What'd you do this weekend? Decent time? I hear you had a little snow down there. Like four inches or so in Richmond? (It's cute how you think that's a "snowstorm" down there, although it's been such a weird winter here in Michigan that four inches is at least half the entire winter's total.) If you're a Virginia fan and only a Virginia fan, it was a halfway decent weekend all things considered, but this kind of weekend is why I highly recommend ardent double-fanhood. Actually, now that I go to grad school, it's really more like two and a half. I had a great frickin' weekend, part of which involved going down and watching my grad school beat up on JMU in hoops.
But I'm not here to brag on Michigan's eight(!!!) four-star recruits that committed this weekend, or the weekend sweep in hockey**, or the big win over Ohio State in basketball. Actually, yes, I kind of want to brag about the Ohio State thing. That one is germane to UVA hoops, because the win over Michigan is probably the difference between being parked on the tournament bubble, and not. Michigan is in great position to get at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, and, depending on tiebreakers, the top seed in the B1G tournament. So having very compellingly beaten them earlier this year gives UVA a Big Thing on which to hang our hat. (Now you see why I say that if Michigan and UVA ever play each other in something, I root for the team that needs the win more.)
Of course, if you're trying to get to the tournament, it helps to beat the teams you're supposed to. Maryland is a team we're supposed to beat, and 71-44 is the kind of beating you always want to hang on Maryland. It's proof that our defense is our Linus blanket. It's always there, comforting and secure. The offense can be a ticking time bomb, but lo and behold if Malcolm Brogdon AND Sammy Zeglinski hit a few shots, then this is what happens. Tony Bennett is starting to find ways to make opponents regret allocating their biggest guy to guard Mike Scott, because those guys aren't used to running through screens at the elbow.
Terrapin football has Randy Edsall, who's fantastically easy to lampoon because (among other reasons) he's being a huge twat about the Danny O'Brien transfer. (In fairness, Edsall's percentage is pretty good, as he didn't decide to publicly be an ass about the other 23 guys who left in one year.) VT's Seth Greenberg is a funny guy too. Unfortunately for the humor section, though, it appears at first glance that Maryland has replaced one classy hoops coach with another. Mark Turgeon couldn't stop talking about how well Virginia played and refused to use the 36-hour turnaround from Thursday as an excuse. That said, he did produce an amusing bit of honesty in his post-game interview: "If we put Terrell (Stoglin) on the point, we might go 17 possessions where nobody else touches the ball."
Would that be worse, though? Maryland had all of three assists on Saturday. They might still only have three assists with ballhog Stoglin running the point, but they might cut down the turnovers; Maryland had fifteen. A 1-to-5 A/T ratio will lose you every game. As expected, Jontel Evans totally abused Nick Faust on the defensive end; Faust had five turnovers and no assists. Evans is seven inches shorter than Faust, but weighs 13 pounds more, and poor Faust looked like a lanky ninth-grader trying to beat a tornado one-on-one.
Maryland fans fully expect a win in the rematch, naturally, but the truth is that the ACC continues to shake out into the four-tier system I identified two weeks ago. At 10-2 and now a full three games ahead of the pack are Tobacco Road and FSU. At 7-5 is the bubble trio of UVA, NC State, and Miami; the main thing keeping us actually off the bubble is that Michigan game as well as a few road wins OOC. The kids with loaded guns are either 5-7 or 4-8, and the only one of those without a win against a higher-caste team is Maryland. Then there's the win farms at the bottom, all with 10 losses, where the rest of the league goes to puff up the left side of their W-L column. Sadly, there aren't any games left against the win farms; only two road tilts against the loaded-gun children and two home games against the high seeds.
**Seriously, wouldn't it be neat to have a varsity hockey team? We'd be terrible, I don't doubt, but I take a perverse delight in rooting for shitty teams because there aren't any expectations and you can just blow off some steam and enjoy the game without worrying about the consequences of losing. This is the part of my fanhood that's been carefully honed and developed by the Millen Era of the Detroit Lions.
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In the non-revenue world, things went according to plan and then some this weekend. The ladies wrapped up a fifth straight ACC title in the pool, finishing 233 points ahead of their closest competition. Four of the 11 teams at the meet didn't score that many points. Of the 18 swimming events, UVA won 10, and took a 1-2-3 in the 200 backstroke.
And how about a sport that gets hardly any love around here, because I don't really know anything about it? I refer of course to wrestling, which polished off its regular season at 11-1 in dual meets, the best record in the history of UVA rasslin'. For the next-best record, you have to go back to 1974. Wrestling coach Steve Garland is a member of the Craig Littlepage Hired Me coaching fraternity that includes guys like Brian O'Connor, and he directs the latest up-and-coming program in the school's repertoire. It would be a terrific thing to get really good at wrestling, because wrestling is one of only two sports where Virginia Tech has the better program.** (Guess who is responsible for the lone blemish?) Getting to the point where we have forced VT to second-place status in the state (or worse) in every sport is the ultimate goal, and to take the rasslin' title from them would be a great next step. The team won a surprise ACC title two years ago and might just do it again this year, too.
**Football is obviously the other - for now. There might be more but this is the kind of claim I can make without much fear that I'll be corrected by a Hokie, since in Blacksburg, sports are divided into two categories: football and money leeches.
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The baseball team could've started off a little better. The weekend in South Carolina finished up 1-1-1 thanks to a rainout, and I hate ties because it's this little -1 that'll hang off the end of the record all year like a little vestigial appendix. The loss was to Boston College, which took a surprise 3-0 record home. Even Coastal Carolina had trouble, and that school is sort of the Butler of mid-major baseball, minus any final four appearances.
It really drives home the issues facing the team this year, though. The winning runs scored by Boston College came from two passed balls by catcher Nate Irving, followed by a Branden Kline mistake that ended up on the wrong side of the fence. In years past, the bats might have overcome that issue, but the hitting this year is still three-quarters potential. The bats waited til the CCU game to break out, instead. I'm going to write off the tie against JMU as a product of playing in rain that would've washed out 90% of baseball games much sooner than it eventually did. The fielding is what let the team down and gave up a 4-2 lead, but you can't draw any conclusions from that when the ball is sopping wet.
And speaking of things that we expected to look better: 9-8 over Drexel might've caused a few raised eyebrows, too. I mean, shouldn't we beat them by more than one goal? Is there something wrong with the offense that caused the output to be limited to nine goals?
Well, no. This is exactly why I started doing lacrosse efficiency stats. See, last year, UVA averaged more than 35 offensive possessions per game, the second-most in the country. And we scored on 35% of those possessions. Against Drexel we had only 26 OPs. And that wasn't the fault of lousy faceoff work (won 12 of 21) or bad clearing (13 of 15.) Nope, it was just a slow-paced game. 60 offensive possessions and 68-70 total is your average lacrosse game; this one had only 49 OPs and 52 total. It was just a very slow-paced game.
In that light, the offensive production was just fine. UVA's O-rating for the game was 16.81; last year's total was 16.64. Drexel's excellent goalie, Mark Manos, saved only five of 14 shots on net. We got nine goals from seven players, and better yet, seven assists from six players. And not a single point from Steele Stanwick, either. Owen Van Arsdale was the offensive star, and two goals came from Rob Emery, too. Young'uns. UVA was badly outshot, 41-24, but it hardly mattered; we did a much better job of getting our shots on net, and Rob Fortunato saved 11 of 19 SOG.
Could I fret a little about the defense? Yeah, I could. Eight goals is a little too many. Drexel's O-rating (and our D-rating) was 15.81, rather above the D-I average of about 14.10. But there are too many positives to come out of this game to get all worried. Ryan Benincasa was excellent on faceoffs (and freshman Mick Parks held his own), and there was only one penalty called on the Hoos the whole game. Plus a huge ground-ball advantage for UVA as well. The world will probably look at the 9-8 final score and a few of them will conclude Virginia is overrated. Not to worry: a deep dive into the refreshing tempo-free pool should give you all the peace of mind you need.
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Small bullets:
-- The multi-year scholarship rule barely survived an override vote. This is proof only that the rule for D-I membership needs to be tightened; it's out of hand when a school like Chicago State, which has the bare minimum of required sports and sucks at all of them, has an equivalent vote to the Texases and Ohio States and such of the world, which have nine-figure budgets. The requirements for D-I membership were established ages ago; it's only a natural consequence of expanding economies and populations that more and more schools would be able to meet them. And of course, the more FGCUs and Nebraska-Omahas and Presbyterians that make the leap, the more they'll be able to outvote the schools that help keep their budgets afloat. There are two reasons they don't tighten up the requirements and split up D-I: one, some of the conferences would be torn asunder as half their schools failed to make the grade. I think we'd all survive, though. Number two: none of the HBCU's would make the cut, and such a move would have Al Sharpton up in the NCAA's grill faster than you can say "race card."
Oh, and #3: any move toward such a split would instantly be massively downvoted, because we're this close to having the FGCUs and Chicago States in charge of this thing.
Anyway, the multi-year scholarship thing is a great thing. Schools that complain that multi-year schollies would be used as a recruiting tool are stupid. That's the point. They benefit the athlete, which is the point of the whole "college sport" thing. That's like arguing City Council should award the contract to the highest bidder instead of the lowest, because if they don't, the city will have more money to spend elsewhere, and that would be bad. It's such logic-defying argument it renders one speechless, which might've been the point.
-- Want to write a guest post? This is my attempt to make the site not a barren wasteland during my spring break in Peru, and your chance to get your opinion out there. Read here for details. A week and a half or so is the deadline.
Showing posts with label swimming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swimming. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
preview bonanza continues
Spring preview bonanza rolls on. Tonight is the Clemson game; ordinarily there'd be a full preview and everything but I already did one for the last Clemson game, so we're gonna cut that down to size. The main differences:
- Milton Jennings is back for Clemson
- Joe Harris might be out for the Hoos
- It's on the road
Nobody's scared of the big bad road anymore. The issues that plague this team have nothing to do with what gym the game is held in. If Joey Hoops can't go, you have to assume that Malcolm Brogdon would slide into the starting lineup, and Pauly J would be in for a big jump in his minutes. However. Harris is technically a game-time decision, and that may be true, but my guess is the decision's more or less already been made. "Game-time decision" is only true half the time; I think it's coach's gamesmanship this time, and that Harris will be in the lineup.
Jennings' return, however, is another story. The truth is that, offensively, he stinks. Look past the 9.5 points a game and keep in mind that his FG% isn't good for a forward and he turns the ball over too much. More minutes and touches for Jennings means fewer minutes for 7'2" Catalin Baciu and fewer touches for Andre Young and Tanner Smith, and anything that takes a seven-footer off the floor while we don't have one of our own is a plus. Jennings is a decent rebounder and defender thanks to his athleticism, but Mike Scott nullifies your rebound advantage and can't be defended. I think Jennings is worth a few points off the board for UVA and a few more for Clemson; since we won 65-61 last time, call it 63-56 tonight. All bets are off if I'm wrong about Harris.
I want to add, by the way, that it's really a refreshing thing to feel like going into another gym isn't the least bit scary. A nice change from the '00s when playing in an empty gym at the Y would've caused us to shoot 25% if it weren't in Charlottesville. Adam at the Duke Hoop Blog did a great job quantifying in statistical form what we already knew: the road suck used to be overwhelming. Now there is none. (The post is actually about the home court advantages of ACC teams, in which UVA came in second to Wake Forest. This year that home court advantage is "gone" but what's really gone is the road misery.)
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This weekend - starting tomorrow, actually - we also have the ACC swimming championships. The women this weekend, and the men the next, and it's all coming together in Blacksburg with Virginia Tech hosting. Swimming was my high school sport, and I was even good enough to be recruited to swim in college**, so you get to put up with this once a year.
And like every year, what I've done is to score out the psych sheet. This gives you a rough idea of how the teams will perform. Here are the standings if they went exactly as the psych sheet goes:
Virginia - 887
UNC - 582
Maryland - 506
FSU - 324
VT - 250
Duke - 197
GT - 180
NC State - 164
Miami - 158
Clemson - 108
BC - 60
Yes, it looks like a fifth straight ACC title for the Lady Hoos, and in dominating fashion. Other teams can match UVA's talent in places, but not the depth. Obviously, the meet won't go exactly as the psych sheet predicts, not least because that's not an actual lineup, just a list of who swam what and had what time throughout the season. UVA is particularly strong in the backstroke; the top five 100 back times all belong to Virginia swimmers. And in case any of these other ACC teams get any ideas about usurping our dominance in the future, two of those five belong to freshmen, and one to a sophomore. The top backstroker in the conference? Meredith Cavalier, who obviously could not possibly have chosen any other school.
And yes, BC is as terrible as they look. The only reason they have points is because everyone swims relays. Not every team has a swimmer in every individual event, but each team at least gets one relay. You get 12 points for finishing last in a relay and there are 5 relay events, so the math adds up to ouch.
Speaking of ouch, anyone who happens to be attending the event should give a big cheer for the Clemson swimmers and a rousing BOOOOO to the Clemson administration, because this'll be the last meet for the Clemson swim team, which shuts down after this season. BOOOO. IPTAY stands for I Pay Ten A Year - maybe they need to change it to Twenty.
**By which I mean I once got a standard recruiting letter from a tiny Division II school in West Virginia called Salem International (which at the time was called Salem-Teikyo) expressing the standard interest in my times and would I be interested in learning more about the school and the program etc. etc. The problem was that I got this letter in October of 2000, and that wouldn't be a problem per se except that I had graduated high school in May and was already in class at UVA. My senior year times were apparently pretty good for a sophomore. I didn't say I was amazing.
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Time for the first recruiting board update of the year, a smallish one:
- Added DE Trent Corney to orange. We're going with DE for now. Might change.
- Removed CB Shaquille Wiggins from blue. Committed to Georgia as soon as they offered.
- Moved QB Brendan Marshall from yellow to blue after a Rivals article making no secret of his top two (BC, UVA.) Editorial: UVA will probably slow-play Marshall just a touch, til they get a better handle on the recruitments of the instate quarterbacks. Can't see them taking two again. It might be preferable to take an instate guy, except that Marshall comes from Good Counsel, where you have to like the idea of getting the field general considering the amount of talent that that school has this year.
- Added ATH Reon Dawson to yellow.
- Added RB Ryan Green to red.
Finally, in the hey-what-the-heck department: I read something somewhere about something or other that Mike London had tweetered from his @CoachMikeLondon account. I was all like, "hm, I didn't see that, I thought I followed London." In fact, I know for sure I used to. So I go to look him up again on Twitster and I hit "follow" and this is what I get:
:(
I have no idea how that happened.
- Milton Jennings is back for Clemson
- Joe Harris might be out for the Hoos
- It's on the road
Nobody's scared of the big bad road anymore. The issues that plague this team have nothing to do with what gym the game is held in. If Joey Hoops can't go, you have to assume that Malcolm Brogdon would slide into the starting lineup, and Pauly J would be in for a big jump in his minutes. However. Harris is technically a game-time decision, and that may be true, but my guess is the decision's more or less already been made. "Game-time decision" is only true half the time; I think it's coach's gamesmanship this time, and that Harris will be in the lineup.
Jennings' return, however, is another story. The truth is that, offensively, he stinks. Look past the 9.5 points a game and keep in mind that his FG% isn't good for a forward and he turns the ball over too much. More minutes and touches for Jennings means fewer minutes for 7'2" Catalin Baciu and fewer touches for Andre Young and Tanner Smith, and anything that takes a seven-footer off the floor while we don't have one of our own is a plus. Jennings is a decent rebounder and defender thanks to his athleticism, but Mike Scott nullifies your rebound advantage and can't be defended. I think Jennings is worth a few points off the board for UVA and a few more for Clemson; since we won 65-61 last time, call it 63-56 tonight. All bets are off if I'm wrong about Harris.
I want to add, by the way, that it's really a refreshing thing to feel like going into another gym isn't the least bit scary. A nice change from the '00s when playing in an empty gym at the Y would've caused us to shoot 25% if it weren't in Charlottesville. Adam at the Duke Hoop Blog did a great job quantifying in statistical form what we already knew: the road suck used to be overwhelming. Now there is none. (The post is actually about the home court advantages of ACC teams, in which UVA came in second to Wake Forest. This year that home court advantage is "gone" but what's really gone is the road misery.)
************************************************************
This weekend - starting tomorrow, actually - we also have the ACC swimming championships. The women this weekend, and the men the next, and it's all coming together in Blacksburg with Virginia Tech hosting. Swimming was my high school sport, and I was even good enough to be recruited to swim in college**, so you get to put up with this once a year.
