more effective passer. Not even remotely.
-- Duke Johnson breaks off at least one big run or YAC reception. Yes, thanks in part to one of the feeblest attempts at a tackle I've ever seen, even including punters. Demetrious Nicholson could not have looked sillier on Johnson's first-quarter scamper. Also, kick return DAMMIT.
That makes me 20-for-48, as well as 0-7-3 against the spread since the margin of victory was exactly the line. This was one crappy game for Vegas. They originally set the spread at Miami -3 and so much money flooded in on UVA that they swung the spread four points to UVA -1. So they obviously lost a ton of money on those bets and then had to refund all the ones that came on once the spread settled at -1. I'm also 4-6 straight up and probably never going to pick UVA to win again this season. Briar patch and all that.
Programming note: this is a shortened week thanks to the game on Thursday. Game preview runs on Wednesday with nothing scheduled for Thursday. Game reactions on Friday, which is normally a vacation day.
That's a slightly misguided meme, actually, as we're only 5-4 against them since ACC expansion. They won the first two matchups (three if you count the mid-90s bowl game) and not that long ago, demolished the Hoos so badly (52-17) that the ripple effects from the game went backward two days in time and caused me to write this, likely the most accurate game preview I've ever penned.
But slightly misguided is still only slightly. UVA horned in on 70 years of Miami history by making their last game in their venerable old stadium a memorable one, if not exactly in the way the in-attendance Hurricane dignitaries hoped. And the Hoos now carry a three-year winning streak against Miami, utterly unthinkable in the glamour days of The U. The way in which the latest entry finished up eroded most of whatever personal resistance I had left to the "we own them" meme.
It's hard not to think that way when Miami is responsible for some of the best memories of the London era, to say nothing of one of the top three games of the Groh era. A UVA team that would eventually finish 1-7 in conference play dominated a top-25 Miami squad thanks in part to the best hit of John-Kevin Dolce's career. Mike Rocco hit Perry Jones between the numbers on a simple slant and the Miami defense forgot to be anywhere near the ball, leading to technically the longest touchdown throw of Rocco's career. And then......that.
"That" is what happened on Saturday. Rocco hit Darius Jennings and Jake McGee for near-identical touchdowns, making Miami the fourth victim of Rocco's heartbreaking ways. They fall in line behind Indiana, Penn State, and Florida State. Resilience is in this man's character, winning his countenance and mien. There's a reason I don't fall all over myself for scout-wowing spirals. The best thing in a quarterback is what Rocco has: the inability to enter a game behind on the scoreboard and conceive of the possibility of losing.
I told you on Thursday I wasn't ready to believe in fairy tales, and then the fairy tale fairy, who does not like my attitude, gave us a football game right from the Brothers Grimm. Now there's only two ways we can go from here: all the way up or all the way down. Which you think will happen depends on how long you've been a UVA fan and whether you've learned any lessons in that time.
Further items in brief.....
-- I guess we might as well get used to the quarterback platoon. I'm a pretty firm believer in not screwing with what's working (which is a big part of the reason I was all pro-Rocco to begin with.) The coaches did the right thing, however, in breaking the rotation at the end and sticking with the hot hand; Rocco's final drive marked the first time all game that either quarterback had had three series in a row, not counting the clock-killing handoff to finish off the first half.
-- Maybe it's because I'm an ACC fan that I didn't find the NFL's replacement refs to be so bad. These guys constantly find new and amusing ways to make court jesters of themselves, the latest being a personal foul on "unknown player." The safety was also a hideously bad call, and this particular crew must have a copy of the rulebook that omits any mention of facemask penalties.
-- Special teams continue to suck.
-- Dominique Terrell had a game and a half, did he not? This is the first game we've seen our wide receiver recruiting efforts really pay off in the form of a terrifying passing assault. Terrell, Darius Jennings, and Tim Smith all had huge catches and excellent games overall, supplemented nicely by McGee and E.J. Scott. There's a reason we were really excited to reel those guys in, and that was it.
-- Second best tweet of the day: Michael Phillips' suggestion that a coaching rotation be implemented in which Groh coaches October and London gets November. Undefeated season recipe right there. Londonvember is really gonna be a thing if we somehow manage to go bowling, and don't tell me you didn't miss Grohtober just a little bit during the Maryland and Wake games. Best tweet of the day: CavsCorner's Brad Franklin with "Seriously, Mike London is trolling Randy Edsall SOOOOOOO hard with these QBs."
-- Steve Greer is gonna be missed more than any other graduating senior next year.
-- Of all the possible outcomes this season could have generated, the following is the least likely when viewed from back in August: UVA and Virginia Tech have identical 4-6, 2-4 records in November. VT and Georgia Tech were considered the mainest challengers for the Coastal Division, and played to a 20-17 overtime battle in the first game of the season for each. Who'd've guessed that the close score meant they both suck, not that they're both awesome?
Prediction review....
-- UVA extends Miami's streak of allowing 200 rushing yards one more game. Somehow, we didn't manage this. Good Lord, we didn't even make it to 100 and still scored 41 points.
-- Mike Rocco runs for at least 25 yards. No, and in fact, he was sacked a couple times which took a big chunk out of the 17-yard gain he had early on.
-- For the second game in a row, Phillip Sims is the more effective passer. Not even remotely.
-- Duke Johnson breaks off at least one big run or YAC reception. Yes, thanks in part to one of the feeblest attempts at a tackle I've ever seen, even including punters. Demetrious Nicholson could not have looked sillier on Johnson's first-quarter scamper. Also, kick return DAMMIT.
That makes me 20-for-48, as well as 0-7-3 against the spread since the margin of victory was exactly the line. This was one crappy game for Vegas. They originally set the spread at Miami -3 and so much money flooded in on UVA that they swung the spread four points to UVA -1. So they obviously lost a ton of money on those bets and then had to refund all the ones that came on once the spread settled at -1. I'm also 4-6 straight up and probably never going to pick UVA to win again this season. Briar patch and all that.
Programming note: this is a shortened week thanks to the game on Thursday. Game preview runs on Wednesday with nothing scheduled for Thursday. Game reactions on Friday, which is normally a vacation day.
Friday, October 5, 2012
game preview: Duke
Date/Time: Saturday, October 6; 3:00TV: RSN/ESPN3
Record against the Blue Devils: 33-30
Last meeting: UVA 31, Duke 21
Last weekend: LTech 44, UVA 38; Duke 34, WF 27
Line: Duke by 1.5
Opposing blog: Duke Sports Blog
Injury report:
Virginia -
OUT FOR SEASON:
SS Pablo Alvarez
DT Marco Jones
WR Mario Nixon
OUT:
SS Darius Lee
DT Buddy Ruff
DE Billy Schautz
DOUBTFUL:
WR Tim Smith
QUESTIONABLE:
None
PROBABLE:
OT Oday Aboushi
DT Will Hill
SS Brandon Phelps
Duke -
OUT FOR SEASON:
TE Jack Farrell
WR Blair Holliday
DE Allen Jackson
S Corbin McCarthy
S Taylor Sowell
OUT:
CB Jared Boyd
S Brandon Braxton
LB Kelby Brown
NT Jamal Bruce
TE Braxton Deaver
DE Justin Foxx
S Chris Tavarez
DOUBTFUL:
None
QUESTIONABLE:
CB Lee Butler
QB Sean Renfree
DT Jamal Wallace
PROBABLE:
LB David Helton
The primary villain from last year's game - douchebag extraordinaire Tyree Watkins - is gone from the Duke team (kicked off for beating up a woman, as if that should surprise you from one of the biggest pieces of shit it's ever been our pleasure to play against) but it doesn't mean the animosity's gone. The game was too chippy, even between the coaches, to forget about. Now the series shifts to Wallace Wade Stadium, where the Hoos haven't won since 2006, and Duke students will probably show their disdain for UVA by waving their spirit fingers - which looks admittedly impressive on a two-page magazine spread in Cameron, and really stupid when the opposition is eighty yards away.
-- UVA run offense vs. Duke run defense
Top backs:
Kevin Parks: 67 carries, 272 yards, 4.1 avg, 2 TDs
Perry Jones: 57 carries, 195 yards, 3.4 avg, 1 TD
UVA offense:
124.6 yards/game, 3.78 yards/attempt
91st of 124 (national), 8th of 12 (ACC)
Duke defense:
118.6 yards/game, 3.43 yards/attempt
37th of 124 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)
The good news here is that Duke's very solid-looking defensive numbers have come mostly against some of the worst rushing offenses in the country. The bad news is that most of those offenses have numbers that look a lot like.....ours.
Duke's 4-2-5 ought to be familiar by now, as we've already played a few teams that run something similar. And the injury report is full of bad news for Duke, with players in all units out for the game. Jamal Wallace, Brandon Braxton, Kelby Brown, Justin Foxx - all starters. Braxton is their third-leading tackler. Wallace and Braxton are new to the injury list, so their absence thins out the Duke defense even more than what they've dealt with so far.
I observed last week that I thought maybe the running game had been improving slightly each week. The offensive line seems to think so too, as they've been giving interviews to that effect. It's a slow push, but it's seen Kevin Parks's average creep above 4 yards and stay there. Perry Jones, on the other hand, has been dancing a little too much and it shows. There was a lot more one-cut-and-go out of Jones last year, although it was Jones who improved his average against Louisiana Tech and not Parks. Two steps forward, one step back.
