Time to round out the players portion of the season preview. Tomorrow, we move into the very interesting nonconference schedule, and then finally, next week, the ACC itself. 48 hours, man. 48 hours.
#32 - London Perrantes - Jr. PG
Now entering his third year as the unquestioned starter at point guard, Perrantes's sophomore year efficiency stats are a bit interesting. Compare:
Perrantes:
3pt%: .316
2pt%: .394
FT%: .778
ARate: 26.5
TORate: 20.3
Olivier Hanlan:
3pt%: .353
2pt%: .513
FT%: .759
ARate: 29.1
TORate: 15.0
Hanlan was Boston College's do-it-all star, the league's top point guard last year and a draft pick of the Utah Jazz after his junior year. There's no doubt who was the better player. But Perrantes finished with an O-rating of 105.0; Hanlan, 107.4. Very little difference.
It goes to show two things: one, I don't know anything about what goes into a player's O-rating, though I'm rashly assuming that crazy things like shooting and assists and turnovers are involved. And two, whatever is in the secret sauce, it rates Perrantes's contributions to the offense pretty highly.
Perrantes has a quality to his play that you can spot even if you don't know you're spotting it. That's what helped drive a narrative last year that was barely borne out on the stat sheet - that Perrantes asserted himself more, shot more, and picked up the scoring pace to help UVA's offense cope with the loss of Justin Anderson. He didn't do much of that, actually, not so's you'd notice if all you did was peruse stat sheets. But it looked like he did, and perception is reality.
So far, the Cali-cool image he projects has been a perfect fit with Tony's methodical approach to offense. There's an ever-so-slight backwards lean that he sometimes projects in pictures of him making the opening pass of the play setup. Tony hasn't minded him setting an offensive pace that uses all 35 seconds of the shot clock. But he will now, because that 31st second is a doozy. With a tad bit more urgency required on the offensive end, Perrantes will have to adjust. Move a little quicker. Maybe save some time on the front end by not always walking the ball up the court like a stroll through the gardens. The adaptability of Perrantes's game will be challenged this year, and because of the way he can project on the flow of the offense, how he responds will set the tone.
Oh, and it'd be cool if he could improve his shooting a little this year, too. /every critique of every point guard ever.
#33 - Jack Salt - rFr. C
UVa's New Zealand import will get to take the court this year after a redshirt year spent bulking up and getting used to the pace of American basketball. Salt added 15 pounds, which is bad news for opponents because every report we've ever seen says he likes cracking skulls.
Also, literally every story I've read about him this year - and there are a lot because a yet-to-be-unwrapped 6'11 Kiwi is a curiosity worth finding out about - mentions that he sets brutal screens. It seems random. I don't know what to make of this. It could be bad news in disguise - if he were playing Bad Boys defense with eight nasty streaks or was a sudden scoring revelation, they'd write about that instead. But it could be secretly really good news - because part of the reason Will Sherrill became a regular player was his diligence in setting screens.
The safest bet is that Mike Tobey is still a very skilled player, much more experienced, and going to take up 95% of the minutes that call for a true center. It might seem that Salt and Jarred Reuter are competing for the last of the big-man minutes, but I doubt that because Reuter could easily be on the court at the same time as Tobey; Salt never will. I think whatever meaningful minutes Salt gets will be in cases where Tobey's in foul trouble and the opponent has trotted out a true center of their own.
I also think that even though he won't be seen much, there's major cult-hero potential here. If he's as powerfully physical as all the reports say, somebody is either going to get whacked on a perfectly legal screen, or have a shot ruthlessly rejected after Salt roots himself into place in the post, and people will notice. What I'm hoping for is a future where Salt and Reuter are both patrolling the middle like a couple of roughneck bastards and everyone just hates them. For this year, it'd be cool if we got a few glimpses of that.
#51 - Darius Thompson - rSo. SG
Here's redshirt number two from last year, another Christmas present to open on November 13. With Malcolm Brogdon in charge, the chances that Thompson breaks into the starting lineup are zilch. But like Anthony Gill before him, Thompson is a potential really big deal.