And like every year, what I've done is to score out the psych sheet. This gives you a rough idea of how the teams will perform. Here are the standings if they went exactly as the psych sheet goes:
Virginia - 887
UNC - 582
Maryland - 506
FSU - 324
VT - 250
Duke - 197
GT - 180
NC State - 164
Miami - 158
Clemson - 108
BC - 60
Yes, it looks like a fifth straight ACC title for the Lady Hoos, and in dominating fashion. Other teams can match UVA's talent in places, but not the depth. Obviously, the meet won't go exactly as the psych sheet predicts, not least because that's not an actual lineup, just a list of who swam what and had what time throughout the season. UVA is particularly strong in the backstroke; the top five 100 back times all belong to Virginia swimmers. And in case any of these other ACC teams get any ideas about usurping our dominance in the future, two of those five belong to freshmen, and one to a sophomore. The top backstroker in the conference? Meredith Cavalier, who obviously could not possibly have chosen any other school.
And yes, BC is as terrible as they look. The only reason they have points is because everyone swims relays. Not every team has a swimmer in every individual event, but each team at least gets one relay. You get 12 points for finishing last in a relay and there are 5 relay events, so the math adds up to ouch.
Speaking of ouch, anyone who happens to be attending the event should give a big cheer for the Clemson swimmers and a rousing BOOOOO to the Clemson administration, because this'll be the last meet for the Clemson swim team, which shuts down after this season. BOOOO. IPTAY stands for I Pay Ten A Year - maybe they need to change it to Twenty.
**By which I mean I once got a standard recruiting letter from a tiny Division II school in West Virginia called Salem International (which at the time was called Salem-Teikyo) expressing the standard interest in my times and would I be interested in learning more about the school and the program etc. etc. The problem was that I got this letter in October of 2000, and that wouldn't be a problem per se except that I had graduated high school in May and was already in class at UVA. My senior year times were apparently pretty good for a sophomore. I didn't say I was amazing.
************************************************************
Time for the first recruiting board update of the year, a smallish one:
- Added DE Trent Corney to orange. We're going with DE for now. Might change.
- Removed CB Shaquille Wiggins from blue. Committed to Georgia as soon as they offered.
- Moved QB Brendan Marshall from yellow to blue after a Rivals article making no secret of his top two (BC, UVA.) Editorial: UVA will probably slow-play Marshall just a touch, til they get a better handle on the recruitments of the instate quarterbacks. Can't see them taking two again. It might be preferable to take an instate guy, except that Marshall comes from Good Counsel, where you have to like the idea of getting the field general considering the amount of talent that that school has this year.
- Added ATH Reon Dawson to yellow.
- Added RB Ryan Green to red.
Finally, in the hey-what-the-heck department: I read something somewhere about something or other that Mike London had tweetered from his @CoachMikeLondon account. I was all like, "hm, I didn't see that, I thought I followed London." In fact, I know for sure I used to. So I go to look him up again on Twitster and I hit "follow" and this is what I get:
:(
I have no idea how that happened.
Monday, March 28, 2011
weekend review
I've been watching baseball a long time - longer than any other sport I like - and I haven't seen too many series that put the capricious nature of the sport on display like this weekend's series against Maryland. A sweep, by the way. Which looked as if it was going to be in some danger during the first game of Saturday's doubleheader.
If you're in need of evidence that the baseball gods are the most demanding of all the other sports - perhaps combined - witness the 8th inning of game 2 of the Maryland series. Down 2-1, things were looking dark until Maryland center fielder Korey Wacker caught the final out of the bottom of the 7th and opted against the standard practice of rolling the ball nonchalantly back to the mound for the pitcher to use. Instead he spiked it. Hard. And deliberately. Leave it to Maryland to find new ways to show up the opposition before the game is even over. This violation of the Code was not met by either UVA or the baseball gods with acceptance, and in retaliation the gods turned Maryland's normally sure-handed left-side infielders into Booty the Clown. After they themselves recorded assists on the first two outs of the inning. UVA took advantage by singling home a run to tie, and then brought Kenny Swab to the plate, who hit the pitcher's offering so hard that it bounced past the diving first baseman into foul territory for a base hit - after first ricocheting off the pitcher himself. And who was this hard luck pitcher who saw his infielders twice play an ill-timed game of kickball to put two on with two out and then felt the winning base hit slam into his ankle before he ever saw it coming? Korey Wacker.
UVA scored 22 runs in the series - 17 of them in three innings. The final margin of the third game was provided in the second inning when UVA plated four runs, and the first game saw the floodgates open in the fourth as UVA broke the scoreboard. It doesn't go past nine runs per inning on the line score, see. People arriving late to the game must have wondered how 1 + 2 + 1 + 0 = 14.
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The lacrosse team could have used some luck, because once again they started the game off flat and fell short on their furious comeback. Aiiyy. Oh, and by flat I mean shitty. I might have said this before, but our offense looks like Hokie basketball. One guy runs around a little to see if he can shake his man. When he can't, he passes to someone else, who tries. When he can't, he passes to someone else who tries again. Eventually someone either coughs up the ball or shoots, the latter with mixed results and not often the desired one. Motion without the ball is nonexistent at times, and when finally someone does put himself in position to receive a pass that could actually do some damage to the scoreboard, he lets it fly right past the stick. The ACC schedule is coming up, and it's gonna be awful hard to even go 2-1 if whatever that was makes any more appearances.
Even Adam Ghitelman was less than his usual solid self, but that might be because the defense thinks that other teams run their offense the same as we do.
After two weeks of doing lacrosse bracketology, a few games on TV, and a little over half a season, the lax landscape looks like Syracuse and a bunch of teams separated by nothing. Teams 2 through 10 in the rankings don't seem to be any different from each other, and the next 10 are probably capable of beating anyone in the top 10 as well. So while the good news is we're clearly no worse than any of the other contenders except maybe Cuse (which Villanova demonstrated is not invincible by losing 5-4 in the very last minute of the game) we're also clearly no better unless we figure out how to play more than half a game.
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Other stuff:
- The lady swimmers were 13th and the men a very, very solid 8th at the NCAA nationals these past two weekends. The men were headlined by a second-place relay and the first individual national championship since 2000 when Ed Moses was doing his thing. Matt McLean not only won the 500 freestyle, he blew away the competition by nearly four seconds. Yes, that's an eternity. He's the third swimmer at UVA to win a national title and he beat the event's defending champ en route to it.
- Better cross-pollination is something I wanted to see in the unsolicited suggestion box post I wrote a while back, so I'm pleased about the lacrosse/football extravaganza this weekend. Because Maryland is the lax opponent, Hit A Twerp With A Stick Week is underway and it should be a good crowd for the game. Even more betterer is that the spring game (as well as lax) will be on ESPN3. It's great that the admin is getting on board with the '10s. I'm slightly selfishly annoyed about the ESPN3 thing on account of shelling out $30 for the live video package - part of the attraction of which was the spring game which is now free to all - but regardless, the fact that they have it on the video package is a poor reason not to open it up to ESPN3 if ESPN is willing.
- We're #1 again in 2 of 5 baseball polls. I don't care too much because it puts a target on your back and doesn't get you to Omaha, but some do, so there you go. Annoying siderant: why the hell is ACC baseball broken up into divisions?
- Georgia Tech has a new basketball coach, and hooray it's not Richmond's Mooney or VCU's Smart or anyone you thought might get the job. It's Dayton's Brian Gregory. Gregory's got a decent record at Dayton but this is not the proverbial home-run hire. Instead of swinging for the fences, GT choked up on the bat. Chances are excellent that he's an improvement over Paul Hewitt in the X's and O's department but I'm not sure we'll see GT earning a first-round bye in the ACC tournament any time soon.
If you're in need of evidence that the baseball gods are the most demanding of all the other sports - perhaps combined - witness the 8th inning of game 2 of the Maryland series. Down 2-1, things were looking dark until Maryland center fielder Korey Wacker caught the final out of the bottom of the 7th and opted against the standard practice of rolling the ball nonchalantly back to the mound for the pitcher to use. Instead he spiked it. Hard. And deliberately. Leave it to Maryland to find new ways to show up the opposition before the game is even over. This violation of the Code was not met by either UVA or the baseball gods with acceptance, and in retaliation the gods turned Maryland's normally sure-handed left-side infielders into Booty the Clown. After they themselves recorded assists on the first two outs of the inning. UVA took advantage by singling home a run to tie, and then brought Kenny Swab to the plate, who hit the pitcher's offering so hard that it bounced past the diving first baseman into foul territory for a base hit - after first ricocheting off the pitcher himself. And who was this hard luck pitcher who saw his infielders twice play an ill-timed game of kickball to put two on with two out and then felt the winning base hit slam into his ankle before he ever saw it coming? Korey Wacker.
UVA scored 22 runs in the series - 17 of them in three innings. The final margin of the third game was provided in the second inning when UVA plated four runs, and the first game saw the floodgates open in the fourth as UVA broke the scoreboard. It doesn't go past nine runs per inning on the line score, see. People arriving late to the game must have wondered how 1 + 2 + 1 + 0 = 14.
****************************************************
The lacrosse team could have used some luck, because once again they started the game off flat and fell short on their furious comeback. Aiiyy. Oh, and by flat I mean shitty. I might have said this before, but our offense looks like Hokie basketball. One guy runs around a little to see if he can shake his man. When he can't, he passes to someone else, who tries. When he can't, he passes to someone else who tries again. Eventually someone either coughs up the ball or shoots, the latter with mixed results and not often the desired one. Motion without the ball is nonexistent at times, and when finally someone does put himself in position to receive a pass that could actually do some damage to the scoreboard, he lets it fly right past the stick. The ACC schedule is coming up, and it's gonna be awful hard to even go 2-1 if whatever that was makes any more appearances.
Even Adam Ghitelman was less than his usual solid self, but that might be because the defense thinks that other teams run their offense the same as we do.
After two weeks of doing lacrosse bracketology, a few games on TV, and a little over half a season, the lax landscape looks like Syracuse and a bunch of teams separated by nothing. Teams 2 through 10 in the rankings don't seem to be any different from each other, and the next 10 are probably capable of beating anyone in the top 10 as well. So while the good news is we're clearly no worse than any of the other contenders except maybe Cuse (which Villanova demonstrated is not invincible by losing 5-4 in the very last minute of the game) we're also clearly no better unless we figure out how to play more than half a game.
****************************************************
Other stuff:
- The lady swimmers were 13th and the men a very, very solid 8th at the NCAA nationals these past two weekends. The men were headlined by a second-place relay and the first individual national championship since 2000 when Ed Moses was doing his thing. Matt McLean not only won the 500 freestyle, he blew away the competition by nearly four seconds. Yes, that's an eternity. He's the third swimmer at UVA to win a national title and he beat the event's defending champ en route to it.
- Better cross-pollination is something I wanted to see in the unsolicited suggestion box post I wrote a while back, so I'm pleased about the lacrosse/football extravaganza this weekend. Because Maryland is the lax opponent, Hit A Twerp With A Stick Week is underway and it should be a good crowd for the game. Even more betterer is that the spring game (as well as lax) will be on ESPN3. It's great that the admin is getting on board with the '10s. I'm slightly selfishly annoyed about the ESPN3 thing on account of shelling out $30 for the live video package - part of the attraction of which was the spring game which is now free to all - but regardless, the fact that they have it on the video package is a poor reason not to open it up to ESPN3 if ESPN is willing.
- We're #1 again in 2 of 5 baseball polls. I don't care too much because it puts a target on your back and doesn't get you to Omaha, but some do, so there you go. Annoying siderant: why the hell is ACC baseball broken up into divisions?
- Georgia Tech has a new basketball coach, and hooray it's not Richmond's Mooney or VCU's Smart or anyone you thought might get the job. It's Dayton's Brian Gregory. Gregory's got a decent record at Dayton but this is not the proverbial home-run hire. Instead of swinging for the fences, GT choked up on the bat. Chances are excellent that he's an improvement over Paul Hewitt in the X's and O's department but I'm not sure we'll see GT earning a first-round bye in the ACC tournament any time soon.
Monday, February 28, 2011
weekend review
So it's back to the grind. Losing by 19 to Boston College, if nothing else, serves to remind us of the cavernous talent (and more importantly, experience) chasm separating this basketball team from the rest of the ACC. Various game reports opened by wondering what to point to in order to explain the blowout - or more specifically, the total lack of ability to play either offense or defense in the second half. The answer is simple: the implicit conclusion from last week's column that this team has been playing way over their heads. At some point that has to be expected to catch up to you.
You are now forbidden, for your own health, from uttering the word "NIT." I suppose it doesn't especially matter what happens for the rest of the season, but since Tony Bennett is still Tony Bennett it's not like the team is going to agree with that. Worse teams than this one have made the CBI, and even if that's the only tournament we get invited to we should accept. It's probably a money-loser, but this is the most profitable athletic department in the conference and what good is making all that money if you don't spend it on something like that? This team needs to cram as much basketball into its gullet as possible. And even if the only thing we have to look forward to this year is three more losses to end the season, we'll always have Paris, where "Paris" is code for "sweeping the Hokies right the hell out of the arena."
Speaking of the Hokies: Fuck you, Duke. Seriously. You run roughshod over the entire conference for three decades and then the one time I want you to actually take care of business and crush someone, you choke like Monica on the President's cigar. I hope when Coach K retires you hire Matt Doherty.
*****************************************************
OK, now that the profanity is out of the way let's talk about things that make us happy, like lacrosse and baseball.
I don't know whether to worry or not about the start of the lacrosse season. Yes, 3-0 is a good thing, and Drexel is no slouch of a team and Stony Brook is potential final four material, so beating them is great. Beating them without the suspended Bratton twins is pretty incredible.
That said, why the rash of suspensions? First Ghitelman and now both Rhamel and Shamel, and both for games of importance. Let's hope this is Starsia's way of reacting to the problems of last year and clamping down on stuff that he wasn't clamping down on before. And let's hope the team gets the message.
Discipline problems aside, this why there's such a thing as Steele Stanwick. Five goals against Stony Brook, including the OT game-winner, should tell you who the team sees as their go-to guy, especially when last year's second-line midfield of Haldy, Briggs, and Emery is suddenly the first-line midfield. The Brattons got the preseason hype and they'll be creating all the highlight goals, but Stanwick might well be the irreplaceable one.
The Stone-Age lack of TV means I'm still at a loss for individual observations, and tonight's VMI game won't add anything to what we know. Fortunately, it's Syracuse on Friday.
*****************************************************
I might be waffling on the lacrosse team, but not the baseball team. Despite losing on Sunday and allowing East Carolina to avoid the sweep, the start to the season has been fantastic. Danny Hultzen, of course, sparkles as the Friday starter. Fifteen strikeouts and top-notch work with the bat earned him National Player of the Week honors from Collegiate Baseball. (Seriously, read that article. Hultzen's pitching on Friday was as dominant as you can get short of throwing a perfect game.) Hultzen's dominance is to be marveled at, and should result in all kinds of recognition, gaudy numbers, and Friday evening victories as the season goes on.
But we've kind of been counting on that. The same for Tyler Wilson's excellent job on Saturdays. Wilson's an excellent pitcher too, and we knew that. Even though Cody Winiarski took the Sunday loss with one bad inning, I'm more encouraged by his play than by that of anyone else so far this season. Winiarski has struck out six in each of his two starts, almost doubling his K rate from last season. A weekend rotation without a hole in it means lofty ACC expectations; this is probably the top rotation in the conference and should result in a solid 20 conference wins and maybe then some. This is an awesome development. This is how you live up to people calling you "one bad machine."
I was going to get moving with a full-out preview of the season this week, but actually it'll probably have to wait til next week when the basketball regular season is done.
*****************************************************
And now, the rest of the story:
- Ralph Sampson, Hall-of-Famer. My initial reaction was this would've happened fifteen years ago if Sampson were a Dookie. Instead he played for lowly - which wasn't at all lowly at the time - Virginia. After all, Sampson is a member of a three-time-NPOY club that includes just two other players - Oscar Robertson and Bill Walton. Screw the man, man. Then I remembered that the NCBHOF is only like four or five years old, and Sampson wouldn't have been part of the (absolutely enormous) founding class because he's not in the big HOF on account of a mediocre NBA career. Still, how does Ralph Sampson, Three-Time-National-Player-Of-The-Effing-Year Ralph Sampson, have to wait behind Christian Laettner for his turn? Oh, right: Duke, and Not Duke.
Anyway, justice is done. The fact that a College Basketball Hall of Fame could exist as an institution with a building and everything and not have Ralph Sampson inside it was silly. Now it's not.
- Swimmers rock. The men's team, as predicted, made it two-for-two at the ACC Swimming & Diving championships. The meet, as not predicted, wasn't even close. 232 points separated UVA and 2nd-place UNC, which is more points than four of the competing teams achieved at all.
The meet's MVP was distance swimmer Matt McLean for the third time in four years. Other event winners: sprinter Scot Robison and butterflyer Peter Geissinger. The tone of the meet was pretty well set in the first individual event - the 500-yard freestyle - where Virginia swimmers took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th. For those keeping score at home, the meet's over so you can put your pencils away, but that's still 92 of the event total 155 points. In one event UVA scored more than Boston College or Miami combined.