There's a decent chance the O-line grades out reasonably well this week; Duke's defensive line is generally pedestrian and unproductive. They have some playmakers on the edges: Kenny Anunike and Dezmond Johnson can get after it. I'm less impressed by the middle, though, and it got a lot softer without Wallace.
The working theory is that now that Phillip Sims is starting, the run game will open up thanks to the deep threat. We'll see about that; teams have been able to stop UVA with seven in the box. Chances are there's a kernel of truth to it, but if we have any success this week, it's probably going to be due more to Duke's injuries and, you know, it being Duke. Bill Lazor will still have to dig deep into the run-game playbook in order to get anything moving.
-- UVA pass offense vs. Duke pass defense
Quarterback:
Phillip Sims: 28/46, 60.9%; 340 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INTs; 7.39 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Darius Jennings: 21 rec., 319 yards, 1 TD
Perry Jones: 18 rec., 193 yards, 0 TDs
UVA offense:
298.4 yards/game, 7.6 yards/attempt
48th of 124 (national), 7th of 12 (ACC)
Duke defense:
235.8 yards/game, 6.9 yards/attempt
64th of 124 (national), 7th of 12 (ACC)
It's that time. The Sims era starts this week; Mike London has sort of left the door open for Rocco, if you're the kind of person that takes what you read absolutely literally. This is a good starting test for Sims; Duke has some pretty good cornerbacks, especially Ross Cockrell and his three interceptions. Cockrell will no doubt match up on Darius Jennings most of the time. Safety Jordon Byas has been solid in pass defense as well, and has a pick of his own.
However, the other reason this is a good starter game for Sims is because Duke is prone to giving up the big play. Stanford's Josh Nunes was only 16-for-30, but he averaged 17 yards a completion. Duke has allowed 12 pass plays of 30+ yards this season, which puts them at the very bottom nationally, tied for 117th. Sims probably won't have a ruthlessly efficient monster game, but he won't need to.
He'll probably have to work without Tim Smith, though - again. Smith hasn't been real healthy all season. It's part of the reason why E.J. Scott is stepping up. With Cockrell covering Jennings, a big day out of Scott would be a big deal. I think we'll get a good showing out of him and Jake McGee, but I worry about Dominique Terrell. Mike Rocco threw what his supporters called a catchable ball and his detractors called a dead-duck floater, and Terrell had trouble keeping his hands on it. Sims throws lasers and is still learning the art of the touch pass, so it'll be interesting (although hopefully not interesting at all) to see what happens when Terrell is targeted.
This will be Sims's first real brush with having the weight of the game on his shoulders. No more security blanket; it's his to win or lose. As such I don't expect his perfect interception record to remain unblemished. But he should also be able to find a way to outdo his season long pass of 47 yards, and if Josh Nunes can average 17 yards a completion, on a defense that's giving up more than 12, Sims should be able to get 14. Dunno how many passes he'll complete - he's a lot more likely than Rocco to try and make the first read work even if it looks kinda covered (which is to say, less likely to check down) but the ones he does will be big.
-- Duke run offense vs. UVA run defense
Top backs:
Jela Duncan: 31 carries, 209 yards, 6.7 avg., 1 TD
Juwan Thompson: 35 carres, 123 yards, 3.5 avg, 0 TDs
Duke offense:
114.8 yards/game, 3.54 yards/attempt
103rd of 124 (national), 10th of 12 (ACC)
UVA defense:
182 yards/game, 4.95 yards/attempt
104th of 124 (national), 11th of 12 (ACC)
We're slowly but surely getting the stink of that Georgia Tech game out of our stats, but it's a long process and it'll never fully disappear from the stat sheet. But we finally got the yards-per-carry average down below five. Take that game out and we're looking at more like a 3.3 average, which is more than acceptable.
Duke is slowly discovering Jela Duncan. His carries have increased every game since the Stanford game (in which the rest of their rushing game was totally demolished) and if Duke is smart they'll increase again. Duncan has a combination of speed and power that their other backs don't have. So far Duke has split their carries more or less three ways between Duncan, Josh Snead, and Juwan Thompson; Thompson is a big, powerful back with the speed of a sleepy ox. Snead is smaller and scattier. Duncan is better than either, and the only one that worries me much.
Duke does like to add the wildcat wrinkle, using quarterback Brandon Connette in this role. It's not scary. It's a red zone thing; Connette has five rushing touchdowns. But until he can come into a game with better passing stats than 2-for-7, nobody will much respect the pass, and the run won't go far.
I wouldn't expect us to be able to match Stanford's performance; they have a damn good defense that held USC to two touchdowns and stuffed their big new acquisition, Silas Redd, for 17 yards on 13 carries. Duke was never going to run on them. That said, Duke does have a fairly solid offensive line, but our expectations haven't dropped so far that we shouldn't be able to bottle them up. I don't expect a huge performance by either team; this should once again turn out some pretty boring numbers. The last two weeks I've said that any time the opponent runs the ball it's a win for us; the same holds true again, even more so if it's not Duncan taking the handoff.
-- Duke pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
Quarterback:
Sean Renfree: 121/168, 72.0%; 1282 yards, 9 TDs, 5 INTs; 7.63 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Conner Vernon: 34 rec., 462 yards, 3 TDs
Jamison Crowder: 34 rec., 377 yards, 2 TDs
Duke offense:
304.0 yards/game, 7.2 yards/attempt
73rd of 124 (national), 11th of 12 (ACC)
UVA defense:
220.6 yards/game, 6.6 yards/attempt
50th of 124 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)
Obviously, the elephant here is that we have no idea if Sean Renfree is going to play or not. He's a "game-time decision," the worst words in the universe next to "high-ankle sprain" if you're a fantasy football player. Let's just assume Renfree will play. If he doesn't, Anthony Boone will take over; Boone is a little bit more of a runner, a little bit less of a passer, but ultimately no Renfree.
Renfree has been awfully damn efficient, completing just under three-quarters of his passes. That number combined with (very slightly) fewer yards per attempt than Mike Rocco is an astounding statement on the shortness of his passes. Unless his throw is headed toward one of his top two receivers, it's highly, highly unlikely to gain more than 10 yards.
I say "top two," but Renfree has actually spread the ball around almost exactly evenly among a top three of Conner Vernon, Jamison Crowder, and Desmond Scott, the latter having made the position switch from running back (and a productive one at that.) Vernon's first catch of the day will be an ACC record for career receptions, so we'll have to put up with that, but at least it'll be out of the way early. (That said, I'm rooting for him to also get the yardage record, as it will knock thieving-ass Peter Warrick off that particular perch.)
It's awfully tough to get any pressure on Renfree, since Duke uses a lot of three and five step drops and Renfree gets rid of the ball quickly. With Renfree working through an elbow issue, though, that pressure would come in awfully handy if we can get there. Both Matt McGloin and Casey Pachall had exactly that problem - banged-up elbows thanks to our pass rush - but Louisiana Tech proved you can neutralize the UVA front four just by getting rid of the ball quickly, because we don't yet have the ability to beat anyone one-on-one more than occasionally. And without Billy Schautz, the job gets harder.
The battle between Vernon and Demetrious Nicholson should be the best of the day. If Nicholson can get the best of that battle, I expect to enjoy this game immensely. Even though Renfree can find Crowder and Scott just as easily, there just isn't a lot of big-play danger here. If Duke wins, it'll be death by a thousand paper cuts.
-- Outlook
The betting public must really like the Hoos this week. The line opened up at about 3 points in favor of Duke, and in a lot of places it's dropped to 1.5 already. Well, good. I wouldn't call it a lock, though. Not when Duke has the potential to hang up another 40-odd points the same way Louisiana Tech did. And If you thought personal fouls were a problem last week, this game has ain't-seen-nuthin-yet potential if the discipline issues can't be worked through.
On the other hand, we got a secret weapon. There's precious little film on Sims, and it's an unpredictable game thanks to that. I feel less confident about predicting the outcome of this one than any game so far this season. Except for one thing: it's still Duke, and you better not consider yourself a bowl team if you lose to Duke.
-- Prediction summary:
-- Sims throws at least one pick, probably early.
-- Sims averages 14 yards a completion.
-- Jela Duncan gets a plurality (if not a majority) of Duke's carries.
-- Whoever quarterbacks Duke completes 2/3 of his passes.
Final score: UVA 31, Duke 23
-- Rest of the ACC:
Boston College at Army, 12:00 - Could be the Eagles last win of the year. If they win.
Virginia Tech at North Carolina, 12:30 - No flipping good reason whatsoever this game is not on national TV.
Wake Forest at Maryland, 3:30 - Especially when this stinker is.
Georgia Tech at Clemson, 3:30 - Could be Baylor-WVU redux if GT's offense were the quick-strike variety.
Miami at Notre Dame, 7:30 - Notre Dame calls these neutral-site games, "The Shamrock Series." This is Irish for "we're going to wear the stupidest fucking uniforms you've ever seen, and we've double-dog-dared our uniform provider to try and outdo themselves every year."