Possibly the most athletic player on the team, Thompson brings a slashing, driving threat that's been a little lacking in Tony's tenure. Truth is, in his year at Tennessee he was a lousy shooter. Two or three, it didn't matter, he couldn't hit it if it was a jump shot. But he also took 71% of his shots at the rim....where he also was a lousy shooter at just .369. And all that was two years ago. If those numbers improve, and you ought to believe they will to at least some extent, Thompson has the chance to be a tremendous bench scorer and a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.
Thompson will probably be asked to play the point some, where he'd give opponents a completely different look from Perrantes. Perrantes is smallish, conservative on defense, and more likely to shoot a jumper than drive. Thompson will try to use his excellent length and athleticism to jump passing lanes, and look to drive on offense. Justin Anderson was a tremendously important player because his athleticism scared opponents and forced them to give the rest of the team room to operate. Thompson can look to partly fill those shoes this year.
#1 - Austin Nichols - Jr. PF
#2 - Justice Bartley - Fr. SG
#24 - Caid Kirven - Sr. PF
#25 - Mamadi Diakite - Fr. SF
#34 - Jeff Jones - Jr. SF
Here's the end of the bench - the walk-ons and redshirts. UVA will have the most talented non-playing players in the country. Kirven and Jones are familiar sights at the end of blowouts and do an admirable job of keeping comical scores comical. Bartley brings a fair amount of talent; he turned down a scholarship at UNLV (that due to his late appearance on the recruiting scene would've had to wait til his sophomore year) in order to study business at UVA.
And of course, the redshirts. Nichols is coming off a season where he was one of the top ten shot blockers in the country (efficiency stats) and a starter at Memphis - possibly the top prize of the transfer circuit this summer. Diakite was planning on playing a prep year, but UVA convinced him to essentially prep under Tony Bennett instead. By some accounts he's the second-best athlete on the team and UVA is redshirting him just because they can. They'll stay in the shadows for a year and then help cushion the blow of losing four rotation seniors after this season.
Showing posts with label thompson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thompson. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Thursday, May 22, 2014
the transfer: Darius Thompson
Name: Darius Thompson
Position: PG
Hometown: Murfreesboro, TN
School: Blackman HS / Tennessee
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 181
I would say at this point it's a good idea to dispense with the notion that Tony Bennett cares very much about roster management, in the sense of trying to even out the classes. Tony will just plug every spot he can and worry about stuff later. It makes sense; there are so many variables for the future that, why worry about them now when instead you can act on what you can control?
It's in this vein that Tony went all-out in filling the last available scholarship slot, as vacated by Teven Jones, rather than save it for the 2015 class. Something about birds in the hand. After App State transfer Devonte Graham headed to Kansas, Tony focused on Ukrainian import Sviatoslav Mikhailyuk and Tennessee transfer Darius Thompson. Thompson jumped first; Mikhailyuk, shortly thereafter, went to Kansas as well.
That fact may well doom Thompson to a career of being compared to Mikhailyuk, considered a future NBA talent in the making. Mikhailyuk is just 16 going on 17, and because of his age will have to wait two more years before being draft-eligible, maybe three if the NBA succeeds in boosting the minimum age from 19 to 20. Thompson, for his part, has played just one year at Tennessee, and so, like Anthony Gill, will sit one year and then have three seasons of eligibility.
Other than the guys on the extreme ends, like London Perrantes and Mike Tobey, I've found it more useful to think of Tony's players not as 1s, 2s, 3s, and so on, but 1.5s, 2.5s, 3.5s, and so on. Some debate exists as to whether Thompson is a 1 or a 2; he's theoretically too big for a one but theoretically doesn't shoot well enough for the two. Like so many others, he's a bit of a tweener, occupying the same combo-ish spot that Malcolm Brogdon does. Thompson does lean more toward the one side of the spectrum than Brogdon.
A little background: Thompson was a late-blooming member of the class of 2013, who snuck into the very back end of the Rivals 150 by the end of the season. He earned a handful of major offers, largely from teams at the bottom of major conferences - think Auburn, Purdue, Texas A&M. Originally committed to Vanderbilt, he changed his mind a month later and chose Tennessee after another month or so of recruiting. UVA was sniffing around at the time but either was too late, didn't offer, or both. Many of the same teams were after him when he decided to leave UT in the wake of Cuonzo Martin's departure; Purdue, for one.