Nationals are next, where hopefully top-10 finishes await both the men and women.
- Can't let this go without a recruiting board update. But first, something even better. A map. I put together a Google Map of the recruiting board. It's color-coded and everything, although the red is kinda pink. And the orange looks red if you don't have the pink near it to compare it to. Blame Google's pastel coloring. Anyway, the link will have a permanent home on the recruiting board page so you can check it out whenever.
Now, the update:
- Added RB Kye Morgan and WR Drakar Harvell to yellow. Both might be green, but for a couple mitigating factors: Morgan lives almost literally in the shadow of Rutgers The SUNJ, and Harvell needs an offer. Harvell will eventually get one, I think, at which time he'll be instabumped to green or blue.
- Moved DT Korren Kirven from yellow to red.
- Moved ATH Cyrus Jones from red to yellow. Jones hails from Gilman - Darius Jennings's alma mater.
Full schedule this week (that's code for "I don't have to pull anything from my ass this week"): I'll preview the NC State game, and lacrosse's Syracuse game. I don't know if I'll preview the Maryland game, as we're destined to be killed by a team we match up with exceedingly poorly. As much as I enjoy this very likable version of our basketball team, I am really looking forward to spring sports.
You are now forbidden, for your own health, from uttering the word "NIT." I suppose it doesn't especially matter what happens for the rest of the season, but since Tony Bennett is still Tony Bennett it's not like the team is going to agree with that. Worse teams than this one have made the CBI, and even if that's the only tournament we get invited to we should accept. It's probably a money-loser, but this is the most profitable athletic department in the conference and what good is making all that money if you don't spend it on something like that? This team needs to cram as much basketball into its gullet as possible. And even if the only thing we have to look forward to this year is three more losses to end the season, we'll always have Paris, where "Paris" is code for "sweeping the Hokies right the hell out of the arena."
Speaking of the Hokies: Fuck you, Duke. Seriously. You run roughshod over the entire conference for three decades and then the one time I want you to actually take care of business and crush someone, you choke like Monica on the President's cigar. I hope when Coach K retires you hire Matt Doherty.
*****************************************************
OK, now that the profanity is out of the way let's talk about things that make us happy, like lacrosse and baseball.
I don't know whether to worry or not about the start of the lacrosse season. Yes, 3-0 is a good thing, and Drexel is no slouch of a team and Stony Brook is potential final four material, so beating them is great. Beating them without the suspended Bratton twins is pretty incredible.
That said, why the rash of suspensions? First Ghitelman and now both Rhamel and Shamel, and both for games of importance. Let's hope this is Starsia's way of reacting to the problems of last year and clamping down on stuff that he wasn't clamping down on before. And let's hope the team gets the message.
Discipline problems aside, this why there's such a thing as Steele Stanwick. Five goals against Stony Brook, including the OT game-winner, should tell you who the team sees as their go-to guy, especially when last year's second-line midfield of Haldy, Briggs, and Emery is suddenly the first-line midfield. The Brattons got the preseason hype and they'll be creating all the highlight goals, but Stanwick might well be the irreplaceable one.
The Stone-Age lack of TV means I'm still at a loss for individual observations, and tonight's VMI game won't add anything to what we know. Fortunately, it's Syracuse on Friday.
*****************************************************
I might be waffling on the lacrosse team, but not the baseball team. Despite losing on Sunday and allowing East Carolina to avoid the sweep, the start to the season has been fantastic. Danny Hultzen, of course, sparkles as the Friday starter. Fifteen strikeouts and top-notch work with the bat earned him National Player of the Week honors from Collegiate Baseball. (Seriously, read that article. Hultzen's pitching on Friday was as dominant as you can get short of throwing a perfect game.) Hultzen's dominance is to be marveled at, and should result in all kinds of recognition, gaudy numbers, and Friday evening victories as the season goes on.
But we've kind of been counting on that. The same for Tyler Wilson's excellent job on Saturdays. Wilson's an excellent pitcher too, and we knew that. Even though Cody Winiarski took the Sunday loss with one bad inning, I'm more encouraged by his play than by that of anyone else so far this season. Winiarski has struck out six in each of his two starts, almost doubling his K rate from last season. A weekend rotation without a hole in it means lofty ACC expectations; this is probably the top rotation in the conference and should result in a solid 20 conference wins and maybe then some. This is an awesome development. This is how you live up to people calling you "one bad machine."
I was going to get moving with a full-out preview of the season this week, but actually it'll probably have to wait til next week when the basketball regular season is done.
*****************************************************
And now, the rest of the story:
- Ralph Sampson, Hall-of-Famer. My initial reaction was this would've happened fifteen years ago if Sampson were a Dookie. Instead he played for lowly - which wasn't at all lowly at the time - Virginia. After all, Sampson is a member of a three-time-NPOY club that includes just two other players - Oscar Robertson and Bill Walton. Screw the man, man. Then I remembered that the NCBHOF is only like four or five years old, and Sampson wouldn't have been part of the (absolutely enormous) founding class because he's not in the big HOF on account of a mediocre NBA career. Still, how does Ralph Sampson, Three-Time-National-Player-Of-The-Effing-Year Ralph Sampson, have to wait behind Christian Laettner for his turn? Oh, right: Duke, and Not Duke.
Anyway, justice is done. The fact that a College Basketball Hall of Fame could exist as an institution with a building and everything and not have Ralph Sampson inside it was silly. Now it's not.
- Swimmers rock. The men's team, as predicted, made it two-for-two at the ACC Swimming & Diving championships. The meet, as not predicted, wasn't even close. 232 points separated UVA and 2nd-place UNC, which is more points than four of the competing teams achieved at all.
The meet's MVP was distance swimmer Matt McLean for the third time in four years. Other event winners: sprinter Scot Robison and butterflyer Peter Geissinger. The tone of the meet was pretty well set in the first individual event - the 500-yard freestyle - where Virginia swimmers took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th. For those keeping score at home, the meet's over so you can put your pencils away, but that's still 92 of the event total 155 points. In one event UVA scored more than Boston College or Miami combined.
Nationals are next, where hopefully top-10 finishes await both the men and women.
- Can't let this go without a recruiting board update. But first, something even better. A map. I put together a Google Map of the recruiting board. It's color-coded and everything, although the red is kinda pink. And the orange looks red if you don't have the pink near it to compare it to. Blame Google's pastel coloring. Anyway, the link will have a permanent home on the recruiting board page so you can check it out whenever.
Now, the update:
- Added RB Kye Morgan and WR Drakar Harvell to yellow. Both might be green, but for a couple mitigating factors: Morgan lives almost literally in the shadow of Rutgers The SUNJ, and Harvell needs an offer. Harvell will eventually get one, I think, at which time he'll be instabumped to green or blue.
- Moved DT Korren Kirven from yellow to red.
- Moved ATH Cyrus Jones from red to yellow. Jones hails from Gilman - Darius Jennings's alma mater.
Full schedule this week (that's code for "I don't have to pull anything from my ass this week"): I'll preview the NC State game, and lacrosse's Syracuse game. I don't know if I'll preview the Maryland game, as we're destined to be killed by a team we match up with exceedingly poorly. As much as I enjoy this very likable version of our basketball team, I am really looking forward to spring sports.
Monday, February 21, 2011
sweeps weekend
It must be spring when UVA fans get a whole weekend full of good news. Never happens otherwise. Hardly a Wahoo took the court, or field, or starting block, without leaving victoriously. Best of all: completing the hardcourt sweep of Virginia Tech in front of a sold-out JPJ Arena.
Did I say sweep? I said sweep. Of Tech. Barring a semi-miraculous run to the NIT (which would likely require winning the next three games in a row) or a thoroughly miraculous tournament run to the ACC championship, that's probably the highlight of the season. It's not a minor deal; regaining our identity as Virginia Basketball requires, among other things, putting Tech back in their place. In the future this needs to be the norm.
I must be the only person who cares enough to write about this stuff to have seen this coming, though. The rest of the media - and certainly just about every Hokie in existence - is all surprised and shit. The excuses are flying. I'm not surprised, because I told you before the game: UVA matches up very well with Tech. We're bigger. We're either deeper, or Seth Greenberg is insane for never playing anyone but his starters. We're smarter. With Mike Scott out, Tech does have the two and maybe three best players on the court (Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, and maybe Erick Green) but otherwise, the point is this: Basketball is a game of matchups, and that can sometimes overcome a sizable talent deficit. And you won't find many other ACC teams that UVA is as well-equipped to beat as Tech. The reason for the sweep doesn't go much beyond that, and to whatever extent it does, it sure as hell wasn't fatigue on Tech's part, as has been suggested. Anyone who thinks that ought to be embarrassed.
Another thing that's been made a big deal of, and shouldn't be, is that UVA outrebounded Tech. By one, but that's not the reason it shouldn't be a big deal. It's true that we usually get outrebounded, because somebody will launch a three and most of the team will be on the other side of halfcourt by the time it hits the rim. That's Tony Bennett's way. On the defensive end, though, guess who the best rebounding team in the conference is? If you guessed "not Virginia," you're wrong, and you're making the same mistake everyone else does, by using raw, non-tempo-adjusted rebounding averages. The fact is, UVA has the best defensive rebounding percentage in the ACC, and 36th best in the country. File under "another reason I'm not surprised we won."
So yes, Akil Mitchell had a nice game with seven rebounds, but I'll wait to throw his debutante party til he double-doubles one of these days. Stats-wise the player of the game really is Sammy Z, who should never be allowed to shoot until thirty seconds of the shot clock have elapsed, but if you want to make a case for "blossoming potential" from that game, Assane Sene and Jontel Evans are your guys. Jontel actually can shoot, and when he realizes it he'll be that much better. Sene can score when he catches the ball. We just have to figure out how to optimize the transition from someone else's hands to his, and we're set.
The future holds three winnable games, and I'd allow you to get excited about the possibility of winning them all except the moment I do, we'll lose by 30 in Atlanta. So as far as the fates are concerned, it's one-game-at-a-time mode from here on out. Just to be on the safe side, try and give 110% too. It is what it is.
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Sweeps weekend continued in Auburn, where Danny Hultzen, in between striking out 10 UAB Blazers and driving in seven runs for the weekend, also took a leak on Toomer's Corner and healed the trees. Chuck Norris has nothing on Danny. The opponents for the weekend were UAB, Auburn, and Arkansas State, in that order; UAB and ASU are fringe top-100 types in the RPI, while Auburn isn't SEC royalty like LSU but is a borderline top-25 team. Tyler Wilson shut down their powerful lineup, and UVA nickel-and-dimed their way around the basepaths for 13 runs against Auburn and 27 on the weekend in sweeping the tournament.
It's certainly refreshing to see that Hultzen is in his usual form. Enjoy it; the man will be a first-rounder this year. It's even better to see Tyler Wilson pitch six innings of shutdown baseball as the new Saturday starter, and Cody Winiarski did the same on Sunday. It makes me giddy. Winiarski, even at his best last season (and he certainly got better as the year went on) was never a strikeout pitcher, barely averaging one every two innings. He posted six on Sunday in six innings of work. Branden Kline also proved worthy of the closer role, slamming the door on a UAB rally on Friday. Six pitches, six strikes, and a one-out situation became Kline's first save of the year.
The wins bump UVA a few spots in most of the polls. East Carolina comes to town next weekend, with a home game against VMI in between. The ECU series won't have the same stature it did last year when ECU was considered the up-and-comer on the baseball scene, and a sweep there would open up the possibility of being undefeated heading into the ACC season in about three weeks.
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The lax team started its season with its usual solid, if slightly uninspiring, win over Drexel. Drexel's a half-decent team, so the margin of victory - 12-9 - is no cause for worry. As per usual, though, the game offered some reasons for optimism and some for worry. UVA won the faceoff battle, which they did not last year, and maintained its usual dominance in clearing the ball, successfully clearing all but one opportunity. This was without Adam Ghitelman (who is one of the nation's top goalies at starting a clear) in net, who didn't dress because of a mystery suspension. Rob Fortunato played, and played reasonably well.
On the other hand, ground balls, normally an area of UVA dominance, tilted only slightly in UVA's favor, at 46-43. (That's a lot of ground balls to begin with.) Nothing's perfect, though.
Ghitelman will hopefully be back in net tomorrow against Mount St. Mary's; it'd certainly be ideal to have him see game action before Saturday's dangerous matchup against Stony Brook.
****************************************************
For the fourth straight year, the women's swim and dive team is ACC champions, and for the second straight year, it's sprinter Lauren Perdue taking home the honors as the meet's most outstanding swimmer. Perdue sets records like it's her job, but freshman butterflier Rachel Naurath gave her a run for her money for the top-swimmer title. This was, as suggested by the psych sheet scoring, a close meet - our girls were behind UNC by 37 points (not quite a virtual dead heat but close) going into the final day, and the meet was in doubt until the 200 yard butterfly - the second-to-last event. UVA swimmers went 1-2-3-5, seizing the lead and putting UNC far enough behind that they could afford a safe-start relay in the final event; they went ahead and won the relay regardless. You have to love the championship attitude Mark Bernardino has instilled into his swim teams, as well as the talent he's brought to UVA.
This week, it's the men's turn. Psych sheet scoring, with all the caveats of last week's exercise, is as follows:
UVA - 844
UNC - 764
FSU - 500
VT - 314
NCSt. - 190
Clem. - 186
Md. - 177
Duke - 160
GT - 150
BC - 70
Wake Forest doesn't have any swim teams, and Miami doesn't have a men's one.
This is eerily similar to the women's results, no? UVA and UNC will duke it out for the title, and it'll definitely be close. We are nasty strong in distance events - all strokes - and a little thin on sprinters - all strokes. FSU is a factor, but probably not a threat for the title, VT is a comfortable fourth, and the peasants will have themselves a really stirring chase to line up fifth through ninth. (Except BC - as with the women's events, the only points they'll garner will come from placing last in every relay.)
This is even closer than it looks thanks to the general lack of points we'll get from diving. The women didn't get any - the men might scrape a couple but we'll take a bath here. Figuratively. Frankly, this meet should be considered just about neck and neck, just like the women.
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Speaking of four straight championships, and national-wise this time, it's the men's tennis team's turn for championship glory. This is indoor tennis, so before you get too excited - it still doesn't count in the NCAA tally. Not once in this run has UVA managed to win an outdoor tennis title. Why so different? Beats me. They'll have another shot this spring. This championship was a 4-0 win over Tennessee - yup, another sweep - and that's the kind of dominating fashion they've been using this winter, so with any luck this is a stronger team than years past and they can finally bring home an NCAA title in a couple months.
That finishes the good news weekend. Hope it wasn't too much all at once. They say starving people shouldn't pig out the moment they see food, it's not healthy. Unfortunately for your health, there's a recruiting board update in the hopper for tomorrow and you'll probably like what you see there, too.
Did I say sweep? I said sweep. Of Tech. Barring a semi-miraculous run to the NIT (which would likely require winning the next three games in a row) or a thoroughly miraculous tournament run to the ACC championship, that's probably the highlight of the season. It's not a minor deal; regaining our identity as Virginia Basketball requires, among other things, putting Tech back in their place. In the future this needs to be the norm.
I must be the only person who cares enough to write about this stuff to have seen this coming, though. The rest of the media - and certainly just about every Hokie in existence - is all surprised and shit. The excuses are flying. I'm not surprised, because I told you before the game: UVA matches up very well with Tech. We're bigger. We're either deeper, or Seth Greenberg is insane for never playing anyone but his starters. We're smarter. With Mike Scott out, Tech does have the two and maybe three best players on the court (Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, and maybe Erick Green) but otherwise, the point is this: Basketball is a game of matchups, and that can sometimes overcome a sizable talent deficit. And you won't find many other ACC teams that UVA is as well-equipped to beat as Tech. The reason for the sweep doesn't go much beyond that, and to whatever extent it does, it sure as hell wasn't fatigue on Tech's part, as has been suggested. Anyone who thinks that ought to be embarrassed.
Another thing that's been made a big deal of, and shouldn't be, is that UVA outrebounded Tech. By one, but that's not the reason it shouldn't be a big deal. It's true that we usually get outrebounded, because somebody will launch a three and most of the team will be on the other side of halfcourt by the time it hits the rim. That's Tony Bennett's way. On the defensive end, though, guess who the best rebounding team in the conference is? If you guessed "not Virginia," you're wrong, and you're making the same mistake everyone else does, by using raw, non-tempo-adjusted rebounding averages. The fact is, UVA has the best defensive rebounding percentage in the ACC, and 36th best in the country. File under "another reason I'm not surprised we won."