Florida State at NC State, 8:00 - Does anyone really think FSU is going to face any real resistance for the rest of the year?
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
the recruit: Keeon Johnson
Name: Keeon Johnson
Position: WR
Hometown: Kannapolis, NC
School: A.L. Brown
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 200
24/7: 86, three stars; #92 WR, NC #24
ESPN: 77, three stars; #88 WR, NC #30, SE #306
Rivals: 5.6, three stars; #78 WR, NC #22
Scout: three stars; #63 WR
Other offers: Notre Dame, North Carolina, NC State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Minnesota, Duke, East Carolina
Mid-June brought an embarrassment of riches. Jack English started the wave on the 12th, and in the next less-than-two-weeks, five more players jumped onboard. English was a camp commit; the next five were players who jumped from various colors of the recruiting board rainbow to end up in orange-land. It's the sort of thing that happens when players realize the doors are closing. The first of those: Keeon Johnson.
As a wide receiver, and the most-recently taken one in a long series of them, Johnson is something of a luxury commitment. But he's also the most sought-after one of the three that we have, Andre Levrone's USC offer notwithstanding. Johnson had offers from half the ACC, which is true even including all future members. He ended up with a top three of UVA, UNC, and Notre Dame, though in the end ND fans at least were chalking it up to a decision for UVA, and they were right.
Johnson is a big target, of the sort that we have on our roster but isn't in the playing rotation. He stands 6'3" and will probably top out around 210-215 pounds, giving him very similar size to Miles Gooch. Gooch might be playing more if Jake McGee wasn't basically playing his role. In any case, there's a major lack of playable size among the receiving corps. Especially on the outside.
That's where Johnson will end up. He's got decent wheels, but not the explosive phone-booth athleticism required for the slot. This isn't to say that Johnson is in line for immediate playing time, though; with the glut of wide receivers in the system, it'd take a supreme talent to leapfrog all of it. And size alone isn't going to earn playing time, otherwise we'd be seeing a ton of Gooch. Johnson is very, very likely to redshirt.
Injury troubles only increase that likelihood. He had a nagging but not serious hip issue in the spring, and has sat out the last few weeks with turf toe. There's also a lot of refinement to be done in his game, and he needs time in the weight room. ESPN paints a picture of a guy who has a whole bunch of upside but needs major work to reach it; they note they "need to see more physical play to believe he will translate into a good blocker at the next level." They're not the only ones; a Domer blogger corroborates the assessment by saying, "I’m not sure how physical he is, or really wants to be, on the field. He’s a decent blocker but not as aggressive as a player his size could be."
Most coaches aren't as militant about wide receiver blocking as Paul Johnson, but they'll still tell you this: you don't block, you don't play. Johnson's redshirt year will be spent in the weight room working on that. After that - well, there still isn't going to be a ton of room just yet. There's little doubt that the current crop of sophomores is the main wide receiver group for the foreseeable future, and what time they don't get will probably go to guys like Adrian Gamble and Canaan Severin, who've already seen the field. Johnson has excellent tools at his disposal, though: size, good hands, solid route-running skills, and I can see a career trajectory similar to E.J. Scott's. It's very enjoyable this season watching Scott come into his own as a player and really carve out a place for himself after a few years of apprenticeship, and Keeon Johnson ought to be able to do the same.
Position: WR
Hometown: Kannapolis, NC
School: A.L. Brown
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 200
24/7: 86, three stars; #92 WR, NC #24
ESPN: 77, three stars; #88 WR, NC #30, SE #306
Rivals: 5.6, three stars; #78 WR, NC #22
Scout: three stars; #63 WR
Other offers: Notre Dame, North Carolina, NC State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Minnesota, Duke, East Carolina
Mid-June brought an embarrassment of riches. Jack English started the wave on the 12th, and in the next less-than-two-weeks, five more players jumped onboard. English was a camp commit; the next five were players who jumped from various colors of the recruiting board rainbow to end up in orange-land. It's the sort of thing that happens when players realize the doors are closing. The first of those: Keeon Johnson.
As a wide receiver, and the most-recently taken one in a long series of them, Johnson is something of a luxury commitment. But he's also the most sought-after one of the three that we have, Andre Levrone's USC offer notwithstanding. Johnson had offers from half the ACC, which is true even including all future members. He ended up with a top three of UVA, UNC, and Notre Dame, though in the end ND fans at least were chalking it up to a decision for UVA, and they were right.
Johnson is a big target, of the sort that we have on our roster but isn't in the playing rotation. He stands 6'3" and will probably top out around 210-215 pounds, giving him very similar size to Miles Gooch. Gooch might be playing more if Jake McGee wasn't basically playing his role. In any case, there's a major lack of playable size among the receiving corps. Especially on the outside.
That's where Johnson will end up. He's got decent wheels, but not the explosive phone-booth athleticism required for the slot. This isn't to say that Johnson is in line for immediate playing time, though; with the glut of wide receivers in the system, it'd take a supreme talent to leapfrog all of it. And size alone isn't going to earn playing time, otherwise we'd be seeing a ton of Gooch. Johnson is very, very likely to redshirt.
Injury troubles only increase that likelihood. He had a nagging but not serious hip issue in the spring, and has sat out the last few weeks with turf toe. There's also a lot of refinement to be done in his game, and he needs time in the weight room. ESPN paints a picture of a guy who has a whole bunch of upside but needs major work to reach it; they note they "need to see more physical play to believe he will translate into a good blocker at the next level." They're not the only ones; a Domer blogger corroborates the assessment by saying, "I’m not sure how physical he is, or really wants to be, on the field. He’s a decent blocker but not as aggressive as a player his size could be."
Most coaches aren't as militant about wide receiver blocking as Paul Johnson, but they'll still tell you this: you don't block, you don't play. Johnson's redshirt year will be spent in the weight room working on that. After that - well, there still isn't going to be a ton of room just yet. There's little doubt that the current crop of sophomores is the main wide receiver group for the foreseeable future, and what time they don't get will probably go to guys like Adrian Gamble and Canaan Severin, who've already seen the field. Johnson has excellent tools at his disposal, though: size, good hands, solid route-running skills, and I can see a career trajectory similar to E.J. Scott's. It's very enjoyable this season watching Scott come into his own as a player and really carve out a place for himself after a few years of apprenticeship, and Keeon Johnson ought to be able to do the same.
Friday, September 14, 2012
game preview: Georgia Tech
Date/Time: Saturday, September 15; 3:30
TV: ESPNUVA
Record against the Jackets: 17-16-1
Last meeting: UVA 24, GT 21; 10/15/11; Charlottesville
Last weekend: UVA 17, PSU 16; GT 59, Presb. 3
Line: Georgia Tech by 10
Opposing blog: From The Rumble Seat
Injury report:
Virginia -
OUT:
G Cody Wallace
DOUBTFUL:
WR Tim Smith
QUESTIONABLE:
DE Billy Schautz
PROBABLE:
TE Paul Freedman
Georgia Tech -
OUT:
LB Daniel Drummond
S Fred Holton
RB Charles Perkins
QUESTIONABLE:
RB David Sims
The first road game of the season is a tough one: a trip to Atlanta to play a difficult Yellow Jackets team. As usual, the main storyline will be Al Groh and his defense against his old team, and it'll be tough sledding because Georgia Tech's D is coming together nicely. In fact it's threatening to become GT's calling card this season. The offense is still looking for a working combination: Paul Johnson is talking about his quarterbacks in a way that suggests he's not fully onboard with the one he's got, and the running back position has been a veritable merry-go-round. It's still that wackity triple-option, though, and as ever it presents a tremendous challenge.
-- UVA run offense vs. GT run defense
Top backs:
Kevin Parks: 23 carries, 75 yards, 3.3 avg., 2 TDs
Perry Jones: 22 carries, 66 yards, 3.0 avg., 1 TD
UVA offense:
108 yards/game, 3.22 yards/attempt
100th of 124 (national), 8th of 12 (ACC)
GT defense:
120.5 yards/game, 3.71 yards/attempt
66th of 124 (national), 9th of 12 (ACC)
Who's excited to see how the run game looks on Saturday? Not this guy! Let's be fair: Penn State has one of the better front sevens that we'll see this season. But then, so does Georgia Tech. The interior line got zero push against PSU's 300-pound defensive tackles last week, and this week they face the mother of all 300-pounders: GT's T.J. Barnes checks in at 6'7", 345. This guy is a boulder and a half.
The plus side there is that Barnes has been doing exactly what Groh's defense calls for: occupy a lot of space and not much else. Barnes only has four assisted tackles this year, which means he's probably getting the double-teams he ought to be. In the end, though, I don't care if he's a 345-pound lump of mud; he'd still be a 345-pound lump of mud, and until our offensive line proves they can handle guys that size, it's safe to assume they can't.
GT has been missing starting linebacker Daniel Drummond all season, and they'll be without him again this game, opening the door for redshirt freshman Jabari Hunt-Days to start at ILB. They don't seem to be missing Drummond; Hunt-Days is second on the team in tackles with thirteen. This is basically a classic Groh linebacking corps. Jeremiah Attaochu on the outside is more or less living up to the preseason hype, and fellow outside backer Brandon Watts has been all over the field too. The four starting linebackers are four of the top six tacklers on the team, which means that Groh's defense is doing what it's supposed to.