Thompson was one of six players to play in every one of Tennessee's games this past season, mostly as the backup point guard. Even in playing just under 17 minutes a game - sixth-most on the team - he led the team in steals and was second by just a shade in assists. His turnover rate was very high but his assist rate was outstanding, especially for a freshman. It also just so happens that he had the second-highest two-point shooting percentage on the team. Mainly this is a function of getting to the rim; he didn't shoot many two-point jumpers. Handily enough, he was also a respectable free-throw shooter at 74.2%. The black mark on his game: a pitiful 3-point percentage of .195. Nobody shoots that badly in high school and gets offers from major programs, so the ability to do better is probably there, and a strength of Tony Bennett is balancing shot discipline with the keep-firing mentality that shooters need.
It's those steals that probably intrigued Tony the most, though. Or really, his defense overall. He was top 50 in the country in KenPom's steal %age stat, and is reported to have a tremendous wingspan for his size. He's tall and really, really gangly, but moves well and has potential to be a truly elite on-ball defender, as well as a great denier of passing lanes to the interior.
Thompson will have to sit a year, as mentioned, but barring transfers, that year won't do anything to open up any room in the backcourt. Only Darion Atkins graduates, and Thompson will start his sophomore year in 2015 with some pretty established players. Perrantes will be a junior and Brogdon a senior, with Devon Hall and B.J. Stith having a full season to establish their spot on the pecking order. All but Brogdon will still be around the following year, too. Playing time for Thompson, then, will be more a function of the result of competition than of waiting out a few graduations. Working in his favor is that he's more of a point guard than anyone on the roster except Perrantes, and perhaps Hall - though we truly know very, very little about the latter. That made him much more of a positional need than Mikhailyuk, who would've been in competition with Justin Anderson, Marial Shayok, and to some extent Brogdon and even Evan Nolte and perhaps B.J. Stith for his playing time. If Thompson's reputation as a defender is true to form, it's very hard to envision him not making it onto the court. He should be able to carve out a much larger role than, say, Teven Jones ever could; leapfrogging Perrantes would be a much taller task, but Tony's mix-and-match strategy with his ballhandlers will boost his minutes as well. I wouldn't expect Thompson to ever be among the team's most prolific scorers, but he was a key member of a very talented eventual Sweet 16 team - and is likely to be so again.
Position: PG
Hometown: Murfreesboro, TN
School: Blackman HS / Tennessee
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 181
I would say at this point it's a good idea to dispense with the notion that Tony Bennett cares very much about roster management, in the sense of trying to even out the classes. Tony will just plug every spot he can and worry about stuff later. It makes sense; there are so many variables for the future that, why worry about them now when instead you can act on what you can control?
It's in this vein that Tony went all-out in filling the last available scholarship slot, as vacated by Teven Jones, rather than save it for the 2015 class. Something about birds in the hand. After App State transfer Devonte Graham headed to Kansas, Tony focused on Ukrainian import Sviatoslav Mikhailyuk and Tennessee transfer Darius Thompson. Thompson jumped first; Mikhailyuk, shortly thereafter, went to Kansas as well.
That fact may well doom Thompson to a career of being compared to Mikhailyuk, considered a future NBA talent in the making. Mikhailyuk is just 16 going on 17, and because of his age will have to wait two more years before being draft-eligible, maybe three if the NBA succeeds in boosting the minimum age from 19 to 20. Thompson, for his part, has played just one year at Tennessee, and so, like Anthony Gill, will sit one year and then have three seasons of eligibility.
Other than the guys on the extreme ends, like London Perrantes and Mike Tobey, I've found it more useful to think of Tony's players not as 1s, 2s, 3s, and so on, but 1.5s, 2.5s, 3.5s, and so on. Some debate exists as to whether Thompson is a 1 or a 2; he's theoretically too big for a one but theoretically doesn't shoot well enough for the two. Like so many others, he's a bit of a tweener, occupying the same combo-ish spot that Malcolm Brogdon does. Thompson does lean more toward the one side of the spectrum than Brogdon.