So yes, Akil Mitchell had a nice game with seven rebounds, but I'll wait to throw his debutante party til he double-doubles one of these days. Stats-wise the player of the game really is Sammy Z, who should never be allowed to shoot until thirty seconds of the shot clock have elapsed, but if you want to make a case for "blossoming potential" from that game, Assane Sene and Jontel Evans are your guys. Jontel actually can shoot, and when he realizes it he'll be that much better. Sene can score when he catches the ball. We just have to figure out how to optimize the transition from someone else's hands to his, and we're set.
The future holds three winnable games, and I'd allow you to get excited about the possibility of winning them all except the moment I do, we'll lose by 30 in Atlanta. So as far as the fates are concerned, it's one-game-at-a-time mode from here on out. Just to be on the safe side, try and give 110% too. It is what it is.
****************************************************
Sweeps weekend continued in Auburn, where Danny Hultzen, in between striking out 10 UAB Blazers and driving in seven runs for the weekend, also took a leak on Toomer's Corner and healed the trees. Chuck Norris has nothing on Danny. The opponents for the weekend were UAB, Auburn, and Arkansas State, in that order; UAB and ASU are fringe top-100 types in the RPI, while Auburn isn't SEC royalty like LSU but is a borderline top-25 team. Tyler Wilson shut down their powerful lineup, and UVA nickel-and-dimed their way around the basepaths for 13 runs against Auburn and 27 on the weekend in sweeping the tournament.
It's certainly refreshing to see that Hultzen is in his usual form. Enjoy it; the man will be a first-rounder this year. It's even better to see Tyler Wilson pitch six innings of shutdown baseball as the new Saturday starter, and Cody Winiarski did the same on Sunday. It makes me giddy. Winiarski, even at his best last season (and he certainly got better as the year went on) was never a strikeout pitcher, barely averaging one every two innings. He posted six on Sunday in six innings of work. Branden Kline also proved worthy of the closer role, slamming the door on a UAB rally on Friday. Six pitches, six strikes, and a one-out situation became Kline's first save of the year.
The wins bump UVA a few spots in most of the polls. East Carolina comes to town next weekend, with a home game against VMI in between. The ECU series won't have the same stature it did last year when ECU was considered the up-and-comer on the baseball scene, and a sweep there would open up the possibility of being undefeated heading into the ACC season in about three weeks.
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The lax team started its season with its usual solid, if slightly uninspiring, win over Drexel. Drexel's a half-decent team, so the margin of victory - 12-9 - is no cause for worry. As per usual, though, the game offered some reasons for optimism and some for worry. UVA won the faceoff battle, which they did not last year, and maintained its usual dominance in clearing the ball, successfully clearing all but one opportunity. This was without Adam Ghitelman (who is one of the nation's top goalies at starting a clear) in net, who didn't dress because of a mystery suspension. Rob Fortunato played, and played reasonably well.
On the other hand, ground balls, normally an area of UVA dominance, tilted only slightly in UVA's favor, at 46-43. (That's a lot of ground balls to begin with.) Nothing's perfect, though.
Ghitelman will hopefully be back in net tomorrow against Mount St. Mary's; it'd certainly be ideal to have him see game action before Saturday's dangerous matchup against Stony Brook.
****************************************************
For the fourth straight year, the women's swim and dive team is ACC champions, and for the second straight year, it's sprinter Lauren Perdue taking home the honors as the meet's most outstanding swimmer. Perdue sets records like it's her job, but freshman butterflier Rachel Naurath gave her a run for her money for the top-swimmer title. This was, as suggested by the psych sheet scoring, a close meet - our girls were behind UNC by 37 points (not quite a virtual dead heat but close) going into the final day, and the meet was in doubt until the 200 yard butterfly - the second-to-last event. UVA swimmers went 1-2-3-5, seizing the lead and putting UNC far enough behind that they could afford a safe-start relay in the final event; they went ahead and won the relay regardless. You have to love the championship attitude Mark Bernardino has instilled into his swim teams, as well as the talent he's brought to UVA.
This week, it's the men's turn. Psych sheet scoring, with all the caveats of last week's exercise, is as follows:
UVA - 844
UNC - 764
FSU - 500
VT - 314
NCSt. - 190
Clem. - 186
Md. - 177
Duke - 160
GT - 150
BC - 70
Wake Forest doesn't have any swim teams, and Miami doesn't have a men's one.
This is eerily similar to the women's results, no? UVA and UNC will duke it out for the title, and it'll definitely be close. We are nasty strong in distance events - all strokes - and a little thin on sprinters - all strokes. FSU is a factor, but probably not a threat for the title, VT is a comfortable fourth, and the peasants will have themselves a really stirring chase to line up fifth through ninth. (Except BC - as with the women's events, the only points they'll garner will come from placing last in every relay.)
This is even closer than it looks thanks to the general lack of points we'll get from diving. The women didn't get any - the men might scrape a couple but we'll take a bath here. Figuratively. Frankly, this meet should be considered just about neck and neck, just like the women.
****************************************************
Speaking of four straight championships, and national-wise this time, it's the men's tennis team's turn for championship glory. This is indoor tennis, so before you get too excited - it still doesn't count in the NCAA tally. Not once in this run has UVA managed to win an outdoor tennis title. Why so different? Beats me. They'll have another shot this spring. This championship was a 4-0 win over Tennessee - yup, another sweep - and that's the kind of dominating fashion they've been using this winter, so with any luck this is a stronger team than years past and they can finally bring home an NCAA title in a couple months.
That finishes the good news weekend. Hope it wasn't too much all at once. They say starving people shouldn't pig out the moment they see food, it's not healthy. Unfortunately for your health, there's a recruiting board update in the hopper for tomorrow and you'll probably like what you see there, too.
Monday, February 14, 2011
catching up
Ordinarily I'd have the Duke preview tonight, but I've run out of different ways to say just how doomed we are, and you don't need me to tell you anyway. I have catching up to do after my long weekend, so I'm gonna do that instead. And skiing in New Mexico was awesome, thank you very much. Hidden gem of skiing in the West.
- First, a recruiting board update. There's a junior day tomorrow, and like you, I'd sure like to know if it's likely Mike London can pick up his first commitment for 2012. But I do get to make the calls on the recruiting board, so here are the updates:
- Added OT Mark Harrell and DT Nigel Williams to green.
- Added WR Romond Deloatch to yellow. Deloatch is one of the very few names on the board without an offer. He'd probably be green if he had one. Nobody's offered Deloatch at all (not even verbally which is the only kind allowed at the moment anyway - it's an academics thing) but he's the kind of player you recruit anyway and hope the grades follow. Lot of talent.
- Added WR Leonte Carroo to red.
*********************************************
The Duke game isn't the only thing going on tomorrow anyway. The ACC swimming championships kick off tomorrow with the women's event. It's a four-day swim meet, culminating on Saturday, and the men have their turn next week. And your humble writer is a former high school swimmer so you have to listen to me go on about it.
Last year I scored out the psych sheet and found that the women would in all likelihood breeze to the championship. They proceeded to breeze to the championship. This year's psych sheet shows a closer meet, but one that should still end with our girls on the podium again. The scores:
Virginia - 791
North Carolina - 690
Florida State - 435
Maryland - 374
Virginia Tech - 309
Duke - 212
Miami - 212
Georgia Tech - 128
NC State - 103
Clemson - 93
Boston College - 60
What is a psych sheet, you may be asking yourself? A psych sheet seeds swimmers in each event based on their best time of the season. It's highly unofficial. Well, the times are real, but the meet isn't as simple as that. There are limits both statutory and practical on how many swimmers can swim in an event. And most times will drop. Disqualifications will be a factor - they always are. Oh, and it doesn't include the diving because most schools didn't include their divers' scores. But UVA is stacked with freestylers and the highest-scoring individual event for UVA on the psych sheet is the 400-yard individual medley (IM) - 100 yards of each stroke. Having the most and fastest freestylers and the best IMers is the way to win these meets. The psych sheet may be a pretty unofficial thing (the actual lineup won't be disclosed until the actual meet) but it tells you pretty well who to watch out for. The bottom three teams will be nonfactors in the individual events, and the only real threat to another repeat championship is Carolina.
Swimmers who'll shine for UVA include Claire Crippen (sister to the recently deceased Fran) in IM events; Liz Shaw in IM and butterfly; hotshot freshman Rachel Naurath in just about anything; Lauren Perdue in sprint freestyle; and Katya Bachrouche in distance events. The grueling 1650-yard freestyle (one mile) could see a 1-2 for UVA with Bachrouche and Anne Summer Myers.
The men go next week, at which time I'll score out their psych sheet and you'll have to listen to me blab about it all over again. It's my blog and the swimmers will get their time in the sun once a year. Besides, this should be the first ACC championship of the year for UVA, so you should be excited about that.
*********************************************
The schedule slugs at the ACC finally got around to letting us know about the fall football slate. NC State returns to the ACC schedule, and Boston College disappears for another three years. Of course all the times are TBA - except one. A rare Thursday night appearance is in the offing, at Miami on October 27. (UVA doesn't do Thursday night home games, so the road is the only chance for one.)
Things I think:
- The bye week is where I was hoping it was: October. I hate September bye weeks, it sucks having two weeks of football and then missing one right away. And it was before the VMI game last year, as if we needed extra practice time for VMI. This year it precedes Georgia Tech, which is terrific.
- I was hoping, though, that the September 17 weekend would be filled with something a little easier than a trip to UNC. Because London continues to sell the "team on the rise" story, going on a long winning streak to start the season would be perfect for bolstering that sales pitch. The nonconference schedule is easy as pie (assuming William & Mary got all their upset-mindedness out of their system two years ago) with Southern Miss the toughest opponent. Indiana is going through a coaching change and isn't good anyway. Idaho is Idaho.
- The OOC gets a lot harder next year, since Indiana and USM are the tail end of home-and-home agreements, and Idaho is a one-off that doesn't involve a return trip. Try TCU and Penn State, with Louisiana Tech (looks to be very recently added to the VAsports.com future schedules page, also now updated here) filling the last spot.
*********************************************
Other things:
- Ron Mattes has taken the position of OL coach at Elon. A step up, because he was officially a graduate assistant last year, which doesn't pay. Too bad, because of the highly improved play of the O-line - Mattes surely had a hand in that. But you can't keep GA's around forever; they have a two-year shelf life, per NCAA rules. TE coach Scott Wachenheim is now the OL/TE coach, which was probably the plan eventually. London's being coy about the replacement GA that'll be hired, but the rumor - which I have no qualms whatsoever about shamelessly spreading - is that it'll be Marques Hagans.
- Will Sherrill looks like a maybe for both Duke, and the rest of the year. I hate to be like this, but: ah well. This was a bigger deal in December when he first got hurt, because there were still Things To Do. Now there aren't too many tangible things that this season can accomplish, so more playing time for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan can't hurt.
- As you can see, Tech is scared shitless of London's recruiting chops, and they gently nudged aside one of their most elder statesmen as a result. Billy Hite has been at Tech longer than Beamer, but he's kind of an old guy and not much of a recruiter. Shane Beamer is, and he'll take Hite's spot as RB coach. RBs don't really need much coaching, and the position is often used for a star recruiter (like Beamer Junior) or, in UVA's case, a sounding board for offensive strategy, like former offensive coordinator Mike Faragalli. Shane Beamer gives Tech an instant boost on the recruiting trail.
- Fluff piece on Stephen Bruno, likely shortstop. Fluffy but informative. Bruno steps into Tyler Cannon's biggish shoes at the most important infield position, but Bruno hit well last year in bench duty, and there shouldn't be much, if any, loss of firepower in the lineup from this change.
Speaking of baseball, I was going to start a season preview for baseball this week, but I decided it'd be better to wait. This is because I like being right, and seeing how the lineup looks in actual games instead of a lot of guesswork is a big step in that direction. The next two weekends are important - a tournament at Auburn and a home series against East Carolina - and Brian O'Connor will probably reveal his lineups then. So after the ECU series, which is the last weekend in February, look for all the baseball you can handle.
- First, a recruiting board update. There's a junior day tomorrow, and like you, I'd sure like to know if it's likely Mike London can pick up his first commitment for 2012. But I do get to make the calls on the recruiting board, so here are the updates:
- Added OT Mark Harrell and DT Nigel Williams to green.
- Added WR Romond Deloatch to yellow. Deloatch is one of the very few names on the board without an offer. He'd probably be green if he had one. Nobody's offered Deloatch at all (not even verbally which is the only kind allowed at the moment anyway - it's an academics thing) but he's the kind of player you recruit anyway and hope the grades follow. Lot of talent.
- Added WR Leonte Carroo to red.
*********************************************
The Duke game isn't the only thing going on tomorrow anyway. The ACC swimming championships kick off tomorrow with the women's event. It's a four-day swim meet, culminating on Saturday, and the men have their turn next week. And your humble writer is a former high school swimmer so you have to listen to me go on about it.
Last year I scored out the psych sheet and found that the women would in all likelihood breeze to the championship. They proceeded to breeze to the championship. This year's psych sheet shows a closer meet, but one that should still end with our girls on the podium again. The scores:
Virginia - 791
North Carolina - 690
Florida State - 435
Maryland - 374
Virginia Tech - 309
Duke - 212
Miami - 212
Georgia Tech - 128
NC State - 103
Clemson - 93
Boston College - 60
What is a psych sheet, you may be asking yourself? A psych sheet seeds swimmers in each event based on their best time of the season. It's highly unofficial. Well, the times are real, but the meet isn't as simple as that. There are limits both statutory and practical on how many swimmers can swim in an event. And most times will drop. Disqualifications will be a factor - they always are. Oh, and it doesn't include the diving because most schools didn't include their divers' scores. But UVA is stacked with freestylers and the highest-scoring individual event for UVA on the psych sheet is the 400-yard individual medley (IM) - 100 yards of each stroke. Having the most and fastest freestylers and the best IMers is the way to win these meets. The psych sheet may be a pretty unofficial thing (the actual lineup won't be disclosed until the actual meet) but it tells you pretty well who to watch out for. The bottom three teams will be nonfactors in the individual events, and the only real threat to another repeat championship is Carolina.
Swimmers who'll shine for UVA include Claire Crippen (sister to the recently deceased Fran) in IM events; Liz Shaw in IM and butterfly; hotshot freshman Rachel Naurath in just about anything; Lauren Perdue in sprint freestyle; and Katya Bachrouche in distance events. The grueling 1650-yard freestyle (one mile) could see a 1-2 for UVA with Bachrouche and Anne Summer Myers.
The men go next week, at which time I'll score out their psych sheet and you'll have to listen to me blab about it all over again. It's my blog and the swimmers will get their time in the sun once a year. Besides, this should be the first ACC championship of the year for UVA, so you should be excited about that.
*********************************************
The schedule slugs at the ACC finally got around to letting us know about the fall football slate. NC State returns to the ACC schedule, and Boston College disappears for another three years. Of course all the times are TBA - except one. A rare Thursday night appearance is in the offing, at Miami on October 27. (UVA doesn't do Thursday night home games, so the road is the only chance for one.)
Things I think:
- The bye week is where I was hoping it was: October. I hate September bye weeks, it sucks having two weeks of football and then missing one right away. And it was before the VMI game last year, as if we needed extra practice time for VMI. This year it precedes Georgia Tech, which is terrific.
- I was hoping, though, that the September 17 weekend would be filled with something a little easier than a trip to UNC. Because London continues to sell the "team on the rise" story, going on a long winning streak to start the season would be perfect for bolstering that sales pitch. The nonconference schedule is easy as pie (assuming William & Mary got all their upset-mindedness out of their system two years ago) with Southern Miss the toughest opponent. Indiana is going through a coaching change and isn't good anyway. Idaho is Idaho.
- The OOC gets a lot harder next year, since Indiana and USM are the tail end of home-and-home agreements, and Idaho is a one-off that doesn't involve a return trip. Try TCU and Penn State, with Louisiana Tech (looks to be very recently added to the VAsports.com future schedules page, also now updated here) filling the last spot.
*********************************************
Other things:
- Ron Mattes has taken the position of OL coach at Elon. A step up, because he was officially a graduate assistant last year, which doesn't pay. Too bad, because of the highly improved play of the O-line - Mattes surely had a hand in that. But you can't keep GA's around forever; they have a two-year shelf life, per NCAA rules. TE coach Scott Wachenheim is now the OL/TE coach, which was probably the plan eventually. London's being coy about the replacement GA that'll be hired, but the rumor - which I have no qualms whatsoever about shamelessly spreading - is that it'll be Marques Hagans.
- Will Sherrill looks like a maybe for both Duke, and the rest of the year. I hate to be like this, but: ah well. This was a bigger deal in December when he first got hurt, because there were still Things To Do. Now there aren't too many tangible things that this season can accomplish, so more playing time for Akil Mitchell and Will Regan can't hurt.