GT's two previous games this season don't hold a lot of useful data. Virginia Tech's running game is still a work in progress with two new running backs and a revamped offensive line. It was OK, not great, against GT, but whether that's because GT's defense is good or because VT's running game is OK-not-great is kind of up in the air right now. For what it's worth, GT fans aren't totally convinced in the efficacy of their run defense, and Presbyterian's Lance Byrd did reach 80 yards and a 4.4 YPC average for the game.
Regardless, I'm even less convinced about our offensive line. Cody Wallace's absence won't be crippling but does rob us of some playable depth. But these guys have to get better. Conner Davis got by and large no push at all against Penn State, and Luke Bowanko is still getting used to blocking after snapping the ball.
Outside of LoVante' Battle's 22-yarder in garbage time against Richmond, we don't have a 20-yard run this year; the longest is a 17-yarder by Perry Jones. Call it a weird premonition, but I expect that to change this weekend. Maybe it's the 3-4 defense, which is prone at times to giving up plays when the linebackers make the wrong read. I think someone, probably Jones, is good for a big play at some point, but outside of that, I have a problem seeing us over 3.5 yards a carry. The GT defense is too talented and our O-line too unproven to get much more than that.
-- UVA pass offense vs. GT pass defense
Quarterback:
Michael Rocco: 46/70, 65.7%; 569 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT; 8.13 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Darius Jennings: 10 rec., 152 yards, 1 TD
Tim Smith: 7 rec., 108 yards, 0 TDs
UVA offense:
312 yards/game, 7.9 yards/attempt
41st of 124 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)
GT defense:
164 yards/game, 4.5 yards/attempt
9th of 124 (national), 4th of 12 (ACC)
Again the stats aren't all that useful here. Presbyterian, you know. GT smothered their passing game, but they should. Logan Thomas only completed about 55% against GT, so that's a pretty good thing going for them, but then, 55% isn't especially far off his career rate.
The challenge will be for our interior line to pick up on whatever wackiness Groh has up his sleeve in re: blitzes. The man's a solid defensive coordinator overall but if there's one single thing he does well, it's design blitz packages. That's going to be on the interior line to recognize and block the right guys. Pass protection will also improve if Morgan Moses fixes his footwork from the Penn State game. It looked like he was shuffling around in cement at times, particularly on the play where Phillip Sims was stripped and fumbled. Can't have any of that this week as Moses will more often than not be assigned to deal with a speed-rushing linebacker.
Being likely without Tim Smith, I think we'll see E.J. Scott and Dominique Terrell split his time. But I don't think they'll get all his catches. After two weeks of seeing Jake McGee do a bunch of really cool shit, I'm betting the coaches look at each other and think, "gee, maybe we should use this guy." Darius Jennings is quickly becoming the go-to receiver, and will probably lead the Hoos in catches by a big margin, but McGee is becoming a weapon. So far he's done little besides line up in the slot and run deepish routes, and I think he'll keep doing that, and I think Rocco will keep finding him. He's got the largest per-catch yardage average on the team, and that continues on Saturday.
But Jennings is going to be key. Scott has been a decent hey-don't-forget-about-me kind of receiver, good at keeping defenses honest. Terrell has flashed some talent but also some jitters. Jennings has already put his best foot forward as the go-to guy this season, and without Smith, even more so. You know I'm pretty pessimistic about the running game, so if the Hoos are going to move the ball, it's on Rocco's shoulders. He's capable of doing so, and the GT secondary is solid but not shutdown. They're aggressive and can be burned. If the UVA game plan is allowed to work to perfection, it'll probably call for establishing Jennings early, and trying a bunch of screen passes early as well to discourage blitzing and keep the linebackers reacting rather than reading. Rocco will have blitz-read options on most of his plays that let him throw at the blitz, which could mean big yardage for a tight end or RB at one point. Make no mistake, though: whatever the game plan, if we win, Rocco will have had a big, big day.
-- GT run offense against UVA run defense
Top backs:
Tevin Washington: 28 carries, 160 yards, 5.7 avg., 1 TD
Zach Laskey: 19 carries, 144 yards, 7.6 avg., 1 TD
GT offense:
330.5 yards/game, 5.85 yards/attempt
21st of 124 (national), 2nd of 12 (ACC)
UVA defense:
74.5 yards/game, 2.37 yards/attempt
18th of 124 (national), 4th of 12 (ACC)
Hooray so much for experienced linebackers. This will be our biggest weapon against the ruthless ground assault that is the Paul Johnson playbook. The job of the defensive line will basically be to try and hold the line and keep their knees healthy from all the cut-blocking.
(A slight digression. There are a couple schools of thought on how to defeat a cut block. One is to step back and try and keep the blocker at arm's length, so that when he goes down for the block, your feet are still free and he only succeeds in taking himself out of the play. The downside is that it requires going backwards. The other school of thought is to say "screw it" and try and fall elbow-first on a pressure point.)
At any rate. Linebackers. Hopefully one day, Kwontie Moore will be as good as Steve Greer is at reading plays, and his side-to-side speed will be a huge asset in filling the running lanes. Right now we have Greer, and a couple other guys who've done a nice job at finding the ball and getting there. Henry Coley had a very good game against Penn State, and Greer, of course, was everywhere. They'll be absolutely crucial in stopping the option. They've seen it before, and if they're in the zone and reading plays correctly, it'll keep the frustration to a minimum.
GT, for their part, has been extremely experimental. Tevin Washington is doing a decent job running the show, but the running back situation is unsettled. The playing time has been spread out among so many players, it's astouding. And it's not just Presbyterian garbage time. Running back David Sims has a stress fracture and missed the Presby game, and GT has been replacing him by committee so far. Zach Laskey looks like at least part of the answer. Robert Godhigh and veteran holdover Orwin Smith are the listed A-back starters, but Smith is a little banged-up, too.
We might also see a little quarterback rotation; Paul Johnson has talked about getting some of them on the field. GT fans get all tingly about redshirt freshman Vad Lee the way a lot of UVA fans do about Phillip Sims, and Johnson might also be looking at two on the field at once; Synjyn Days is both the backup QB and a backup A-back, and will probably be worked in as well.
This is likely to be the usual frustrating nine-minute parade down the field, four yards at a time. That always happens when you play Georgia Tech. The question is letting that happen only once. GT has a good offensive line, easily the best we've seen all year, and they'll challenge the defensive line. (If we can get Billy Schautz back, it'll be a big help, as he's the most technically sound lineman we have, a real asset in defending this bunch. (His injury is "lower extremity" though, probably meaning knee or ankle, and if I were the coaches I'd be really, really wary about risking his health against the multitude of cut blocks a DE must deal with.) The linebackers will likely have some success containing this ground game, but having just the one week of practice makes me nervous.
-- GT pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
Quarterback:
Tevin Washington: 17/26, 65.4%; 257 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT; 9.89 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Jeff Greene: 3 rec., 94 yards, 1 TD
Jeremy Moore: 3 rec., 64 yards, 0 TD
GT offense:
169.5 yards/game, 11.3 yards/attempt
3rd of 124 (national), 1st of 12 (ACC)
UVA defense:
223.5 yards/game, 5.2 yards/attempt
21st of 124 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)
We were spoiled as hell last year. Tevin Washington went 2-for-8, in part because our very veteran secondary did a near-perfect job in coverage, using only exactly the manpower needed to deny the pass and helping out with the run otherwise. And one of those completions was to a running back, Orwin Smith; the other was a pitiful little three yard catch by Tyler Melton.
We're not going to get that kind of performance this year. The experience is gone, replaced with a bunch of guys who've basically never played against this defense. 50/50 chance we see one of those horrifying plays where some guy in the wrong colors is the only one on the screen because one of the safeties got the run-support itch just a little too hard.
GT has been rather more successful passing the ball this year than in years past. Washington's completion percentage of 65.4 is quite good for most QBs, but it's much higher than the GT offense usually generates. Shorter throws are part of the deal there. Jeff Greene and Jeremy Moore are in a knockdown, drag-out battle to be the featured receiver, and both have one loooong catch and two very short ones.
Defending the pass here involves informing one of our safeties that under no circumstances is he to venture closer than 20 yards from the line of scrimmage, putting the burden of making reads on one guy only. Receivers who go out on a pattern must always be respected. They'll have a cornerback on them, but still. If the linebackers can't make the plays, they can't make the plays, but the free safety should not be helping out. It's when the free safety goes, "ooo, Elmo help!" that all hell breaks loose. It's a simple assignment and was executed to perfection last year by Corey Mosley, allowing Rodney McLeod to be aggressive in run support.
It's a good formula. Can we make it happen this year? I guess I'm cautiously semi-optimistic. On the one hand, the secondary played well against Penn State and showed admirable discipline; I'm thinking here of the flea-flicker that Drequan Hoskey covered perfectly. On the other hand, they're still freshmen and sophomores who've had one week to prepare for this thing they've never seen. Georgia Tech purposely makes this realm of the game wildly unpredictable, and inexperienced safeties are by their nature equally hard to pin down.