A little background: Thompson was a late-blooming member of the class of 2013, who snuck into the very back end of the Rivals 150 by the end of the season. He earned a handful of major offers, largely from teams at the bottom of major conferences - think Auburn, Purdue, Texas A&M. Originally committed to Vanderbilt, he changed his mind a month later and chose Tennessee after another month or so of recruiting. UVA was sniffing around at the time but either was too late, didn't offer, or both. Many of the same teams were after him when he decided to leave UT in the wake of Cuonzo Martin's departure; Purdue, for one.
Thompson was one of six players to play in every one of Tennessee's games this past season, mostly as the backup point guard. Even in playing just under 17 minutes a game - sixth-most on the team - he led the team in steals and was second by just a shade in assists. His turnover rate was very high but his assist rate was outstanding, especially for a freshman. It also just so happens that he had the second-highest two-point shooting percentage on the team. Mainly this is a function of getting to the rim; he didn't shoot many two-point jumpers. Handily enough, he was also a respectable free-throw shooter at 74.2%. The black mark on his game: a pitiful 3-point percentage of .195. Nobody shoots that badly in high school and gets offers from major programs, so the ability to do better is probably there, and a strength of Tony Bennett is balancing shot discipline with the keep-firing mentality that shooters need.
It's those steals that probably intrigued Tony the most, though. Or really, his defense overall. He was top 50 in the country in KenPom's steal %age stat, and is reported to have a tremendous wingspan for his size. He's tall and really, really gangly, but moves well and has potential to be a truly elite on-ball defender, as well as a great denier of passing lanes to the interior.
Thompson will have to sit a year, as mentioned, but barring transfers, that year won't do anything to open up any room in the backcourt. Only Darion Atkins graduates, and Thompson will start his sophomore year in 2015 with some pretty established players. Perrantes will be a junior and Brogdon a senior, with Devon Hall and B.J. Stith having a full season to establish their spot on the pecking order. All but Brogdon will still be around the following year, too. Playing time for Thompson, then, will be more a function of the result of competition than of waiting out a few graduations. Working in his favor is that he's more of a point guard than anyone on the roster except Perrantes, and perhaps Hall - though we truly know very, very little about the latter. That made him much more of a positional need than Mikhailyuk, who would've been in competition with Justin Anderson, Marial Shayok, and to some extent Brogdon and even Evan Nolte and perhaps B.J. Stith for his playing time. If Thompson's reputation as a defender is true to form, it's very hard to envision him not making it onto the court. He should be able to carve out a much larger role than, say, Teven Jones ever could; leapfrogging Perrantes would be a much taller task, but Tony's mix-and-match strategy with his ballhandlers will boost his minutes as well. I wouldn't expect Thompson to ever be among the team's most prolific scorers, but he was a key member of a very talented eventual Sweet 16 team - and is likely to be so again.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
long weekend review
So did I mention I was planning to take Memorial Day off? I don't think I did. I took Memorial Day off. So you know.
The long weekend didn't really produce a whole lot of extra news, though. I wish it had, it would've meant we had a dog in the fight on Memorial Day in Foxboro, but I'll tell ya, we had a little bit of a flawed team this year and it was nice to see a non-powerhouse team win their first title. And a deserving one, too, it's the first time since we did it in 2006 that the 1 seed won the championship.
Baseball had a good weekend, though. We'll brush aside the 17-5 assbeating from Georgia Tech - the eventual ACC champs - and focus on the rest. A 7-0 shutout of Florida State (who can now officially be characterized as "reeling") was the highlight of the weekend on the diamond, and the tourney draw was the highlight off of it.
The fact that it was Scott Silverstein who started the GT game and Artie Lewicki who shut out FSU has pretty much everyone figuring Lewicki is the #2 starter now. If not in name, at least in practice. It's really hard anymore to make an argument that's not the case; Silverstein's inability to go deep into a game is troubling and probably the #1 issue heading into the regional.
At such regional, hosted in Charlottesville for the third year in a row, we'll welcome Oklahoma, Appalachian State, and Army. This is a tournament of familiar names: Oklahoma is the team that knocked us out of our own super-regional two years ago, and the regional across from us is South Carolina, another team to whom we owe a little payback.