- As you can see, Tech is scared shitless of London's recruiting chops, and they gently nudged aside one of their most elder statesmen as a result. Billy Hite has been at Tech longer than Beamer, but he's kind of an old guy and not much of a recruiter. Shane Beamer is, and he'll take Hite's spot as RB coach. RBs don't really need much coaching, and the position is often used for a star recruiter (like Beamer Junior) or, in UVA's case, a sounding board for offensive strategy, like former offensive coordinator Mike Faragalli. Shane Beamer gives Tech an instant boost on the recruiting trail.
- Fluff piece on Stephen Bruno, likely shortstop. Fluffy but informative. Bruno steps into Tyler Cannon's biggish shoes at the most important infield position, but Bruno hit well last year in bench duty, and there shouldn't be much, if any, loss of firepower in the lineup from this change.
Speaking of baseball, I was going to start a season preview for baseball this week, but I decided it'd be better to wait. This is because I like being right, and seeing how the lineup looks in actual games instead of a lot of guesswork is a big step in that direction. The next two weekends are important - a tournament at Auburn and a home series against East Carolina - and Brian O'Connor will probably reveal his lineups then. So after the ECU series, which is the last weekend in February, look for all the baseball you can handle.
Monday, October 25, 2010
weekend review
Short update this week as far as the recruiting board goes. Just the addition of WR Timmy Keith and some readability fixes.
The depth chart is a lot more interesting. The bad news there is that I'm not gonna put in the actual changes til later in the week. The good news is that intrigue abounds. It's an intriguing web of intrigue.
- First off, Morgan Moses is now so huge, and awesome at football, that he's the starter at not one, but two positions. The whole right side of the line is his. Tackle and guard.
Lot of ORs running around, as in "Morgan Moses OR Oday Aboushi" at right tackle. Right guard is "Morgan Moses OR B.J. Cabbell," and left tackle is "Oday Aboushi OR Landon Bradley." The interpretation is clear: If Bradley can play and be effective with a huge cast on his hand (following his hand surgery) that turns it into a club, then Bradley will start at LT, Aboushi at RT, and Moses at RG. If not, Aboushi moves to LT, Moses mans the other tackle spot, and Cabbell hangs on to his starting gig for one more week.
Either way, the writing that was on the wall a couple weeks ago is thisclose to collecting on its promise: Cabbell will be a backup sooner rather than later, and Moses is getting his job. Bradley was a whipping boy of mine last year, but his play has improved to a level resembling acceptable. I like Moses better at guard, which is his obvious long-term home. I don't have much of a preference for this week, having not the faintest idea how comfortable Bradley can be without the ability to grip with one hand. It's his right hand, which speeds his return - a left tackle could never protect the edge without his left hand.
- Linebacker is another fun story. Aaron Taliaferro is on the outside now - the strong side backup behind Laroy Reynolds. Is Mr. Lazarus (so nicknamed in camp because of his rise from the dead) headed back to the figurative tomb? Darnell Carter moves over to replace Taliaferro as the half-starter in the middle with Steve Greer.
Editorial: I'd like to see more time for Greer. He wasn't the team's leading tackler as a freshman for nothing. Teams don't run around the edge on Virginia for nothing. The tackles aren't being missed in the middle.
**********************************************
Newsy stuff this week is one item only: RIP Fran Crippen. Former UVA swimmer and older brother of current UVA swimmer Claire Crippen. His death during a 10K swim race in the UAE is all over the news.
Perhaps a former swimmer who's been to that part of the world (me, if you're unclear) can clarify a few things for curious readers?
First, I'm not going to place as much blame on FINA (the worldwide governing body for swimming) as the media is looking to. Water that's too warm is really hard to come by. Swim meets are typically held in cold-ass water, because cold water is faster. Warm water relaxes the muscles. The temperature of open-water events obviously isn't controlled, but having regulations for swimming in water that's too warm is like having regulations for ski hills that aren't steep enough. Bad for competition, bad for your times, why would you worry about it? It's likely the strongest amount of blame should be placed on the meet organizers for a lack of decent safety procedures.
After all, your average marathon has tons of precautions against health issues. A 10K swim race is eons more demanding than a marathon. It's like an Ironman Triathlon. Blame, if you must call it that, can fall squarely on Crippen's shoulders for continuing despite not feeling well, but besides the shortest of the shortest of sprints, full-body fatigue is par for the course for swimmers. It's not like basketball or football where you can be subbed out. Just you and your body, and if you don't drag yourself out of the pool after an event - especially a distance event - with every muscle burning like hellfire, then you didn't swim hard enough. You get out and never want to move again. Laying on the pool deck in just your swimsuit for the rest of your life sounds just fine. Crippen can't have been expected to know the difference between the extreme fatigue he'd normally feel at the end of a 10K and life-threatening exhaustion.
Which is why FINA and the Emiratis are being total dicks about this. Callously blaming it on "overexertion." Yes, it's probably true. But if they were real swimming officials they'd know overexertion is pretty much normal. The whole field was overexerting themselves.
As for the water temperature, again with the dickitude in insisting the water was "only" 84 degrees. As if there's this huge lifesaving difference in the three degrees between that and the 87 degrees that the swimmers are saying. I've been to the UAE. On a ship, which wouldn't you know, we made it our business to know what the water temperature was. (You have to in order to keep the machinery running properly.) In the Persian Gulf itself, the water temps were in the mid-90s; close to shore and in-port, they never dropped below 100. 102, 103, usually. Granted, I was there in July, not October. Granted, Fujairah, where the event was held (not Dubai, as the reports sometimes claim), is outside the Gulf - that makes a difference, the water is warmer, saltier, and way grodier and jellyfishier inside. All the same, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if an official inquest finds the water was above 90. It's the fucking desert.
**************************************
Alright, let's move on and check in on the senior seasons. Here in Michigan, it's already playoff time for the high schoolers. (Go GP South Blue Devils.) One more week of games and that'll be true for Pennsylvania, too. Maryland and North Carolina, two more weeks; Virginia, three. We'll keep you updated throughout, of course.
L.C. Bird 14, Clover Hill 13: Bird puts the ball in the hands of their running backs for the most part (Anthony Harris only threw five passes and completed three), but when they trailed 13-0 in the second half they turned to their best athlete. Harris scored both Bird touchdowns, the winner on fourth down, and Bird pulled out the win with a goal-line stand.
Dinwiddie 33, Petersburg 21: Kevin Green came out on the short end of a good old-fashioned quarterback duel. Green ran for 127 yards and two TDs and completed 17-of-36 for 160 more, plus another touchdown. He was also picked off twice in the loss; the winning QB, whose stats were equally gaudy, is VT commit Chris Hall.
Phoebus 37, Hampton 12: Caleb Taylor's defense held David Watford in check. Watford was just 5-of-18 passing. He ran for an early touchdown to cut the score to 10-6, and threw another one in garbage time.
H.D. Woodson 22, Ballou 20: Darius Redman helped to seal a big upset by intercepting a pass with 90 seconds left. Then he nearly blew it by getting greedy and trying to return it for six; the ball was stripped and Redman had to go back on defense. D'oh. Time for a little coaching moment. Redman also caught an 8-yard touchdown pass.
Hermitage 48, Douglas Freeman 0 (Diamonte Bailey)
I.C. Norcom 48, Granby 7 (Kameron Mack)
Cox 22, First Colonial 20 (Ross Burbank)
Green Run 34, First Colonial 28 (David Dean)
Bethel 42, Menchville 10 (Clifton Richardson)
Episcopal 19, St. Christopher's 15 (Thompson Brown)
Landon (Md.) 22, St. S/St. A 0 (Darius Lee)
Damascus 35, Northwood 16 (Brandon Phelps)
Stone Bridge 50, Langley 10 (Rob Burns)
Good Counsel 37, St. John's 14 (Vincent Croce)
DeMatha 39, Bishop O'Connell 17 (Jordan Lomax, Kelby Johnson)
Independence 62, Rocky River 17 (Adrian Gamble)
Mt. Lebanon 27, Peters Township 16 (Tim Cwalina)
That is it for now. Later in the week: basketball! That time of year. Weird, huh? Football season announces its presence in such a way that it's impossible to miss, even if you try. Basketball season goes "um, hi."
Wait, no. That's not it for now. Also there is the AP poll study, in which the appearance of bias grows steadily stronger. Teaser: only three of 25 teams did not get any regional help, and the West Coast voters are off the hook this week. See the archive page for the rest.
The depth chart is a lot more interesting. The bad news there is that I'm not gonna put in the actual changes til later in the week. The good news is that intrigue abounds. It's an intriguing web of intrigue.
- First off, Morgan Moses is now so huge, and awesome at football, that he's the starter at not one, but two positions. The whole right side of the line is his. Tackle and guard.
Lot of ORs running around, as in "Morgan Moses OR Oday Aboushi" at right tackle. Right guard is "Morgan Moses OR B.J. Cabbell," and left tackle is "Oday Aboushi OR Landon Bradley." The interpretation is clear: If Bradley can play and be effective with a huge cast on his hand (following his hand surgery) that turns it into a club, then Bradley will start at LT, Aboushi at RT, and Moses at RG. If not, Aboushi moves to LT, Moses mans the other tackle spot, and Cabbell hangs on to his starting gig for one more week.
Either way, the writing that was on the wall a couple weeks ago is thisclose to collecting on its promise: Cabbell will be a backup sooner rather than later, and Moses is getting his job. Bradley was a whipping boy of mine last year, but his play has improved to a level resembling acceptable. I like Moses better at guard, which is his obvious long-term home. I don't have much of a preference for this week, having not the faintest idea how comfortable Bradley can be without the ability to grip with one hand. It's his right hand, which speeds his return - a left tackle could never protect the edge without his left hand.
- Linebacker is another fun story. Aaron Taliaferro is on the outside now - the strong side backup behind Laroy Reynolds. Is Mr. Lazarus (so nicknamed in camp because of his rise from the dead) headed back to the figurative tomb? Darnell Carter moves over to replace Taliaferro as the half-starter in the middle with Steve Greer.
Editorial: I'd like to see more time for Greer. He wasn't the team's leading tackler as a freshman for nothing. Teams don't run around the edge on Virginia for nothing. The tackles aren't being missed in the middle.
**********************************************
Newsy stuff this week is one item only: RIP Fran Crippen. Former UVA swimmer and older brother of current UVA swimmer Claire Crippen. His death during a 10K swim race in the UAE is all over the news.
Perhaps a former swimmer who's been to that part of the world (me, if you're unclear) can clarify a few things for curious readers?
First, I'm not going to place as much blame on FINA (the worldwide governing body for swimming) as the media is looking to. Water that's too warm is really hard to come by. Swim meets are typically held in cold-ass water, because cold water is faster. Warm water relaxes the muscles. The temperature of open-water events obviously isn't controlled, but having regulations for swimming in water that's too warm is like having regulations for ski hills that aren't steep enough. Bad for competition, bad for your times, why would you worry about it? It's likely the strongest amount of blame should be placed on the meet organizers for a lack of decent safety procedures.
After all, your average marathon has tons of precautions against health issues. A 10K swim race is eons more demanding than a marathon. It's like an Ironman Triathlon. Blame, if you must call it that, can fall squarely on Crippen's shoulders for continuing despite not feeling well, but besides the shortest of the shortest of sprints, full-body fatigue is par for the course for swimmers. It's not like basketball or football where you can be subbed out. Just you and your body, and if you don't drag yourself out of the pool after an event - especially a distance event - with every muscle burning like hellfire, then you didn't swim hard enough. You get out and never want to move again. Laying on the pool deck in just your swimsuit for the rest of your life sounds just fine. Crippen can't have been expected to know the difference between the extreme fatigue he'd normally feel at the end of a 10K and life-threatening exhaustion.
Which is why FINA and the Emiratis are being total dicks about this. Callously blaming it on "overexertion." Yes, it's probably true. But if they were real swimming officials they'd know overexertion is pretty much normal. The whole field was overexerting themselves.
As for the water temperature, again with the dickitude in insisting the water was "only" 84 degrees. As if there's this huge lifesaving difference in the three degrees between that and the 87 degrees that the swimmers are saying. I've been to the UAE. On a ship, which wouldn't you know, we made it our business to know what the water temperature was. (You have to in order to keep the machinery running properly.) In the Persian Gulf itself, the water temps were in the mid-90s; close to shore and in-port, they never dropped below 100. 102, 103, usually. Granted, I was there in July, not October. Granted, Fujairah, where the event was held (not Dubai, as the reports sometimes claim), is outside the Gulf - that makes a difference, the water is warmer, saltier, and way grodier and jellyfishier inside. All the same, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if an official inquest finds the water was above 90. It's the fucking desert.
**************************************
Alright, let's move on and check in on the senior seasons. Here in Michigan, it's already playoff time for the high schoolers. (Go GP South Blue Devils.) One more week of games and that'll be true for Pennsylvania, too. Maryland and North Carolina, two more weeks; Virginia, three. We'll keep you updated throughout, of course.
L.C. Bird 14, Clover Hill 13: Bird puts the ball in the hands of their running backs for the most part (Anthony Harris only threw five passes and completed three), but when they trailed 13-0 in the second half they turned to their best athlete. Harris scored both Bird touchdowns, the winner on fourth down, and Bird pulled out the win with a goal-line stand.
Dinwiddie 33, Petersburg 21: Kevin Green came out on the short end of a good old-fashioned quarterback duel. Green ran for 127 yards and two TDs and completed 17-of-36 for 160 more, plus another touchdown. He was also picked off twice in the loss; the winning QB, whose stats were equally gaudy, is VT commit Chris Hall.
Phoebus 37, Hampton 12: Caleb Taylor's defense held David Watford in check. Watford was just 5-of-18 passing. He ran for an early touchdown to cut the score to 10-6, and threw another one in garbage time.
H.D. Woodson 22, Ballou 20: Darius Redman helped to seal a big upset by intercepting a pass with 90 seconds left. Then he nearly blew it by getting greedy and trying to return it for six; the ball was stripped and Redman had to go back on defense. D'oh. Time for a little coaching moment. Redman also caught an 8-yard touchdown pass.
Hermitage 48, Douglas Freeman 0 (Diamonte Bailey)
I.C. Norcom 48, Granby 7 (Kameron Mack)
Cox 22, First Colonial 20 (Ross Burbank)
Green Run 34, First Colonial 28 (David Dean)
Bethel 42, Menchville 10 (Clifton Richardson)
Episcopal 19, St. Christopher's 15 (Thompson Brown)
Landon (Md.) 22, St. S/St. A 0 (Darius Lee)
Damascus 35, Northwood 16 (Brandon Phelps)
Stone Bridge 50, Langley 10 (Rob Burns)
Good Counsel 37, St. John's 14 (Vincent Croce)
DeMatha 39, Bishop O'Connell 17 (Jordan Lomax, Kelby Johnson)
Independence 62, Rocky River 17 (Adrian Gamble)
Mt. Lebanon 27, Peters Township 16 (Tim Cwalina)
That is it for now. Later in the week: basketball! That time of year. Weird, huh? Football season announces its presence in such a way that it's impossible to miss, even if you try. Basketball season goes "um, hi."
Wait, no. That's not it for now. Also there is the AP poll study, in which the appearance of bias grows steadily stronger. Teaser: only three of 25 teams did not get any regional help, and the West Coast voters are off the hook this week. See the archive page for the rest.
Monday, July 26, 2010
monday linkpile: former hoos edition
Tomorrow we kick off the season previews, so today we'll catch up on some loose ends I've left hanging. Mostly to do with former UVA players, some of the news good and some not as good.
- Sylven Landesberg: Set to play in Israel, which comes as little surprise, as 1) he really isn't quite ready for the league yet and 2) he's half Jewish. The mistake people are making is equating "not ready for the NBA" with "shouldn't have left school." As much as anyone, I like for guys to stay four years and get their degree, and it's the decision I tend to respect the most. But I can't disrespect Sylven's choice to leave. If basketball is what you want to make a career out of, it's hard to fault the idea of making half a million or more a year playing in an exotic location like Israel. (Or Spain, or Greece, or Italy, as some of them end up doing.) C'mon, you'd do it right now if you could. Leaving early and getting some time in overseas worked for Roger Mason, it can certainly work for Landesberg.
- Tristan Spurlock: I wonder if the article-writer's choice of the words "taking his talents to Central Florida" was coincidence. Should have said Disney World or something if he really wanted to LBJ it up. Anyway, yeah, UCF is where Spurlock is gonna be, so, best of luck with that.
- Phil Gosselin: Tearing it up in Rome - that's Rome, GA, home of his mid-level A-ball minor league team. Another not-surprise for leaving early.
- Vic Hall: released by the Bears. Hall's route to the NFL is going to be a really, really difficult one, full of sign-and-releases and time spent on the practice squad.