-- Outlook
Georgia Tech is at home and carrying in their back pocket the knowledge that if they lose, the division championship is bye-bye, and only three weeks into the season. A tough combination for the Hoos. Also, we're in our all-blue getup, which is ugly. (I haven't once liked the uniform combos this year. The lesser of all evils has been the orange-blue-orange from the Penn State game, which is kind of cool-looking but also kind of Syracuse-looking, and includes the orange helmet which I can easily do without.)
At any rate, the environment will be tough. Very tough. We probably won't see a tougher one this season until the trip to Blacksburg, and yes, I'm aware the TCU trip is next week. This is a better UVA team than it's being given credit for, but it has flaws, and this is a likely week to see them exposed.
-- Prediction summary
-- One of UVA's backs has a run of at least 20 yards.
-- Other than that, UVA averages less than 3.5 yards a carry.
-- Darius Jennings has at least three more catches than the next UVA receiver.
-- Jake McGee has the highest per-catch average, again.
-- Georgia Tech puts together at least one drive of eight minutes or more.
Final score: GT 24, UVA 17
-- Rest of the ACC
Wake Forest @ Florida State, 12:00 - Revenge game for the Noles, who'll probably get it in a big, big way.
Virginia Tech @ Pittsburgh, 12:00 - The Hokies get a head start on next year's new divisional matchup.
Miami vs. Bethune-Cookman, 12:00 - Whatever.
Maryland vs. Connecticut, 12:30 - The Terps try to top last season's win total. Are they the team that almost lost to W&M, or the one that raced to a big lead over Temple?
Clemson vs. Furman, 3:00 - Taking this opportunity to point out that Furman's hypocycloid logo is one of the best in all of college sports, and easily the most underrated.
Boston College @ Northwestern, 3:30 - The Wildcats have put together an interesting nonconference slate consisting of the worst BCS teams they could find.
North Carolina @ Louisville, 3:30 - Dangerous game for the Heels; shredded by Tanner Price last week, they now must deal with the very impressive Teddy Bridgewater.
NC State vs. South Alabama, 6:00 - Whatever and ever again.
Duke vs. NC Central, 7:00 - The city of Durham championship.
Monday, September 3, 2012
weekend review
Not much of a story to tell this week. That's what happens when you take care of business. I think I'll just entertain you instead by talking about what I liked and didn't.
The good:
-- Quarterbacks. Mike Rocco was businesslike and efficient and did nothing at all to lose his job. Phillip Sims made his eagerly-awaited debut, looked quite good in limited action, and did nothing at all to let Rocco out of his sights.
-- Receivers. Early on I was a little annoyed that the only one who seemed to ever be getting open was Darius Jennings. And Jennings certainly looked the part of the coveted four-star we expected when we recruited him. E.J. Scott ended up having a nice game for himself, though, and Jake McGee's catch was the highlight of the day. Eventually the ball ended up being spread around among a really wide variety of players; eight of them had at least two catches, and weirdly, one of them wasn't Perry Jones.
-- Khalek Shepherd. Proved he can hang with the big boys in the RB stable.
-- The kicking. There really is no substitute for confidence in your kicker, and Drew Jarrett was calmly perfect on his kicks, and no sneaking just inside the uprights either. New punter Alec Vozenilek averaged 41 yards on three punts. That's solid work, and he put two of them inside the 20.
-- Tre Nicholson. Listed at 155 pounds last year, he's up 15 to 170 now. The difference shows. I don't think he'll look like tank fodder anymore when someone lays a stiff-arm, and it was his turn to deliver the hits on Saturday.
-- Pass protection. I can only think of one time I saw Rocco put on his back, and it was shortly followed by McGee's circus catch. So the only result of Richmond's pressure was to put a highlight on the board. The guilty party was Morgan Moses, and there must've been something very correctible about that mistake because the coaches were spotted instructing him the very next play while Jay Whitmire was sent in for a few snaps.
The bad:
-- The rest of the secondary. It was well-disguised, because Richmond's John Laub is a lousy QB and missed a ton of open receivers. If he hadn't, there might've been a few more drives like the ones that ended up as touchdowns. There's still a ways to go here.
-- The running game. Surprisingly poor. Jones and Kevin Parks combined for an average of 3.6 yards a carry. Was it partly because Richmond crowded the box? Yes, partly, but the interior line was still less impressive than I'd've liked. Failure to convert a 4th-and-1, and inability to run in the red zone were both trouble spots. UVA's rushing yards came mostly on the outside, which is like the least surprising thing ever given the quality of our tackles. But running up the middle wasn't too fulfilling.
-- The pass rush. But I'll give a pass on this because London talked in his press conference about Richmond's game plan and playcalling having a lot to do with that. Billy Schautz made his presence felt a few times, on at least one of which he should've drawn a holding penalty.
-- The helmets. No, I still don't like the orange. Here's why:
Nothing against Clemson's look per se, but Clemson owns the orange helmet. And if you, Mr. random college football watcher flipping through channels, turned on your TV and didn't know who you were watching, and you caught a glimpse of this orange-orange-white look, Clemson would be the first thought , not UVA. Sure, we can change jerseys and pants, but so can they (Clemson has all combinations of white, orange, and purple), and besides:
Number of other current or future ACC teams with orange helmets: 2. Number with white, for those of you thinking in that direction: 3. Number with blue: 0. We're the only ones. (Except for Carolina, whose blue will never be mistaken for ours.) If we look like this, you know instantly who it is because it can't be anyone else. (Not only that, but the blue stripes on the pants are there with the assumption we'd have blue helmets on.) Sacrificing our identity for the latest fad is a massive mistake, and the fact that it was the captains who made the decision doesn't make it any better of an idea.
*******************************************
Prediction summary. In this section I look back at the silly shit I said in the game preview and see if any of it came true. To wit:
-- One of our runners gets 100 yards. Nope. Very disappointing showing in the run game. Although, the carries were a little more spread than I expected; Jones and Parks had 14 each, and they'd had to have averaged over 7 yards a carry to reach 100. Even so, that shouldn't have been a major challenge.
-- Khalek Shepherd gets at least five carries to meet or surpass his 2011 total. Shepherd doubled that up with 10, and one reception as well, which is also his 2011 total. I don't care if it was partly because the coaches held Clifton Richardson out as a precaution; Shepherd's abilities made that decision a lot easier.
-- Mike Rocco averages around 10 yards per attempt. 8.4 ypa is not close enough for me to count this. I expected the coaches to get a little more downfield-pass-happy than they did.
-- Phillip Sims plays most of the fourth quarter, but not before. Nailed it. Sims really only had one drive, plus one play to run out the clock, but he came in with 12:07 left, so it counts.
-- Bill Lazor tries a deep bomb on the first drive. I was prepared to cheat and allow this one if it happened on the second drive, since we had such a short field on the first. But neither Rocco nor Sims was allowed to unleash the dragon all day.
So, 2-for-5 to start the season. Could've been better. Also, 1-0 on straight-up results predictions, but that one was a gimme. The spread turned out to 24 points and the Hoos won by 24, which means I have to spend the whole season with a little 1 hanging off the end of my predictions against the spread. Ties are stupid.
*******************************************
A quick recruiting board update so it stops looking so damn out of date:
-- Moved RB Taquan Mizzell from blue to orange. Woo and all that.
-- Removed DE Wyatt Teller from blue. Boo and all that.
-- Removed LB Oren Burks from green. Vandy commit. Interesting selection.
-- Moved WR DaeSean Hamilton from yellow to green.
-- Moved CB Priest Willis from red to yellow.
Truthfully these last two moves are made so as to keep having those sections. When the board is at these late stages, you should always kind of forget the usual meanings of the colors and take them as a sort of priority list for who you should keep an eye on.
*******************************************
High school seasons are underway. I don't get it, but the only ones that aren't (at least for our commits) are in New England. You'd think the northern schools would start first and then the southern ones later, but North Carolina beats everyone to the punch and Sadiq Olanrewaju (in CT) won't start for another two weeks. Guess they're under the (not completely mistaken) impression that football in the cold and snow is the only real football.
This week's results:
Good Counsel 20, Gilman 19: Brendan Marshall was 15-for-23 with a touchdown, 232 yards, and a couple rushing yards of his own in a hard-fought win over Micah Kiser's Gilman. Kirk Garner caught five of those passes for 95 yards. Andre Levrone, by the way, has a broken leg the same as LaChaston Smith, and will miss several weeks. OLGC is 1-1, Gilman is 0-2.
Damascus 41, Clarksburg 6: Zach Bradshaw starred for the Hornets this week, returning a punt for one touchdown and an interception for another.
FUMA 32, Georgetown Prep 24: Malcolm Cook returned two picks for touchdowns. FUMA is 1-1.
Ocean Lakes 51, Princess Anne 0: Corwin Cutler threw three touchdowns and Ocean Lakes had another easy one. Ocean Lakes is 2-0.
A.L. Brown 38, Rocky River 21 (Keeon Johnson - Brown is 3-0.)
South Iredell 41, West Iredell 7 (LaChaston Smith - South Iredell is 2-1.)