That'll be for later, though. For now, let's step back and marvel a bit. Remember what we lost coming out of last season:
-- All of our catchers
-- Starting third baseman
-- Entire starting outfield
-- All four starting pitchers
Not to mention that a promising DH/1B candidate (Ryan Levine) left the team, and poor snakebit Reed Gragnani can't stay healthy. And this is still one of the top 16 teams in the country. And P.S. - without having a single player make first-team all-ACC and only three - Keith Werman, Branden Kline, and Justin Thompson - making second team. That's Coach of the Year stuff right there. The media gave it to Mike Martin of FSU, but it's a crying shame it didn't go to BOC because this year has been his best coaching job maybe since he got here. Top 16 in the country. Soak that in. And next year is when the cavalry arrives: we got Nathan Kirby (and it's really excellent - even flattering in a way - the level of commitment he's shown to UVA), Josh Sborz - there are some big names prepped to enroll in the fall, all of which we'll profile later in June after such time as the baseball team has finished their season.
Right now the tournament is at hand, and UVA got a really good draw. Oklahoma will be tough, of course, but there aren't many 2 seeds that roll over easy. South Carolina - the regional across from us - is the 8 seed. Theoretically the "worst" of the national seeds. I know - we ought to be aiming to be a super-regional host. Again: just being a regional host of any kind is one hell of an accomplishment for this year. There are beatable teams in front of us. We don't have any margin for error, and as I look out among the regional hosts I see us as maybe one of the most vulnerable regional 1 seeds. But we also dodged some of the deadlier 2 seeds - thinking along the lines of a Kentucky, Mississippi State, or UCF. Anyway, full preview coming on Thursday. Maybe late Thursday, but Thursday.
***************************************************
-- NATIONAL CHAMPS. A hearty congratulations to the lady rowers, who defended their national title and ensured UVA brought home a national title of some kind for the third straight year. The Lady Hoos won the Varsity Eight race - the grand finale, so to speak - to clinch the win in New Jersey. And by the way, Michigan took second, so that particular sport really is how all national championship contests should go. We could even switch up the order once in a while, I'd still be happy.
-- Making the rounds on the Googleytubes today is the report that someone's figured out that there are only 11 schools to have made a bowl game, the mens' basketball tournament, and the baseball tournament this season. The fact I'm even saying this ought to clue you in that UVA is one of 'em. Texas didn't make the baseball tournament this year, for the first time since 1998, so they're, surprisingly, not. (And that helps illustrate the razor-thin margin we're on, as well as perhaps ACC baseball superiority - Texas was 30-22, we are 38-17. Five more losses and you go from hosting a regional to outski.)
Anyway, the 10 other schools. Some are easy to guess: Florida, Florida State, UNC. Some are hella surprising: Baylor, Vanderbilt, Purdue, Michigan State, Louisville. (Missouri and NC State round out the list.)
So yeah: death to ACC detractors, as four of the 11 are ACC schools. 2 Big Ten, 2 SEC, 2 Big 12, 1 Big East - and 4 ACC. Let it also be noted that only UVA and UNC also made the lacrosse tourney, and if you twist my arm I guess I'll throw in MSU on the same level, for playing in the hockey tournament. On a related note, I continue to warm up to the idea of inviting Louisville to the ACC if we lose FSU, or end up needing a 16th to balance Notre Dame.
-- Mike Slive has come out against the idea of a plus-one playoff. This is important. Mike Slive is the commissioner of the SEC. The SEC is the conference that just signed an agreement with the Big 12 to play a Rose Bowl-like bowl game, the details of which nobody really knows yet but such lack of details did not stop media know-it-alls from saying HIDE YA WIVES HIDE YA KIDS THEY RAPIN' THE ACC UP IN HERRRRR. Friggin' Mark Schlabach trolled for hits by tolling the bell for the ACC before it was even reported that FSU was making googly-eyes at the Big 12. A plus-one - that is, just play the bowls and pick the two best winners - would've essentially meant "whoever wins the Rose Bowl plus whoever wins the SEC-Big 12 thing, y'all two just play another game for the title." The fact that the SEC is not in favor of that is a bonus for the ACC. Naturally, the ACC wants conference champions to get invites and the SEC wants to just figure out who the best four teams are, figuring that three of them are likely to be SEC. The problem is that a four-team playoff only leaves room for four conference champions, so the ACC is kind of stuffed in that case. Myself, I liked the idea that conference champions would be autobidded if they were in the top six in the BCS standings and in the at-large pool otherwise, but I digress.