- Corey Lillard: wait, what? Dammit. Lillard, one of the few remaining scholarship defensive backs on the team, is no longer one of that ever-thinning crowd. We now have ten defensive backs on scholarship - barely enough to make a nickel package two-deep. Mark my words, unless London thinks one of the walkons is playable, one of these guys that got moved to linebacker (LoVante' Battle, say) is gonna find themselves moved back out to the secondary by the time the season is over. This is the thinnest secondary in history.
And so as to prevent any heart attacks, here's where I specifically mention I'm not talking about former Cavaliers any more, because Marc Verica is the next topic of (very short) discussion. Really, it's just to point out that if for whatever reason you still had any doubts about who would be the starting quarterback, or who thinks he's the starting quarterback, you should put them to rest. Verica it is. And the way the schedule shakes out, I figure that's for a bare minimum of five games, and hopefully by then things are not going so badly that it's time for a switch.
Lastly, for you swimming enthusiasts, here is the incoming men's recruiting class, ranked fifth in the country. The only other ACC teams in the top 25 are UNC (8th) and Maryland (22nd.) And the women? Third. None too shabby at all, especially in pulling the 5th-ranked swimmer in Florida out of the state. Getting past the Stanfords and Arizonas and Floridas of the world is going to be a tall order, but Mark Bernardino just might have a national championship brewing in the next decade or so, if he can keep that up.
- Sylven Landesberg: Set to play in Israel, which comes as little surprise, as 1) he really isn't quite ready for the league yet and 2) he's half Jewish. The mistake people are making is equating "not ready for the NBA" with "shouldn't have left school." As much as anyone, I like for guys to stay four years and get their degree, and it's the decision I tend to respect the most. But I can't disrespect Sylven's choice to leave. If basketball is what you want to make a career out of, it's hard to fault the idea of making half a million or more a year playing in an exotic location like Israel. (Or Spain, or Greece, or Italy, as some of them end up doing.) C'mon, you'd do it right now if you could. Leaving early and getting some time in overseas worked for Roger Mason, it can certainly work for Landesberg.
- Tristan Spurlock: I wonder if the article-writer's choice of the words "taking his talents to Central Florida" was coincidence. Should have said Disney World or something if he really wanted to LBJ it up. Anyway, yeah, UCF is where Spurlock is gonna be, so, best of luck with that.
- Phil Gosselin: Tearing it up in Rome - that's Rome, GA, home of his mid-level A-ball minor league team. Another not-surprise for leaving early.
- Vic Hall: released by the Bears. Hall's route to the NFL is going to be a really, really difficult one, full of sign-and-releases and time spent on the practice squad.
- Corey Lillard: wait, what? Dammit. Lillard, one of the few remaining scholarship defensive backs on the team, is no longer one of that ever-thinning crowd. We now have ten defensive backs on scholarship - barely enough to make a nickel package two-deep. Mark my words, unless London thinks one of the walkons is playable, one of these guys that got moved to linebacker (LoVante' Battle, say) is gonna find themselves moved back out to the secondary by the time the season is over. This is the thinnest secondary in history.
And so as to prevent any heart attacks, here's where I specifically mention I'm not talking about former Cavaliers any more, because Marc Verica is the next topic of (very short) discussion. Really, it's just to point out that if for whatever reason you still had any doubts about who would be the starting quarterback, or who thinks he's the starting quarterback, you should put them to rest. Verica it is. And the way the schedule shakes out, I figure that's for a bare minimum of five games, and hopefully by then things are not going so badly that it's time for a switch.
Lastly, for you swimming enthusiasts, here is the incoming men's recruiting class, ranked fifth in the country. The only other ACC teams in the top 25 are UNC (8th) and Maryland (22nd.) And the women? Third. None too shabby at all, especially in pulling the 5th-ranked swimmer in Florida out of the state. Getting past the Stanfords and Arizonas and Floridas of the world is going to be a tall order, but Mark Bernardino just might have a national championship brewing in the next decade or so, if he can keep that up.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
basketball bits and recruiting board update
Time for a little housekeeping. Basketball stuff's been happening.
- First, not to put it too bluntly or anything, but Jeff Jones is gone. So much for keeping the recruiting class of 2007 intact like I mentioned a few weeks ago. My take: shit. Long-term it's not a huge deal as Jones only had a year left, but it's a big problem for next year. Jones' shooting improved dramatically this year; it was still streaky, but the good streaks were a lot longer than the bad ones this time. When all was said and done he was the best three-point shooter we had. For the three games Sylven Landesberg was out, Jones stepped up as a go-to guy, averaged 15 points, and shot 9-for-15 from three-point land. That was Jones' one job on this team. It's fair to say that under Leitao he was a total bust, and equally fair to say he had turned it around under Bennett in a big way, becoming one of the most important players on the team. This team needed Jones's stroke from deep to succeed.
Scholarship-wise there's almost no impact, other than to make it even more likely that Will Sherrill gets off the hook for paying his way. For next year's rotation, the biggest beneficiary is likely Joe Harris, supposedly the best shooter of the bunch. I still have no interest in trying to predict a rotation - I recommend a ouija board if you really must know - but Jones was the player Harris was most similar to, and it's not hard to project him to an increased role now. Meantime I hope Sammy, Bub, and Mu are shooting 1,000 jump shots a day.
- Second: the ACC coaching carousel spins and spins. Boston College fired the winningest coach in school history and has replaced him with Steve Donahue, who you might recognize as the guy who brought Cornell to the Sweet 16. I have no opinion on Donahue, and recommend you check out BC Interruption if you want to know more. Doug Doughty has some interesting things to say, pointing out that the atmosphere surrounding the BC-UVA game in Boston this year was a huge symptom of the reasons behind Al Skinner's dismissal. "Atmosphere" is a poor choice of words, because there was none; I was at that game, and Doughty can use the "official" attendance figure all he likes, but the attendance at that game would have had to triple for the place to be half full. I'm guessing 1,500 was more like it. BC was lousy this year and nobody noticed; Skinner's firing was a given.
Less of a given (a lot less) was the news coming down from on high today that Oliver Purnell would be leaving Clemson for DePaul, a Big East member that's been trampled underfoot lately. Dave Leitao did a good job at that school and then Jerry Wainwright completely cratered it; Purnell is coming in to fix it and earn a dumptruckload of money in the process.
This could go either very well or very badly for Clemson. Lately, when filling out my tournament brackets, I had an ironclad rule that never failed me: When in doubt, never ever ever bet on Oliver Purnell. His teams always raced out to a big start to the season and folded like a cheap card table down the stretch, culminating in a loss to some double-digit seed in the tournament. Still: tournament. My gut feeling is Clemson won't really be able to attract quite the talent they'd like for the head coaching job, and will take a semi-permanent step backwards.
- Jeff White has a nice article on the unprecedented success of the swim teams. Unprecedented: yes. Unrepeated: I very much doubt it. The future is bright here, as both teams continue to return the bulk of their talent and Bernardino continues to succeed on the recruiting trail.
Lastly, the recruiting board gets another update. It's looking pretty robust these days, as you'd expect in the time where the coaches have fired off a bunch of offers and most the players are still not ready to narrow down the list yet. Here are the changes:
- Added WR Daniel Adams, CB Jeremiah Hendy, LB Zeek Bigger, and QB David Watford to yellow.
- Added CB Kyshoen Jarrett to red.
- First, not to put it too bluntly or anything, but Jeff Jones is gone. So much for keeping the recruiting class of 2007 intact like I mentioned a few weeks ago. My take: shit. Long-term it's not a huge deal as Jones only had a year left, but it's a big problem for next year. Jones' shooting improved dramatically this year; it was still streaky, but the good streaks were a lot longer than the bad ones this time. When all was said and done he was the best three-point shooter we had. For the three games Sylven Landesberg was out, Jones stepped up as a go-to guy, averaged 15 points, and shot 9-for-15 from three-point land. That was Jones' one job on this team. It's fair to say that under Leitao he was a total bust, and equally fair to say he had turned it around under Bennett in a big way, becoming one of the most important players on the team. This team needed Jones's stroke from deep to succeed.
Scholarship-wise there's almost no impact, other than to make it even more likely that Will Sherrill gets off the hook for paying his way. For next year's rotation, the biggest beneficiary is likely Joe Harris, supposedly the best shooter of the bunch. I still have no interest in trying to predict a rotation - I recommend a ouija board if you really must know - but Jones was the player Harris was most similar to, and it's not hard to project him to an increased role now. Meantime I hope Sammy, Bub, and Mu are shooting 1,000 jump shots a day.
- Second: the ACC coaching carousel spins and spins. Boston College fired the winningest coach in school history and has replaced him with Steve Donahue, who you might recognize as the guy who brought Cornell to the Sweet 16. I have no opinion on Donahue, and recommend you check out BC Interruption if you want to know more. Doug Doughty has some interesting things to say, pointing out that the atmosphere surrounding the BC-UVA game in Boston this year was a huge symptom of the reasons behind Al Skinner's dismissal. "Atmosphere" is a poor choice of words, because there was none; I was at that game, and Doughty can use the "official" attendance figure all he likes, but the attendance at that game would have had to triple for the place to be half full. I'm guessing 1,500 was more like it. BC was lousy this year and nobody noticed; Skinner's firing was a given.
Less of a given (a lot less) was the news coming down from on high today that Oliver Purnell would be leaving Clemson for DePaul, a Big East member that's been trampled underfoot lately. Dave Leitao did a good job at that school and then Jerry Wainwright completely cratered it; Purnell is coming in to fix it and earn a dumptruckload of money in the process.
This could go either very well or very badly for Clemson. Lately, when filling out my tournament brackets, I had an ironclad rule that never failed me: When in doubt, never ever ever bet on Oliver Purnell. His teams always raced out to a big start to the season and folded like a cheap card table down the stretch, culminating in a loss to some double-digit seed in the tournament. Still: tournament. My gut feeling is Clemson won't really be able to attract quite the talent they'd like for the head coaching job, and will take a semi-permanent step backwards.
- Jeff White has a nice article on the unprecedented success of the swim teams. Unprecedented: yes. Unrepeated: I very much doubt it. The future is bright here, as both teams continue to return the bulk of their talent and Bernardino continues to succeed on the recruiting trail.
Lastly, the recruiting board gets another update. It's looking pretty robust these days, as you'd expect in the time where the coaches have fired off a bunch of offers and most the players are still not ready to narrow down the list yet. Here are the changes:
- Added WR Daniel Adams, CB Jeremiah Hendy, LB Zeek Bigger, and QB David Watford to yellow.
- Added CB Kyshoen Jarrett to red.
Monday, March 29, 2010
weekend review
Yawn. Another weekend, another dominating performance by UVA athletics. Now if we could say that in the fall, that'd be sweet, but spring ain't bad either. I've already given you my take on the lacrosse game, complete with video, and only have one thing to add: those orange shorts at home are way, way better than white ones if we're going to stick with these white helmets. I don't like the marshmallow look. Our colors are blue and orange, let's see some of that.
So let's talk baseball a bit. Let's talk baseball stats - it's the one sport most inclined to stat geeks. Like:
- Extra-base hits. This one was brought up by one of the observant posters on TheSabre and given the lineup Clemson has, it's remarkable: our pitchers allowed just one extra-base hit all weekend, a Chris Epps double in the second game (8-5 loss.) That's right - neither of Clemson's biggest boppers (Schaus and Parker) managed anything but singles. They got their share, but were limited to two RBIs between them.
- Unearned runs. ARGGGGH. After I go and brag on our fielding and bag on theirs, it's UVA that gets done in by three unearned runs in the ninth inning of Game 2. That's head-asplodingly annoying.
- Strength of schedule. Oh yes. This is actually the interesting stuff here. Back in January, the media held their poll as always to offer up their preseason rankings. Baseball uses the division structure, so the media voted and ranked by divisions, but here I'm ranking them based on how many points they earned in the poll:
1. UVA
2. FSU
3. Clemson
4. GT
5. UNC
6. Miami
6. BC
8. NC State
9. Wake
10. VT
11. Md.
12. Duke
Miami is better than Boston College and nobody in their right mind would say otherwise, so I'm giving them #6 and BC #7. It's neato enough that we were #1, but now that everyone's played three series, guess who has the strongest strength of schedule per these ratings? Duh, UVA again. And that's obviously without the benefit of getting to play the #1 team. The strongest schedules so far are UVA (played FSU, BC, Clemson), Maryland (VT, GT, FSU), Florida State (UVA, UNC, Md.) and North Carolina (Duke, FSU, GT.)
And we're 7-2! And so is Miami, despite having played the worst schedule of the bunch (BC, Duke, NC State.) I say despite because how do you lose two games? Georgia Tech is on our sked in two weeks and hopefully their Duke series this week gives them a false sense of confidence before our pitchers mow down their lineup. UVA is putting the tough games behind them, and winning those series too. 20 wins is within reach here.
Speaking of pitchers mowing down the opposition, guess who actually had the best game of the three weekend starters? Morey was nasty striking out 7 in six innings, and gave up fewer hits too, but it was Cody Winiarski that stuck out by scattering six hits and giving up just one run. That's two brilliant starts in a row now, and doing it against Boston College is one thing; Clemson is another entirely. Two games against Towson this week before the NC State weekend series, and Roberts and Kline take the hill - looks like someone's solidified his spot as a Sunday starter. This was (and still is, a little bit) in my opinion the #1 issue facing the team if they wanted to compete for the national title. The way tournament ball is set up, a solid third starter is absolutely crucial. Actually, you really need four, but you can't have four if you don't have three. So Winiarski stepping in for Andrew Carraway is the biggest variable in the championship baseball equation.
**************************************************
Not forgetting the swimming! With a tenth-place finish at the NCAAs, the men ensured that we'd see both our swim teams earn top-ten finishes. It's a slow but hopefully steady climb to national prominence for the UVA swim teams. There's still a huge gap between where we are and the Stanfords and Cals and Arizonas of the swimming world, but it's a lot smaller than it was a few years ago. And of the swimmers who scored for UVA at the meet, only two were seniors and both were relay guys.
**************************************************
Now for basketball. We got a lot of the bad news out of the way early. If it sounded like Sylven Landesberg had his mind made up about going pro a while ago, that's probably because he did. So it's no wonder Tony Bennett offered Billy Baron way back in December. But now that hopefully all the attrition is out of the way (and I think it is) it's time to talk about other people's misfortune being our gain. I'm behind on this because the beans were spilled after this guy was spotted at the lacrosse game Saturday, but just as I'd hoped, Bennett's looking at transfers.
And this guy Justin Hamilton is precisely what we need. He'd be a two-year transfer, for starters, so he'd help to spread out the scholarships. He's a 6'11", 255 pound big man, and he can score some, rebound some, doesn't turn the ball over much for a big man, good shooting percentage, can shoot free throws as well as any guard. THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER??? Sounds like exactly what was missing from this lineup. And lest you think he might have padded his stats against inferior competition, please note that all his double-digit scoring games and double-digit rebounding games came after the New Year this year. That includes 10 and 7 against Duke and a double-double against Kansas. We must have Justin Hamilton.
Hamilton will be eligible to play for whatever team he chooses in 2011, which, with this huge 2010 class turning sophomores, would just about coincide with our Rise To Glory. We just have to beat out LSU and UCLA for his services, and then fend off angry Cyclone fans wanting to know why a guy transferred to Virginia from Ames, Iowa in order to be closer to his family in Utah.
**************************************************
Finally, the ol' recruiting board has been looking a little dusty lately, so I gave it a refresh. Here's the updates:
- Added LB Daquan Romero to blue.
- Added ATH Brandon Phelps and QB Gary Nova to yellow. Only thing putting Phelps in the yellow and not red is his legacy status - he's been offered by everyone.
- Added DE Norkethius Otis to red.
- Removed TE Eric Ebron from the red section - he committed to UNC.
Finally finally for real, Maryland is this weekend's lacrosse matchup, which means it's Hit A Terp With A Stick Week. You are not encouraged to commit violence against actual animals, or for that matter Terp fans no matter how much they might ask for it by swearing like sailors in front of your eight-year-old, but the lacrosse team will be celebrating on Saturday in ways that entertainingly cause Maryland coach Dave Cottle to turn as red as a Twerp jersey. He does that when he's mad. It's fun.
So let's talk baseball a bit. Let's talk baseball stats - it's the one sport most inclined to stat geeks. Like:
- Extra-base hits. This one was brought up by one of the observant posters on TheSabre and given the lineup Clemson has, it's remarkable: our pitchers allowed just one extra-base hit all weekend, a Chris Epps double in the second game (8-5 loss.) That's right - neither of Clemson's biggest boppers (Schaus and Parker) managed anything but singles. They got their share, but were limited to two RBIs between them.
- Unearned runs. ARGGGGH. After I go and brag on our fielding and bag on theirs, it's UVA that gets done in by three unearned runs in the ninth inning of Game 2. That's head-asplodingly annoying.