Houston Westside 43, Houston Reagan 0 (Hipolito Corporan - Westside is 1-0.)
North Stafford 13, Potomac 8 (Donta Wilkins - Potomac is 0-1.)
St. Christopher's 21, Trinity Episcopal 6 (Jack English - St. Chris is 1-0.)
Salem 37, Bayside 7 (Taquan Mizzell - Bayside is 1-1.)
The good:
-- Quarterbacks. Mike Rocco was businesslike and efficient and did nothing at all to lose his job. Phillip Sims made his eagerly-awaited debut, looked quite good in limited action, and did nothing at all to let Rocco out of his sights.
-- Receivers. Early on I was a little annoyed that the only one who seemed to ever be getting open was Darius Jennings. And Jennings certainly looked the part of the coveted four-star we expected when we recruited him. E.J. Scott ended up having a nice game for himself, though, and Jake McGee's catch was the highlight of the day. Eventually the ball ended up being spread around among a really wide variety of players; eight of them had at least two catches, and weirdly, one of them wasn't Perry Jones.
-- Khalek Shepherd. Proved he can hang with the big boys in the RB stable.
-- The kicking. There really is no substitute for confidence in your kicker, and Drew Jarrett was calmly perfect on his kicks, and no sneaking just inside the uprights either. New punter Alec Vozenilek averaged 41 yards on three punts. That's solid work, and he put two of them inside the 20.
-- Tre Nicholson. Listed at 155 pounds last year, he's up 15 to 170 now. The difference shows. I don't think he'll look like tank fodder anymore when someone lays a stiff-arm, and it was his turn to deliver the hits on Saturday.
-- Pass protection. I can only think of one time I saw Rocco put on his back, and it was shortly followed by McGee's circus catch. So the only result of Richmond's pressure was to put a highlight on the board. The guilty party was Morgan Moses, and there must've been something very correctible about that mistake because the coaches were spotted instructing him the very next play while Jay Whitmire was sent in for a few snaps.
The bad:
-- The rest of the secondary. It was well-disguised, because Richmond's John Laub is a lousy QB and missed a ton of open receivers. If he hadn't, there might've been a few more drives like the ones that ended up as touchdowns. There's still a ways to go here.
-- The running game. Surprisingly poor. Jones and Kevin Parks combined for an average of 3.6 yards a carry. Was it partly because Richmond crowded the box? Yes, partly, but the interior line was still less impressive than I'd've liked. Failure to convert a 4th-and-1, and inability to run in the red zone were both trouble spots. UVA's rushing yards came mostly on the outside, which is like the least surprising thing ever given the quality of our tackles. But running up the middle wasn't too fulfilling.
-- The pass rush. But I'll give a pass on this because London talked in his press conference about Richmond's game plan and playcalling having a lot to do with that. Billy Schautz made his presence felt a few times, on at least one of which he should've drawn a holding penalty.
-- The helmets. No, I still don't like the orange. Here's why:
Nothing against Clemson's look per se, but Clemson owns the orange helmet. And if you, Mr. random college football watcher flipping through channels, turned on your TV and didn't know who you were watching, and you caught a glimpse of this orange-orange-white look, Clemson would be the first thought , not UVA. Sure, we can change jerseys and pants, but so can they (Clemson has all combinations of white, orange, and purple), and besides:
Number of other current or future ACC teams with orange helmets: 2. Number with white, for those of you thinking in that direction: 3. Number with blue: 0. We're the only ones. (Except for Carolina, whose blue will never be mistaken for ours.) If we look like this, you know instantly who it is because it can't be anyone else. (Not only that, but the blue stripes on the pants are there with the assumption we'd have blue helmets on.) Sacrificing our identity for the latest fad is a massive mistake, and the fact that it was the captains who made the decision doesn't make it any better of an idea.
*******************************************
Prediction summary. In this section I look back at the silly shit I said in the game preview and see if any of it came true. To wit:
-- One of our runners gets 100 yards. Nope. Very disappointing showing in the run game. Although, the carries were a little more spread than I expected; Jones and Parks had 14 each, and they'd had to have averaged over 7 yards a carry to reach 100. Even so, that shouldn't have been a major challenge.
-- Khalek Shepherd gets at least five carries to meet or surpass his 2011 total. Shepherd doubled that up with 10, and one reception as well, which is also his 2011 total. I don't care if it was partly because the coaches held Clifton Richardson out as a precaution; Shepherd's abilities made that decision a lot easier.
-- Mike Rocco averages around 10 yards per attempt. 8.4 ypa is not close enough for me to count this. I expected the coaches to get a little more downfield-pass-happy than they did.
-- Phillip Sims plays most of the fourth quarter, but not before. Nailed it. Sims really only had one drive, plus one play to run out the clock, but he came in with 12:07 left, so it counts.
-- Bill Lazor tries a deep bomb on the first drive. I was prepared to cheat and allow this one if it happened on the second drive, since we had such a short field on the first. But neither Rocco nor Sims was allowed to unleash the dragon all day.
So, 2-for-5 to start the season. Could've been better. Also, 1-0 on straight-up results predictions, but that one was a gimme. The spread turned out to 24 points and the Hoos won by 24, which means I have to spend the whole season with a little 1 hanging off the end of my predictions against the spread. Ties are stupid.
*******************************************
A quick recruiting board update so it stops looking so damn out of date:
-- Moved RB Taquan Mizzell from blue to orange. Woo and all that.
-- Removed DE Wyatt Teller from blue. Boo and all that.
-- Removed LB Oren Burks from green. Vandy commit. Interesting selection.
-- Moved WR DaeSean Hamilton from yellow to green.
-- Moved CB Priest Willis from red to yellow.
Truthfully these last two moves are made so as to keep having those sections. When the board is at these late stages, you should always kind of forget the usual meanings of the colors and take them as a sort of priority list for who you should keep an eye on.
*******************************************
High school seasons are underway. I don't get it, but the only ones that aren't (at least for our commits) are in New England. You'd think the northern schools would start first and then the southern ones later, but North Carolina beats everyone to the punch and Sadiq Olanrewaju (in CT) won't start for another two weeks. Guess they're under the (not completely mistaken) impression that football in the cold and snow is the only real football.
This week's results:
Good Counsel 20, Gilman 19: Brendan Marshall was 15-for-23 with a touchdown, 232 yards, and a couple rushing yards of his own in a hard-fought win over Micah Kiser's Gilman. Kirk Garner caught five of those passes for 95 yards. Andre Levrone, by the way, has a broken leg the same as LaChaston Smith, and will miss several weeks. OLGC is 1-1, Gilman is 0-2.
Damascus 41, Clarksburg 6: Zach Bradshaw starred for the Hornets this week, returning a punt for one touchdown and an interception for another.
FUMA 32, Georgetown Prep 24: Malcolm Cook returned two picks for touchdowns. FUMA is 1-1.
Ocean Lakes 51, Princess Anne 0: Corwin Cutler threw three touchdowns and Ocean Lakes had another easy one. Ocean Lakes is 2-0.
A.L. Brown 38, Rocky River 21 (Keeon Johnson - Brown is 3-0.)
South Iredell 41, West Iredell 7 (LaChaston Smith - South Iredell is 2-1.)
Houston Westside 43, Houston Reagan 0 (Hipolito Corporan - Westside is 1-0.)
North Stafford 13, Potomac 8 (Donta Wilkins - Potomac is 0-1.)
St. Christopher's 21, Trinity Episcopal 6 (Jack English - St. Chris is 1-0.)
Salem 37, Bayside 7 (Taquan Mizzell - Bayside is 1-1.)
Monday, July 16, 2012
2011-2012 Cavaliers of the Year
That's no typo. During the course of voting, I got a little concerned about ballot-stuffing. I don't really mind a campaign to stuff the ballot box, mind you - it's happened before. I'm more worried about one person sitting there and racking up votes, and I thought there was a chance that it'd happened.
Fortunately, I'm reasonably satisfied that it's not actually possible to do that. What did likely happen was a Facebook campaign. No worries then. The people have spoken, and the ballot box winner is something of a surprise, and the first female winner of the FOV COY Award: Morgan Brian.
That's her, doing Virginia proud indeed by scoring a pinpoint free kick goal at the women's U-20 CONCACAF championships against Mexico; the US would go on to win the tournament and take the gold, and Brian will be among those representing the US at the U-20 Women's World Cup in Japan next month. Outstanding. You can't ask for much more than that from a Cavalier of the Year.
It's my award, though, and I can bend the rules a little. This is not to take away anything from Morgan Brian: she's the vote winner, and I don't nominate anyone for the award who isn't a deserving winner of the award. That said, the vote tally shows two runaways from the pack, in a way that didn't happen in previous years. And I like to think as a UVA blogger I have my finger at least a little bit on the pulse of UVA fans, and for the regular readership and indeed, UVA fans in general, there's really only one who captured everyone's imagination in a truly unique way:
With apologies to the man himself for ripping it off his Twitter feed. It does a Hoo proud that for once, we're right when we see the brilliance that most others miss. Well, us and the talent evaluators that matter. Mike Scott is getting his shot in the NBA, drafted in the second round by the Atlanta Hawks, and I for one will be surprised if there isn't room in the League for a body-banging power forward that can outmuscle you for the rebound and then soft-touch a jumper when you don't respect he can do it.