The larger point here is that these playoff talks are going to take some very, very unforeseen turns. We are only getting information a little bit at a time. Also, conference commissioners are sort of a mini-fraternity, and not likely to gang up on each other in these BCS talks. The proof is in the fact that the Big East somehow clung to a BCS bowl autobid despite being the only conference without a set-in-stone bowl affiliation and the fact that every fan in the whole world knew what a damn farce it was that they still had that. But the commissioners were too buddy-buddy to actually kick the Big East out of the money pot. They still are, so the ACC, despite the funeral marches being played for it, will still have its seat at the table.
It's also worth noting this: the SEC is going to a 6-1-1 scheduling model, which is to say, six divisional games, one cross-division rivalry, and one rotating game. Which means season ticket holders at, say, Georgia, will get to watch LSU at Sanford Stadium once a decade. Season ticket holders at, say, Auburn, will get to watch Tennessee at Jordan-Hare once a decade. Man, fuck this conference expansion crap.
The long weekend didn't really produce a whole lot of extra news, though. I wish it had, it would've meant we had a dog in the fight on Memorial Day in Foxboro, but I'll tell ya, we had a little bit of a flawed team this year and it was nice to see a non-powerhouse team win their first title. And a deserving one, too, it's the first time since we did it in 2006 that the 1 seed won the championship.
Baseball had a good weekend, though. We'll brush aside the 17-5 assbeating from Georgia Tech - the eventual ACC champs - and focus on the rest. A 7-0 shutout of Florida State (who can now officially be characterized as "reeling") was the highlight of the weekend on the diamond, and the tourney draw was the highlight off of it.
The fact that it was Scott Silverstein who started the GT game and Artie Lewicki who shut out FSU has pretty much everyone figuring Lewicki is the #2 starter now. If not in name, at least in practice. It's really hard anymore to make an argument that's not the case; Silverstein's inability to go deep into a game is troubling and probably the #1 issue heading into the regional.
At such regional, hosted in Charlottesville for the third year in a row, we'll welcome Oklahoma, Appalachian State, and Army. This is a tournament of familiar names: Oklahoma is the team that knocked us out of our own super-regional two years ago, and the regional across from us is South Carolina, another team to whom we owe a little payback.
That'll be for later, though. For now, let's step back and marvel a bit. Remember what we lost coming out of last season:
-- All of our catchers
-- Starting third baseman
-- Entire starting outfield
-- All four starting pitchers
Not to mention that a promising DH/1B candidate (Ryan Levine) left the team, and poor snakebit Reed Gragnani can't stay healthy. And this is still one of the top 16 teams in the country. And P.S. - without having a single player make first-team all-ACC and only three - Keith Werman, Branden Kline, and Justin Thompson - making second team. That's Coach of the Year stuff right there. The media gave it to Mike Martin of FSU, but it's a crying shame it didn't go to BOC because this year has been his best coaching job maybe since he got here. Top 16 in the country. Soak that in. And next year is when the cavalry arrives: we got Nathan Kirby (and it's really excellent - even flattering in a way - the level of commitment he's shown to UVA), Josh Sborz - there are some big names prepped to enroll in the fall, all of which we'll profile later in June after such time as the baseball team has finished their season.
Right now the tournament is at hand, and UVA got a really good draw. Oklahoma will be tough, of course, but there aren't many 2 seeds that roll over easy. South Carolina - the regional across from us - is the 8 seed. Theoretically the "worst" of the national seeds. I know - we ought to be aiming to be a super-regional host. Again: just being a regional host of any kind is one hell of an accomplishment for this year. There are beatable teams in front of us. We don't have any margin for error, and as I look out among the regional hosts I see us as maybe one of the most vulnerable regional 1 seeds. But we also dodged some of the deadlier 2 seeds - thinking along the lines of a Kentucky, Mississippi State, or UCF. Anyway, full preview coming on Thursday. Maybe late Thursday, but Thursday.