- Strength of schedule. Oh yes. This is actually the interesting stuff here. Back in January, the media held their poll as always to offer up their preseason rankings. Baseball uses the division structure, so the media voted and ranked by divisions, but here I'm ranking them based on how many points they earned in the poll:
1. UVA
2. FSU
3. Clemson
4. GT
5. UNC
6. Miami
6. BC
8. NC State
9. Wake
10. VT
11. Md.
12. Duke
Miami is better than Boston College and nobody in their right mind would say otherwise, so I'm giving them #6 and BC #7. It's neato enough that we were #1, but now that everyone's played three series, guess who has the strongest strength of schedule per these ratings? Duh, UVA again. And that's obviously without the benefit of getting to play the #1 team. The strongest schedules so far are UVA (played FSU, BC, Clemson), Maryland (VT, GT, FSU), Florida State (UVA, UNC, Md.) and North Carolina (Duke, FSU, GT.)
And we're 7-2! And so is Miami, despite having played the worst schedule of the bunch (BC, Duke, NC State.) I say despite because how do you lose two games? Georgia Tech is on our sked in two weeks and hopefully their Duke series this week gives them a false sense of confidence before our pitchers mow down their lineup. UVA is putting the tough games behind them, and winning those series too. 20 wins is within reach here.
Speaking of pitchers mowing down the opposition, guess who actually had the best game of the three weekend starters? Morey was nasty striking out 7 in six innings, and gave up fewer hits too, but it was Cody Winiarski that stuck out by scattering six hits and giving up just one run. That's two brilliant starts in a row now, and doing it against Boston College is one thing; Clemson is another entirely. Two games against Towson this week before the NC State weekend series, and Roberts and Kline take the hill - looks like someone's solidified his spot as a Sunday starter. This was (and still is, a little bit) in my opinion the #1 issue facing the team if they wanted to compete for the national title. The way tournament ball is set up, a solid third starter is absolutely crucial. Actually, you really need four, but you can't have four if you don't have three. So Winiarski stepping in for Andrew Carraway is the biggest variable in the championship baseball equation.
**************************************************
Not forgetting the swimming! With a tenth-place finish at the NCAAs, the men ensured that we'd see both our swim teams earn top-ten finishes. It's a slow but hopefully steady climb to national prominence for the UVA swim teams. There's still a huge gap between where we are and the Stanfords and Cals and Arizonas of the swimming world, but it's a lot smaller than it was a few years ago. And of the swimmers who scored for UVA at the meet, only two were seniors and both were relay guys.
**************************************************
Now for basketball. We got a lot of the bad news out of the way early. If it sounded like Sylven Landesberg had his mind made up about going pro a while ago, that's probably because he did. So it's no wonder Tony Bennett offered Billy Baron way back in December. But now that hopefully all the attrition is out of the way (and I think it is) it's time to talk about other people's misfortune being our gain. I'm behind on this because the beans were spilled after this guy was spotted at the lacrosse game Saturday, but just as I'd hoped, Bennett's looking at transfers.
And this guy Justin Hamilton is precisely what we need. He'd be a two-year transfer, for starters, so he'd help to spread out the scholarships. He's a 6'11", 255 pound big man, and he can score some, rebound some, doesn't turn the ball over much for a big man, good shooting percentage, can shoot free throws as well as any guard. THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER??? Sounds like exactly what was missing from this lineup. And lest you think he might have padded his stats against inferior competition, please note that all his double-digit scoring games and double-digit rebounding games came after the New Year this year. That includes 10 and 7 against Duke and a double-double against Kansas. We must have Justin Hamilton.
Hamilton will be eligible to play for whatever team he chooses in 2011, which, with this huge 2010 class turning sophomores, would just about coincide with our Rise To Glory. We just have to beat out LSU and UCLA for his services, and then fend off angry Cyclone fans wanting to know why a guy transferred to Virginia from Ames, Iowa in order to be closer to his family in Utah.
**************************************************
Finally, the ol' recruiting board has been looking a little dusty lately, so I gave it a refresh. Here's the updates:
- Added LB Daquan Romero to blue.
- Added ATH Brandon Phelps and QB Gary Nova to yellow. Only thing putting Phelps in the yellow and not red is his legacy status - he's been offered by everyone.
- Added DE Norkethius Otis to red.
- Removed TE Eric Ebron from the red section - he committed to UNC.
Finally finally for real, Maryland is this weekend's lacrosse matchup, which means it's Hit A Terp With A Stick Week. You are not encouraged to commit violence against actual animals, or for that matter Terp fans no matter how much they might ask for it by swearing like sailors in front of your eight-year-old, but the lacrosse team will be celebrating on Saturday in ways that entertainingly cause Maryland coach Dave Cottle to turn as red as a Twerp jersey. He does that when he's mad. It's fun.
Monday, March 1, 2010
weekend review: championship edition, again
Y'know what, let's just do this the same way we did last week....
SWIMMING
Huzzah, again. The men followed up the ladies to sweep the pool in Chapel Hill and bring home the third ACC championship of the season. And it turned out not to be quite as close as it looked like it might. Didn't even come down to the last relay, but we won that anyway, so, whee. Here are the results, and a summary below:
1st places:
800 free relay
500 free
50 free
200 free relay
200 free
400 medley relay
100 free
400 free relay
1st-place swimmers (individual only):
Matt McLean (500 free)
Scot Robison (50 free, 200 free, 100 free)
NCAA 'A' cuts:
800 free relay (Azar/Smith/Robison/McLean)
200 free (Robison)
400 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Azar/McLean)
NCAA 'B' cuts:
200 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Azar)
500 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 IM (Houser, Azar, Casey, Inwood)
50 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Oleson/Azar)
400 IM (Howser, Ankosko, Hayes, Inwood)
100 fly (Oleson, Geissinger)
200 free (McLean, Azar, Smith, Snawerdt)
100 breast (Casey, Norstedt)
100 back (Oleson, Johnson, Murray, Wren)
400 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Robison)
1650 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 back (Johnson, Murray, Wren)
100 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 breast (Azar, Norstedt, Casey)
200 fly (Houser)
ACC records:
200 free (Robison, 1:32.45)
100 free (Robison, 42.42)
Miscellaneous domination notes: Took 1-2-3-5 in the 500 free and 200 free ... won 800 free relay by 6 and a half seconds (that's over half the pool length) ... won every freestyle event but the 1650.
We didn't win many individual events, but we just killed the relays and owned everything that had "freestyle" in it. There are a lot of those events, so it's nice to be deep there. And as you might guess from all those NCAA cut times, we're pretty deep everywhere else too, if not quite elite. Scot Robison was the Most Valuable Swimmer, and as you can see was very, very deserving, but I can't let this go without a shout for John Azar, who gets my nod for Ironman.
Azar anchored the 200 medley relay - for him, that meant a pure-speed, balls-to-the-wall sprint - and then got back in and led off the 800 free relay (so for him, a 200 free) on the same evening. I think he was the only swimmer on any team to swim both events, let alone anchor one and lead off the next. And this former swimmer thought in his swimming days that the 200 free was the worst event in history, as it's not quite a sprint but not exactly a distance race where you can lay off the first few lengths, either. Oh, Azar also swam the 200 breast - a very difficult endurance-ish race that doesn't exist on the high school level. Oh, and the 200 IM, which you start off with 50 yards of the most torturous stroke known to man - the butterfly. Gutsy meet.
So. ACC champs again, woot. Give Bernardino a raise for pulling a comfortable winning lineup out of what looked like it'd be a very close meet. Whatever it takes to make sure that man is UVA's swim coach for the next thirty years.
BASKETBALL
What did you expect without Sylven Landesberg?
Hell, what did you expect with Sylven Landesberg?
BASEBALL
Nice to know the bats are in good working order, yes? I'd like to know what Keith Werman's been eating for breakfast, because he's 10-for-15 on the season.
We can hit, that's been established. The pitching still needs to settle out a bit though. Some of our guys have been their usual lights-out selves, and I'm looking mainly in the direction of Danny Hultzen and Kevin Arico here. All isn't roses, though. I'd say Cody Winiarski still hasn't put the iron grip on the starter's job yet, despite the seven strikeouts on Sunday. URI isn't a chump team, but they're the kind we shouldn't be giving up more than maybe three runs to. Tyler Wilson has had a really rough start, too.
Wilson should be fine. We saw last year what he can do for us in that middle relief role, and it's high-quality workhorse stuff. He'll get settled. Winiarski is still mostly an unknown quantity, though, as are most of the guys who might step up if O'Connor decides to go in a different direction. Will Roberts is probably the most well-known, and that's not saying much, what with only 11 appearances last year. Eventually you'd have to figure Branden Kline will be eased into a starting role too, beginning as a second weekday starter and going from there.
We have one weekend left to sort it out, because after that is Florida State.
LACROSSE
Since I'm talking about lacrosse, that must mean it's time to harp on faceoffs again. The bane of existence for the UVA lax fan. You might remember me mentioning that Stony Brook returned last year's #1 faceoff guy in the nation, so our guys had a big test this week, and.....they did really, really well. Adam Rand was that guy, and we held him to a measly 11-of-24. Ryan Benincasa was a sparkling 12-of-16. This may not mean we will be excellent on faceoffs going forward, but for sure, it means we can be.
Now just tighten up that first-quarter defense. Adam Ghitelman should not have to make seven saves in a period, ever. I think it's clear, even after three games against non-elite competition, we really miss Mike Timms and Matt Kelly. 'Specially Timms.
So. It's Syracuse week, and it's a rare chance to play the game at Klockner and not a neutral or road site. So let's keep the snow off the ground in Charlottesville this week, OK, because having to play that game on the Turf Field would suck. The weather forecast has it getting steadily warmer all week in Charlottesville with Saturday getting up to 52 degrees and Sunday being a balmy 55. No snow. Klockner plz.
****************************
Through circumstances that actually were almost completely under my control, I only put three posts up last week, which is some kind of laziness record for me. Not going to be a lot better about it this week, I'm afraid. Tomorrow, in lieu of posting, I'll be working on the long-promised and not-delivered highlight videos of one of the basketball games I've been sitting on. Probably Miami, because I've been sitting on it longer. This is so as to do my small part to hopefully break the string of bad juju the basketball team has been dealing with. (I think I just set some kind of record for two-letter words in a row.) It's a good time to try, because I've got tickets to the Wednesday game at BC and I'd rather they won that one.
SWIMMING
Huzzah, again. The men followed up the ladies to sweep the pool in Chapel Hill and bring home the third ACC championship of the season. And it turned out not to be quite as close as it looked like it might. Didn't even come down to the last relay, but we won that anyway, so, whee. Here are the results, and a summary below:
1st places:
800 free relay
500 free
50 free
200 free relay
200 free
400 medley relay
100 free
400 free relay
1st-place swimmers (individual only):
Matt McLean (500 free)
Scot Robison (50 free, 200 free, 100 free)
NCAA 'A' cuts:
800 free relay (Azar/Smith/Robison/McLean)
200 free (Robison)
400 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Azar/McLean)
NCAA 'B' cuts:
200 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Azar)
500 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 IM (Houser, Azar, Casey, Inwood)
50 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 free relay (Robison/Geissinger/Oleson/Azar)
400 IM (Howser, Ankosko, Hayes, Inwood)
100 fly (Oleson, Geissinger)
200 free (McLean, Azar, Smith, Snawerdt)
100 breast (Casey, Norstedt)
100 back (Oleson, Johnson, Murray, Wren)
400 medley relay (Oleson/Casey/Geissinger/Robison)
1650 free (McLean, Snawerdt, Smith, Ankosko)
200 back (Johnson, Murray, Wren)
100 free (Robison, Geissinger)
200 breast (Azar, Norstedt, Casey)
200 fly (Houser)
ACC records:
200 free (Robison, 1:32.45)
100 free (Robison, 42.42)
Miscellaneous domination notes: Took 1-2-3-5 in the 500 free and 200 free ... won 800 free relay by 6 and a half seconds (that's over half the pool length) ... won every freestyle event but the 1650.
We didn't win many individual events, but we just killed the relays and owned everything that had "freestyle" in it. There are a lot of those events, so it's nice to be deep there. And as you might guess from all those NCAA cut times, we're pretty deep everywhere else too, if not quite elite. Scot Robison was the Most Valuable Swimmer, and as you can see was very, very deserving, but I can't let this go without a shout for John Azar, who gets my nod for Ironman.
Azar anchored the 200 medley relay - for him, that meant a pure-speed, balls-to-the-wall sprint - and then got back in and led off the 800 free relay (so for him, a 200 free) on the same evening. I think he was the only swimmer on any team to swim both events, let alone anchor one and lead off the next. And this former swimmer thought in his swimming days that the 200 free was the worst event in history, as it's not quite a sprint but not exactly a distance race where you can lay off the first few lengths, either. Oh, Azar also swam the 200 breast - a very difficult endurance-ish race that doesn't exist on the high school level. Oh, and the 200 IM, which you start off with 50 yards of the most torturous stroke known to man - the butterfly. Gutsy meet.
So. ACC champs again, woot. Give Bernardino a raise for pulling a comfortable winning lineup out of what looked like it'd be a very close meet. Whatever it takes to make sure that man is UVA's swim coach for the next thirty years.
BASKETBALL
What did you expect without Sylven Landesberg?
Hell, what did you expect with Sylven Landesberg?
BASEBALL
Nice to know the bats are in good working order, yes? I'd like to know what Keith Werman's been eating for breakfast, because he's 10-for-15 on the season.
We can hit, that's been established. The pitching still needs to settle out a bit though. Some of our guys have been their usual lights-out selves, and I'm looking mainly in the direction of Danny Hultzen and Kevin Arico here. All isn't roses, though. I'd say Cody Winiarski still hasn't put the iron grip on the starter's job yet, despite the seven strikeouts on Sunday. URI isn't a chump team, but they're the kind we shouldn't be giving up more than maybe three runs to. Tyler Wilson has had a really rough start, too.
Wilson should be fine. We saw last year what he can do for us in that middle relief role, and it's high-quality workhorse stuff. He'll get settled. Winiarski is still mostly an unknown quantity, though, as are most of the guys who might step up if O'Connor decides to go in a different direction. Will Roberts is probably the most well-known, and that's not saying much, what with only 11 appearances last year. Eventually you'd have to figure Branden Kline will be eased into a starting role too, beginning as a second weekday starter and going from there.
We have one weekend left to sort it out, because after that is Florida State.
LACROSSE
Since I'm talking about lacrosse, that must mean it's time to harp on faceoffs again. The bane of existence for the UVA lax fan. You might remember me mentioning that Stony Brook returned last year's #1 faceoff guy in the nation, so our guys had a big test this week, and.....they did really, really well. Adam Rand was that guy, and we held him to a measly 11-of-24. Ryan Benincasa was a sparkling 12-of-16. This may not mean we will be excellent on faceoffs going forward, but for sure, it means we can be.
Now just tighten up that first-quarter defense. Adam Ghitelman should not have to make seven saves in a period, ever. I think it's clear, even after three games against non-elite competition, we really miss Mike Timms and Matt Kelly. 'Specially Timms.
So. It's Syracuse week, and it's a rare chance to play the game at Klockner and not a neutral or road site. So let's keep the snow off the ground in Charlottesville this week, OK, because having to play that game on the Turf Field would suck. The weather forecast has it getting steadily warmer all week in Charlottesville with Saturday getting up to 52 degrees and Sunday being a balmy 55. No snow. Klockner plz.
****************************
Through circumstances that actually were almost completely under my control, I only put three posts up last week, which is some kind of laziness record for me. Not going to be a lot better about it this week, I'm afraid. Tomorrow, in lieu of posting, I'll be working on the long-promised and not-delivered highlight videos of one of the basketball games I've been sitting on. Probably Miami, because I've been sitting on it longer. This is so as to do my small part to hopefully break the string of bad juju the basketball team has been dealing with. (I think I just set some kind of record for two-letter words in a row.) It's a good time to try, because I've got tickets to the Wednesday game at BC and I'd rather they won that one.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
meet preview: ACC men's swimming championships
Oops. I didn't post anything last night, again. This was supposed to happen last night, but as usual on Tuesday nights, trivia night got in the way, plus the basketball tilt against Miami stayed interesting for about three-quarters of the game. But I blame trivia night.
Anyway, I'm sort of assuming you read last week's preview of the women's championships, in which some of the terminology is explained in case you didn't know, introductions are offered to this whole swimming idea, that sort of thing. Or that you already know some stuff about swimming. So we'll jump right into the pysch sheet, which as with last week I scored out. (Keeping in mind the caveats about the unreliability of the psych sheet as a predictive mechanism.) According to said psych sheet, we come out ahead, but......