So there you are: Co-Cavaliers of the Year, Morgan Brian and Mike Scott. For posterity, here is the voting tally:
Morgan Brian: 107
Mike Scott: 99
Steele Stanwick: 14
Keith Werman: 6
Chase Minnifield: 4
Briggy Imbriglia: 3
Meredith Cavalier, Sidney Thorston: 2
Brittany Altomare, Jarmere Jenkins, Josie Owen, Matt Snyder: 1
Will Bates: 0
Congrats to the two champions. Another fine season is finally in the books, and honestly, I'm already kind of excited in wondering who'll be next year's nominees.
*******************************************************
Some scheduling notes: Tomorrow there'll be a belated weekend review, in which we'll discuss Syracuse, Hokies off the deep end, and other fascinating topics. That'll be it for posting this week, as I'll be taking my yearly summer sabbatical. You can always tell when that is on your own; it coincides with this. The only reason I'm not sabbaticaling right now is because my internship made it too tough to participate this year, but otherwise I don't miss that for nuthin. And either way I need a summer break. I'll spend part of it this year putting together the August previews, or at least, that's what I'm telling myself. So one more post tomorrow, then back next Monday.
Fortunately, I'm reasonably satisfied that it's not actually possible to do that. What did likely happen was a Facebook campaign. No worries then. The people have spoken, and the ballot box winner is something of a surprise, and the first female winner of the FOV COY Award: Morgan Brian.
That's her, doing Virginia proud indeed by scoring a pinpoint free kick goal at the women's U-20 CONCACAF championships against Mexico; the US would go on to win the tournament and take the gold, and Brian will be among those representing the US at the U-20 Women's World Cup in Japan next month. Outstanding. You can't ask for much more than that from a Cavalier of the Year.
It's my award, though, and I can bend the rules a little. This is not to take away anything from Morgan Brian: she's the vote winner, and I don't nominate anyone for the award who isn't a deserving winner of the award. That said, the vote tally shows two runaways from the pack, in a way that didn't happen in previous years. And I like to think as a UVA blogger I have my finger at least a little bit on the pulse of UVA fans, and for the regular readership and indeed, UVA fans in general, there's really only one who captured everyone's imagination in a truly unique way:
With apologies to the man himself for ripping it off his Twitter feed. It does a Hoo proud that for once, we're right when we see the brilliance that most others miss. Well, us and the talent evaluators that matter. Mike Scott is getting his shot in the NBA, drafted in the second round by the Atlanta Hawks, and I for one will be surprised if there isn't room in the League for a body-banging power forward that can outmuscle you for the rebound and then soft-touch a jumper when you don't respect he can do it.
So there you are: Co-Cavaliers of the Year, Morgan Brian and Mike Scott. For posterity, here is the voting tally:
Morgan Brian: 107
Mike Scott: 99
Steele Stanwick: 14
Keith Werman: 6
Chase Minnifield: 4
Briggy Imbriglia: 3
Meredith Cavalier, Sidney Thorston: 2
Brittany Altomare, Jarmere Jenkins, Josie Owen, Matt Snyder: 1
Will Bates: 0
Congrats to the two champions. Another fine season is finally in the books, and honestly, I'm already kind of excited in wondering who'll be next year's nominees.
*******************************************************
Some scheduling notes: Tomorrow there'll be a belated weekend review, in which we'll discuss Syracuse, Hokies off the deep end, and other fascinating topics. That'll be it for posting this week, as I'll be taking my yearly summer sabbatical. You can always tell when that is on your own; it coincides with this. The only reason I'm not sabbaticaling right now is because my internship made it too tough to participate this year, but otherwise I don't miss that for nuthin. And either way I need a summer break. I'll spend part of it this year putting together the August previews, or at least, that's what I'm telling myself. So one more post tomorrow, then back next Monday.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
the transfer: Anthony Gill
WOOT WOOT. After a couple months of suspense, Tony Bennett nabbed a long-sought transfer player: power forward Anthony Gill, formerly of South Carolina. USC-E made a coaching change, replacing Darrin Horn with Frank Martin of Kansas State, and coaching changes always mean transfers, and one thing led to another and here we are.
"One thing and another" are mostly our dire need for a scoring big man and our coaches letting Gill know that. Make a guy feel wanted and he'll respond in kind. He must have felt very wanted, actually, because word came down early yesterday afternoon that he'd picked UVA - in other words, probably not even 36 hours after he'd left Columbus on his official visit to Ohio State.
Yeah, the Ohio State that goes to Final Fours and such. Also after Gill - though in an on-and-off manner before finally giving him an ultimatum - was UNC, the same UNC that goes to Final Fours and such. UVA had a leg up: Gill was high school teammates at Charlotte Christian with Akil Mitchell.
The basics, then: Gill is a 6'8", 235 pound power forward. He's a wee bit undersized for our needs; if I could be picky and specific I'd ask for about 6'10" if you please, but I'm not complaining about a 98% fit. Gill averaged 7.6 points, 4.7 boards, and 1.1 assists for South Carolina - an integral part of the team despite being a freshman. Definitely the best freshman they had, which means he did a good job of living up to his recruiting rankings. Every service put him in their Top Whatever, and though he was never gonna have one-and-done skills, he didn't disappoint at all.
KenPom gave Gill an O-rating of 100.2, right in the middle of the usefulness range (90 is pretty low, 110 is really good) - maybe the best comparison is that in 2010-11, Mu Farrakhan had a 100.4. Gill's 100.2 isn't blow-you-away stuff. You'd like to see a big man have a better shooting percentage, for example - Gill's was .453. But for a freshman big man, Gill's performance was pretty good.
AG's coaches don't hesitate to compare him to Mike Scott. Now, I'll believe that when I see AG cure a person's cancer by touching a basketball and then viciously dunking that basketball on the poor cancer victim. Or I'll believe it when I see if Gill's jumper is as sweet as Mike's. It wouldn't be quite fair to compare because it took Mike Scott years to develop that jumper, but just so's you know, AG shot .393 (11-for-28) from three-point-land this year. Gill's 7.6, 4.7 stacks up pretty favorably to Mike's 5.7, 5.3 his own freshman year (albeit in seven more minutes per game), so the potential is very, very much there.
When AG is eligible to play in 2013-2014, the big-man situation looks like this: Akil Mitchell will be a senior, Darion Atkins a junior, and Gill and Mike Tobey, sophomores. That's still thin. The coaches are hoping Brandan Stith grows a few inches and joins as another big in 2014, but that's a ways off. There isn't much scoring punch from the bigs, except for the hope that some develops. I don't think Mitchell will be a scorer. Atkins, we'll see, but he didn't flash much ability in that regard this year. Tobey, we have no idea. That makes Gill the best bird in the hand, where we sit right now.
The coaches might now go after Gill's South Carolina teammate, Damontre Harris. Harris averaged 6.8 points on .550 shooting, but wasn't counted on for offense; he played the second-most minutes of anyone on the Gamecock roster but took the fifth-most shots. Very low-usage. Whether the coaches make a push for Harris will likely depend on whether they think the 6'9"-but-skinny Harris can be an offensive threat.
It might not seem like it, but the coaches have to tread a little bit carefully with the scholarship situation. The deal is that B.J. Stith is committed for 2014, and if the coaches get their way, Brandan Stith and Devon Hall will join him. That'd be like totally sweet you guys OMG you have no idea, but we have to make sure there's room. Right now, nine scholarships are spoken for in the 2014-2015 season, and no, I'm not going to assume attrition, which means that if we want both Stiths and Hall, we can take no more than two more people right now. Meaning, the 2013 recruiting class is gonna be tiny, especially if we take another transfer, and don't think the coaches aren't still actively looking. Oh, and one of the next two guys has got to be a point guard.
Meanwhile, Gill. An instant starter when he's eligible, and here's why: his competition for playing time is mainly guys who defend more than they score, and the chances of us landing a really, really good big guy in the 2013 class are small. (We might get a really, really good guard - Big Cat Barber, you listening? - but there aren't any bigs on the radar.) Bennett might prefer a defender, of course, you know how he is, but I think as long as Gill gets the gist, and he's got a no-pressure year to learn, he'll get the nod. I think he'll be a starter from Day 1. So any time you can add that kind of guy to the lineup, it's a big deal.
"One thing and another" are mostly our dire need for a scoring big man and our coaches letting Gill know that. Make a guy feel wanted and he'll respond in kind. He must have felt very wanted, actually, because word came down early yesterday afternoon that he'd picked UVA - in other words, probably not even 36 hours after he'd left Columbus on his official visit to Ohio State.
Yeah, the Ohio State that goes to Final Fours and such. Also after Gill - though in an on-and-off manner before finally giving him an ultimatum - was UNC, the same UNC that goes to Final Fours and such. UVA had a leg up: Gill was high school teammates at Charlotte Christian with Akil Mitchell.
The basics, then: Gill is a 6'8", 235 pound power forward. He's a wee bit undersized for our needs; if I could be picky and specific I'd ask for about 6'10" if you please, but I'm not complaining about a 98% fit. Gill averaged 7.6 points, 4.7 boards, and 1.1 assists for South Carolina - an integral part of the team despite being a freshman. Definitely the best freshman they had, which means he did a good job of living up to his recruiting rankings. Every service put him in their Top Whatever, and though he was never gonna have one-and-done skills, he didn't disappoint at all.
KenPom gave Gill an O-rating of 100.2, right in the middle of the usefulness range (90 is pretty low, 110 is really good) - maybe the best comparison is that in 2010-11, Mu Farrakhan had a 100.4. Gill's 100.2 isn't blow-you-away stuff. You'd like to see a big man have a better shooting percentage, for example - Gill's was .453. But for a freshman big man, Gill's performance was pretty good.
AG's coaches don't hesitate to compare him to Mike Scott. Now, I'll believe that when I see AG cure a person's cancer by touching a basketball and then viciously dunking that basketball on the poor cancer victim. Or I'll believe it when I see if Gill's jumper is as sweet as Mike's. It wouldn't be quite fair to compare because it took Mike Scott years to develop that jumper, but just so's you know, AG shot .393 (11-for-28) from three-point-land this year. Gill's 7.6, 4.7 stacks up pretty favorably to Mike's 5.7, 5.3 his own freshman year (albeit in seven more minutes per game), so the potential is very, very much there.
When AG is eligible to play in 2013-2014, the big-man situation looks like this: Akil Mitchell will be a senior, Darion Atkins a junior, and Gill and Mike Tobey, sophomores. That's still thin. The coaches are hoping Brandan Stith grows a few inches and joins as another big in 2014, but that's a ways off. There isn't much scoring punch from the bigs, except for the hope that some develops. I don't think Mitchell will be a scorer. Atkins, we'll see, but he didn't flash much ability in that regard this year. Tobey, we have no idea. That makes Gill the best bird in the hand, where we sit right now.
The coaches might now go after Gill's South Carolina teammate, Damontre Harris. Harris averaged 6.8 points on .550 shooting, but wasn't counted on for offense; he played the second-most minutes of anyone on the Gamecock roster but took the fifth-most shots. Very low-usage. Whether the coaches make a push for Harris will likely depend on whether they think the 6'9"-but-skinny Harris can be an offensive threat.
It might not seem like it, but the coaches have to tread a little bit carefully with the scholarship situation. The deal is that B.J. Stith is committed for 2014, and if the coaches get their way, Brandan Stith and Devon Hall will join him. That'd be like totally sweet you guys OMG you have no idea, but we have to make sure there's room. Right now, nine scholarships are spoken for in the 2014-2015 season, and no, I'm not going to assume attrition, which means that if we want both Stiths and Hall, we can take no more than two more people right now. Meaning, the 2013 recruiting class is gonna be tiny, especially if we take another transfer, and don't think the coaches aren't still actively looking. Oh, and one of the next two guys has got to be a point guard.
Meanwhile, Gill. An instant starter when he's eligible, and here's why: his competition for playing time is mainly guys who defend more than they score, and the chances of us landing a really, really good big guy in the 2013 class are small. (We might get a really, really good guard - Big Cat Barber, you listening? - but there aren't any bigs on the radar.) Bennett might prefer a defender, of course, you know how he is, but I think as long as Gill gets the gist, and he's got a no-pressure year to learn, he'll get the nod. I think he'll be a starter from Day 1. So any time you can add that kind of guy to the lineup, it's a big deal.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
game preview: Florida
Date/Time: Friday, March 16; 2:10
TV: TNT
Record against the Gators: 1-0
Last matchup: UVA 62, UF 56; 3/30/92; New York City (1992 NIT semifinals)
Last game: NCSt. 67, UVA 64 (3/9); UK 74, UF 71 (3/10)
Opposing blogs: Alligator Army
KenPom breakdown:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.4 (#339)
UF: 64.9 (#234)
Offense:
UVA: 104.8 (#104)
UF: 120.8 (#2)
Defense:
UVA: 87.0 (#5)
UF: 98.5 (#121)
Pythag:
UVA: .8706 (#26)
UF: .8898 (#19)
Projected starting lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (7.3 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 3.8 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (8.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (11.5 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 1.8 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (18.1 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 1.2 apg)
F: Akil Mitchell (4.1 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 0.8 apg)
Florida:
PG: Erving Walker (12.1 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 4.7 apg)
SG: Kenny Boynton (16.3 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SF: Bradley Beal (14.6 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Erik Murphy (10.7 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 0.9 apg)
C: Patric Young (10.3 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 1.2 apg)
This is the part where normally I rattle on about What This Means, but it's the NCAA tournament - and the first tournament game in the history of this blog - so you already know most of it. Do we really, in our heart of hearts, expect to make a tournament run to the Final Four? No. Injuries and other forms of attrition have ravaged this team to the point where its competitiveness has been sapped to exhaustion. The fact that anyone even gives them a chance against this, one of the elite offensive teams in the country, is a testament to their resilience.
Getting a win here wouldn't necessarily make this team any more likely to win the whole shebang. Mathematically, sure; realistically, no. But it would leave a very positive taste in everyone's mouth. Lose here and the season's legacy is a massive, galactical what-could've-been. But a win would give these guys the signature victory they could never quite achieve in ACC play, and allow a warm, fuzzy glow to settle on the offseason.
-- UVA on offense
For a couple different reasons, this game could be quite a bit higher-scoring than we're used to. One of them is that Florida will probably let us get away with it. According to KenPom, Florida is a worse defensive team than Georgia Tech, one of only two ACC games in which we scored 70+ points.
Florida is also undersized. Their guards don't come any bigger than 6'3", and point guard Erving Walker is only 5'8". Nobody is taller than 6'10", and that player, Erik Murphy, is not an inside banger at the four. Patric Young, at center, is a beefy 6'9", and will probably be Mike Scott's primary defender. Nobody on Florida is going to be that long, athletic type that can give the Hoos problems on the perimeter; this is how teams like UNC and FSU limited our offense.
Open shots should be available; the question is making them. Joe Harris will likely be guarded by Bradley Beal, who is worlds more athletic than Harris, but three inches shorter. Sammy Zeglinski should also be able to find room against the unaggressive Kenny Boynton. With Will Yeguete out, the Gators are missing likely their best defensive weapon.
When it comes to fouls, only Young is especially prone to them, unless you count bit player Casey Prather, who will foul when he's in the game, which is rarely. Mike Scott's veteran wiles may very well find a way to relegate Young to the bench early. If that happens, maybe we see more of Prather who in turn will also foul more creating a vicious cycle etc. etc. Best-case scenario. Florida's guards, however, foul very rarely, so it's only in the frontcourt where free-throw opportunities can reliably be found.
Ultimately, I expect the Hoos to find room to work, a luxury they haven't had against the better teams in the ACC. They must knock down shots. A shooting duel will inevitably turn out badly, because the Gators will knock down shots, so the Hoos have got to hit the available ones.
-- UVA on defense
This is the real strength-on-strength matchup: KenPom's #2 offensive team vs. his #5 defensive one. People tend to assume Florida likes to play an up-tempo, fast-paced game, but that's not the case; they're just really, really efficient.
Their two frontcourt starters are probably underused in this regard. Erik Murphy is a stretch-the-floor four, and I expect Akil Mitchell to guard him; Mitchell's athleticism will be an asset in chasing him around the court. Murphy is an excellent three-point shooter. Patric Young is a big, beefy guy, excellent on the interior, and better than a 60% shooter.
Florida has excellent scoring balance. There's no one player you can key on. Point guard Erving Walker has a minimal hand in running the offense, relative to the typical point guard; he does lead the team in assists, but shutting him down doesn't necessarily mean shutting down the offense. Bradley Beal and Kenny Boynton are just as adept at getting the ball to teammates.
Even so, hopefully Jontel Evans can handle Walker. He's managed to lay a smackdown on diminutive point guards before, but they still sometimes get the better of him. Sammy Z's underrated defensive skills will be desperately needed on Boynton, a deadeye shot from three who doesn't turn the ball over.
The real matchup, though, is system vs. system. It's the pack-line vs. Florida's three-bombing. If the defenders can close out on shooters and still deny the interior, Florida will have a long day. If not, it'll rain up in heah. This just isn't the kind of team you can allow to shoot and cross your fingers, because if one guy goes cold, the next guy won't.
-- Outlook
In 1992, the Hoos were NIT champions. Florida was the semifinal opponent before Bryant Stith, Junior Burrough, Cory Alexander, and company moved on to defeat Notre Dame and claim a banner. The Gators had something called a "Svein Dyrkolbotn" on the roster.
That was almost 20 years ago; these two teams haven't met since. The tables are turned now; the deeper, more talented roster belongs to Florida. Let's hope the outcome isn't the same. A lot of focus has been on UVA's uninspiring results down the stretch (it's not like we've played worse - obnoxiously, no nod is ever given to the fact that the team is a walking ICU) but the truth is that, given space to work on offense, UVA has responded. That'll be the case here. Win or lose, expect a big game from Mike Scott, who surely will be feeling the mortality of his college career breathing down his neck. I think, with some trepidation but I think, that the Hoos will live to play another day.
-- Final score: UVA 68, UF 64
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