Virginia - 664
FSU - 657
UNC - 575
Md. - 322
GT - 279
VT - 215
Clem. - 206
NCSt. - 164
Duke - 131
BC - 90
.....not by much, as you see. That is as close to a dead heat as you'll see, and UNC is in striking distance of a win as well if a few things go their way. Like winning a relay in which they were seeded second, as happened just an hour ago.
This kind of seeding makes for a really exciting meet. How do you go about winning when everything is so close? If you're following the meet, what should you watch for besides just the places of the good guy swimmers?
- Win the relays. You get 40 points for doing so and 34 for coming in second. The difference between first and second is the same as the difference between second and fifth. Relays are double the point value of the individual events. One of the absolute most important things you can do in a close meet is win a relay you were seeded second in. It's a 12-point swing.
- Do not, under any circumstances, finish ninth in a prelim event, especially if you're seeded higher. No matter what happens short of a DQ, the A heat will score the big points (anywhere from 20 to 11) and the B heat will score the small ones. Even if you, Mr. B-heat swimmer, swim a faster finals time than someone in the A heat, you can't score more points than they do. If you're seeded ninth, get eighth. If you're seeded eighth, for God's sake hang on to it. Nothing drives coaches to the funny farm more efficiently than a pile of ninth-places in prelims.
- Look for help. As long as you're not directly competing against their swimmers for place, the non-contenders are your friends. Example: in the 200 fly, Maryland has the top two seeds, UNC the next three, and FSU the one after that. Our best swimmer in that event is seeded eighth. Yes, he will be looking to swim his ass off not to fall to ninth, but the other dynamic is, do we mind terribly if Maryland takes 1-2 in that event? Not at all - they're no threat to actually win the meet, and a Maryland 1-2 keeps points out of our competitors' hands.
Another example, from the FSU perspective. They'll win the 200 back; their swimmer Andy Hodgson has a five-second seeding advantage over everyone. After that, it's the margin of less than eight-tenths of a second that separates 2nd through 7th, a hodgepodge in which we have two swimmers. FSU has one too, but will it bother them much if the Clemson and Maryland swimmers place highly? Nope, not with the 20 points for first already locked up. A top swimmer on a noncontender having an out-of-his-mind day can really shuffle the standings at the top.
Like I said last week, this is where the swim coaches make the big bucks. You can peruse, if you like, the results of the dual meet against Florida State; I guarantee you this is how Mark Bernardino has been spending his time lately. We won (and we beat UNC as well), but is that a harbinger? Not always. Dual meets are different. You swim multiple relay teams, for example. We took 1-2-3 in the 500 free back then, and FSU's Ian Rowe swam a 4:34; he's now seeded #1 in the event with a time that's ten seconds better. It's encouraging to have beaten them in the dual meet, but too many dynamics in play to let it be something to dwell on.
We definitely have the talent to take home the championship. Last year we had nearly a 200-point cushion - this year, that's not there. Bernardino figures it might very well come down to the very last relay. Personal experience tells me it's very, very hard to find an event in the whole wide world of sports more exciting than winning the final relay to bring home a championship. So buckle up, and hey - take some time and follow it live. ACC championships are worth it.
Anyway, I'm sort of assuming you read last week's preview of the women's championships, in which some of the terminology is explained in case you didn't know, introductions are offered to this whole swimming idea, that sort of thing. Or that you already know some stuff about swimming. So we'll jump right into the pysch sheet, which as with last week I scored out. (Keeping in mind the caveats about the unreliability of the psych sheet as a predictive mechanism.) According to said psych sheet, we come out ahead, but......
Virginia - 664
FSU - 657
UNC - 575
Md. - 322
GT - 279
VT - 215
Clem. - 206
NCSt. - 164
Duke - 131
BC - 90
.....not by much, as you see. That is as close to a dead heat as you'll see, and UNC is in striking distance of a win as well if a few things go their way. Like winning a relay in which they were seeded second, as happened just an hour ago.
This kind of seeding makes for a really exciting meet. How do you go about winning when everything is so close? If you're following the meet, what should you watch for besides just the places of the good guy swimmers?
- Win the relays. You get 40 points for doing so and 34 for coming in second. The difference between first and second is the same as the difference between second and fifth. Relays are double the point value of the individual events. One of the absolute most important things you can do in a close meet is win a relay you were seeded second in. It's a 12-point swing.
- Do not, under any circumstances, finish ninth in a prelim event, especially if you're seeded higher. No matter what happens short of a DQ, the A heat will score the big points (anywhere from 20 to 11) and the B heat will score the small ones. Even if you, Mr. B-heat swimmer, swim a faster finals time than someone in the A heat, you can't score more points than they do. If you're seeded ninth, get eighth. If you're seeded eighth, for God's sake hang on to it. Nothing drives coaches to the funny farm more efficiently than a pile of ninth-places in prelims.
- Look for help. As long as you're not directly competing against their swimmers for place, the non-contenders are your friends. Example: in the 200 fly, Maryland has the top two seeds, UNC the next three, and FSU the one after that. Our best swimmer in that event is seeded eighth. Yes, he will be looking to swim his ass off not to fall to ninth, but the other dynamic is, do we mind terribly if Maryland takes 1-2 in that event? Not at all - they're no threat to actually win the meet, and a Maryland 1-2 keeps points out of our competitors' hands.
Another example, from the FSU perspective. They'll win the 200 back; their swimmer Andy Hodgson has a five-second seeding advantage over everyone. After that, it's the margin of less than eight-tenths of a second that separates 2nd through 7th, a hodgepodge in which we have two swimmers. FSU has one too, but will it bother them much if the Clemson and Maryland swimmers place highly? Nope, not with the 20 points for first already locked up. A top swimmer on a noncontender having an out-of-his-mind day can really shuffle the standings at the top.
Like I said last week, this is where the swim coaches make the big bucks. You can peruse, if you like, the results of the dual meet against Florida State; I guarantee you this is how Mark Bernardino has been spending his time lately. We won (and we beat UNC as well), but is that a harbinger? Not always. Dual meets are different. You swim multiple relay teams, for example. We took 1-2-3 in the 500 free back then, and FSU's Ian Rowe swam a 4:34; he's now seeded #1 in the event with a time that's ten seconds better. It's encouraging to have beaten them in the dual meet, but too many dynamics in play to let it be something to dwell on.
We definitely have the talent to take home the championship. Last year we had nearly a 200-point cushion - this year, that's not there. Bernardino figures it might very well come down to the very last relay. Personal experience tells me it's very, very hard to find an event in the whole wide world of sports more exciting than winning the final relay to bring home a championship. So buckle up, and hey - take some time and follow it live. ACC championships are worth it.
Monday, February 22, 2010
weekend review: championship edition
Big weekend for 'Hoos of all stripes. Lots of blue and orange being represented in assorted venues around the East Coast - none of them actually in Charlottesville, but hey. Records were set, milestones were reached, history was made, championships were won. Yeah, the basketball team got smoked again, but don't let that cloud your perspective. It was a fine weekend to be a Hoo.
Starting with the biggest accomplishment of the week.....
SWIMMING
Huzzah! Like I told you last week, it's ACC championship time. UVA got conference championship #2 on the year - one of only two schools to earn two so far by the way - and did so once again in dominating fashion. The women's swim team added nearly 30 points to their total from last year and finished with 877.5. The results are here; I will summarize for you.
1st place events:
200 medley relay
800 free relay
200 IM
50 free
200 free relay
100 fly
200 free
100 back
400 medley relay
200 back
100 free
200 breast (tie)
200 fly
400 free relay
1st place swimmers (individual only):
Amanda Faulkner (200 IM)
Lauren Perdue (50 free, 200 free, 100 free)
Lauren Smart (100 fly)
Mei Christensen (100 back, 200 back)
Christine Olson (200 breast)
Liz Shaw (200 fly)
NCAA 'A' cuts:
200 medley relay (Christensen/McDonnell/Smart/Davis)
200 free (Perdue)
100 back (Christensen, Smart)
200 back (Christensen)
200 breast (Olson)
NCAA 'B' cuts:
800 free relay (Narum/Flynn/Harris/Perdue)
500 free (Bachrouche, Harris, Narum, Myers)
200 IM (Faulkner, Crippen, Shaw, McDonnell)
50 free (Perdue, Christensen, Flynn, Davis)
200 free relay (Christensen/Flynn/Perdue/Davis)
400 IM (Crippen, Olson, Bachrouche, Faulkner, Myers)
100 fly (Smart, Shaw), 200 free (Flynn, Harris, Narum, Moores)
100 breast (Olson, McDonnell, Freeman)
100 back (Cavalier (note - yes this is her name and that's awesome), Stewart)
Starting with the biggest accomplishment of the week.....
SWIMMING
Huzzah! Like I told you last week, it's ACC championship time. UVA got conference championship #2 on the year - one of only two schools to earn two so far by the way - and did so once again in dominating fashion. The women's swim team added nearly 30 points to their total from last year and finished with 877.5. The results are here; I will summarize for you.
1st place events:
200 medley relay
800 free relay
200 IM
50 free
200 free relay
100 fly
200 free
100 back
400 medley relay
200 back
100 free
200 breast (tie)
200 fly
400 free relay
1st place swimmers (individual only):
Amanda Faulkner (200 IM)
Lauren Perdue (50 free, 200 free, 100 free)
Lauren Smart (100 fly)
Mei Christensen (100 back, 200 back)
Christine Olson (200 breast)
Liz Shaw (200 fly)
NCAA 'A' cuts:
200 medley relay (Christensen/McDonnell/Smart/Davis)
200 free (Perdue)
100 back (Christensen, Smart)
200 back (Christensen)
200 breast (Olson)
NCAA 'B' cuts:
800 free relay (Narum/Flynn/Harris/Perdue)
500 free (Bachrouche, Harris, Narum, Myers)
200 IM (Faulkner, Crippen, Shaw, McDonnell)
50 free (Perdue, Christensen, Flynn, Davis)
200 free relay (Christensen/Flynn/Perdue/Davis)
400 IM (Crippen, Olson, Bachrouche, Faulkner, Myers)
100 fly (Smart, Shaw), 200 free (Flynn, Harris, Narum, Moores)
100 breast (Olson, McDonnell, Freeman)
100 back (Cavalier (note - yes this is her name and that's awesome), Stewart)
400 medley relay (Christensen/McDonnell/Smart/Perdue)
1650 free (Narum, Bachrouche, Myers, Harris)
200 back (Smart, Stewart)
100 free (Perdue, Davis, Flynn, Moores)
200 breast (McDonnell, Faulkner, Freeman)
200 fly (Shaw, Crippen)
400 free relay (Christensen, Flynn, Moores, Perdue)
ACC records:
200 medley relay (1:37.33)
200 free relay (1:29.25 - meet record only)
200 free (1:43.86)
400 medley relay (3:32.97 - meet record only)
200 breast (2:09.94)
Miscellaneous domination notes: 4 of top 5 and 1-2-3 in 200 IM, and only one is a senior ... 4 of top 6 in 400 IM ... first place in all five relays and 9 of 13 individual events ... five records set and the final relay came within 0:00.02 of setting another one
Perhaps more records would have been toppled if we hadn't set so damn many last year. Oh well.
By the way, the difference between A cuts and B cuts isn't quite as gaping as it might sound. They're actually fairly unnecessary; the NCAA has a maximum number of swimmers they'll invite to their championship for each event. To oversimplify it, they invite all the A cuts and then go one-by-one and invite B cuts til they hit the max. Why not just have one cut time? I don't know. I liked it better in high school where if you swam a state cut time, you got to go to the state meet - period. (Not that I was ever in danger of making it.)
Anyway, as you can see, we're pretty well set to make a splash (HA!) at nationals, which will be nice for Director's Cup purposes. We won't win (not all those swimmers above are going to score points), but the girls finished 12th last year and maybe a top ten finish is on the horizon.
By the way, Lauren Perdue's name shows up a lot, as you might notice. That's because she's really, really good. And she's a freshman. There are some phenomenal swimmers up there, like Christensen, but Perdue is unbelievable. How good? Like, maybe Olympic good. You can use this to convert these yards times (used here) to meters (used in the Olympics.) Right now, that time is just off the pace that would have put her in the 200 freestyle semifinals in Beijing. You have to be elite as all hell to get onto the US national team, and she's not quite there yet. Give it a couple years. You just might see her in London.
But all these ACC teams have some incredible swimmers. I mean, we did let the other teams win four of those individual events, after all. The difference here is we have incredible swimmers in every event two, three, four deep. That's where the meet really is won. In no event did UVA place fewer than two swimmers in the A heat (top 8) and in just under than half of the events, UVA was in four of the eight A lanes, piling up the points. The B heats were similarly stacked with Cavaliers. (Sometimes literally. Tell me this young lady wasn't destined for Virginia.)
Bottom line: congrats to the ladies for kicking ass at the ACC's, and on Wednesday, get ready for the men to do it all over again.
BASKETBALL
Ah, now for the crash back to earth. Let me keep this short and sweet: Until the hoops team re-learns how to shoot the ball, we will go nowhere and there won't be any point in analyzing why. Turnovers, defense, rebounding, size, grueling travel, matchups, none of it matters at this point. We're losing because we can't shoot. It's 2009 all over again. Sylven and Mike Scott can't be effective, because the moment the ball goes inside, whether on a drive or pass, four defenders collapse on it because they don't respect the shooters. Bad offense begets bad defense, just like last year, and the result is ugly.
It does tend to debunk two myths about Dave Leitao's coaching style that were taken as gospel last year:
- The team was shooting poorly because they couldn't get into a rhythm thanks to Dave's incessantly inconsistent substitutions and rotations. No, they couldn't shoot because they can't shoot. A few more games of this will give us a very definitive answer to that particular chicken-or-the-egg question.
- The team's confidence was shot because Dave was screaming at them all the time. No, it was shot because they were losing. A lot. Tony doesn't scream, at least not during games, and don't tell me there's a small part of you that sorta wishes he would, just a little.
LACROSSE
Little closer than it should have been, but the lacrosse team earned Dom Starsia his 200th win at UVA. First college coach ever to rack up 200 wins at one D-I school and 100 more at another.
Part of the reason it was so close is that the Drexel goalie did really well for himself. Last year in our game he earned himself CAA rookie of the week honors for his performance, and statistically he was even better this year: 17 saves against 11 goals. A save percentage over .600 is pretty dern good.
On the one hand, it was nice to see more people besides just Steele Stanwick lighting up the scoreboard. We knew he'd be good, but six other Hoos besides him scored a goal, including hotshot freshman Connor English. (English is from, let's see, Manhasset, NY - I just bet that's on Long Island (checking: aaaaaand, yup) - and damn if Connor English doesn't sound exactly like a kid from Long Island who's really damn good at lacrosse. Between him and Steele Stanwick I think we're all set.)
I'm not sure yet where the faceoffs are going to come from, though. I hope we turn out better than the very average showing we had this weekend. Chad Gaudet was a one-year wonder for us, and he was very good, but his replacements (Benincasa and Ince, mostly) need to prove themselves all over again in his place.
Still: #1 ain't bad. (Even if it's a "tepid" #1.)
BASEBALL
Think this says it all, no?
We're similarly gracing the front pages of the baseball coverage on Rivals and ESPN. (Lax made the same ESPN page as well as the NCAA's.) Wahoo indeed. That's what happens when you're #1. Not just "power rankings," either; Baseball America and Rivals are generally accepted as legit actual rankings. UVA is #1. Just say it. It feels good.
The bats did their thing in Greenville, taking two of three on the road to start the season. That's good enough when the opponent is ranked #11. And I'll tell you what, I'm not even worked up over the disastrous 8th inning on Sunday in which ECU scored 7 and threatened to actually win a game in which they had been facing a 13-4 deficit. A lot of that was thanks to O'Connor's decision to start up the Dan Grovatt and Corey Hunt experiments as relief pitchers. We may not see a lot of that going forward, given the results. Nor am I concerned about Saturday, when the bats fell silent. They came back alive on Sunday, hitting .441 for the day, and Kevin Brandt (ECU's Saturday pitcher), I suspect he's going to be making a name for himself before all's said and done this year. Sunday was a hitting party and everyone was invited. All nine starters in the lineup gathered at least one hit, seven of them got at least two, and Keith Werman managed to be hit by a pitch. Werman has been found to actually be smaller than the strike zone itself, so this is pretty remarkable.
Actually, the only thing that worries me is that Cody Winiarski's debut was a little less than stellar, and Neal Davis had to be brought in to get the last out of the fourth. Yes, ECU has some hotshot bats, but so does most of our ACC competition. Consider the third starter spot still up for grabs, with Will Roberts being another candidate.
All in all, a weekend that true blue 'Hoos should bask in. Never mind the basketball team, Bennett knows what he's doing and they'll come around sure enough. Enjoy the dynasties we have going: one that's reloading, one that's ongoing, one being born in front of your eyes.
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