***************************************************
-- NATIONAL CHAMPS. A hearty congratulations to the lady rowers, who defended their national title and ensured UVA brought home a national title of some kind for the third straight year. The Lady Hoos won the Varsity Eight race - the grand finale, so to speak - to clinch the win in New Jersey. And by the way, Michigan took second, so that particular sport really is how all national championship contests should go. We could even switch up the order once in a while, I'd still be happy.
-- Making the rounds on the Googleytubes today is the report that someone's figured out that there are only 11 schools to have made a bowl game, the mens' basketball tournament, and the baseball tournament this season. The fact I'm even saying this ought to clue you in that UVA is one of 'em. Texas didn't make the baseball tournament this year, for the first time since 1998, so they're, surprisingly, not. (And that helps illustrate the razor-thin margin we're on, as well as perhaps ACC baseball superiority - Texas was 30-22, we are 38-17. Five more losses and you go from hosting a regional to outski.)
Anyway, the 10 other schools. Some are easy to guess: Florida, Florida State, UNC. Some are hella surprising: Baylor, Vanderbilt, Purdue, Michigan State, Louisville. (Missouri and NC State round out the list.)
So yeah: death to ACC detractors, as four of the 11 are ACC schools. 2 Big Ten, 2 SEC, 2 Big 12, 1 Big East - and 4 ACC. Let it also be noted that only UVA and UNC also made the lacrosse tourney, and if you twist my arm I guess I'll throw in MSU on the same level, for playing in the hockey tournament. On a related note, I continue to warm up to the idea of inviting Louisville to the ACC if we lose FSU, or end up needing a 16th to balance Notre Dame.
-- Mike Slive has come out against the idea of a plus-one playoff. This is important. Mike Slive is the commissioner of the SEC. The SEC is the conference that just signed an agreement with the Big 12 to play a Rose Bowl-like bowl game, the details of which nobody really knows yet but such lack of details did not stop media know-it-alls from saying HIDE YA WIVES HIDE YA KIDS THEY RAPIN' THE ACC UP IN HERRRRR. Friggin' Mark Schlabach trolled for hits by tolling the bell for the ACC before it was even reported that FSU was making googly-eyes at the Big 12. A plus-one - that is, just play the bowls and pick the two best winners - would've essentially meant "whoever wins the Rose Bowl plus whoever wins the SEC-Big 12 thing, y'all two just play another game for the title." The fact that the SEC is not in favor of that is a bonus for the ACC. Naturally, the ACC wants conference champions to get invites and the SEC wants to just figure out who the best four teams are, figuring that three of them are likely to be SEC. The problem is that a four-team playoff only leaves room for four conference champions, so the ACC is kind of stuffed in that case. Myself, I liked the idea that conference champions would be autobidded if they were in the top six in the BCS standings and in the at-large pool otherwise, but I digress.
The larger point here is that these playoff talks are going to take some very, very unforeseen turns. We are only getting information a little bit at a time. Also, conference commissioners are sort of a mini-fraternity, and not likely to gang up on each other in these BCS talks. The proof is in the fact that the Big East somehow clung to a BCS bowl autobid despite being the only conference without a set-in-stone bowl affiliation and the fact that every fan in the whole world knew what a damn farce it was that they still had that. But the commissioners were too buddy-buddy to actually kick the Big East out of the money pot. They still are, so the ACC, despite the funeral marches being played for it, will still have its seat at the table.
It's also worth noting this: the SEC is going to a 6-1-1 scheduling model, which is to say, six divisional games, one cross-division rivalry, and one rotating game. Which means season ticket holders at, say, Georgia, will get to watch LSU at Sanford Stadium once a decade. Season ticket holders at, say, Auburn, will get to watch Tennessee at Jordan-Hare once a decade. Man, fuck this conference expansion crap.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
more baseball in football season, but also football
Today, a break from the heavy stuff. Those season previews are no joke to write, man. We'll catch up on a little bit of the goings-on for Hoos in the pros.
First, a little fluff on John Phillips and Kevin Ogletree from the Cowboys' official site. Should be good news that the official site writer is putting stuff out there on these guys, right? And speaking of Cavalier wide receivers, Billy McMullen has been released by Seattle, and signed with the Lions yesterday. This probably is not significant - the Lions basically need warm bodies to run receiver drills with so many of them out, and McMullen is a long, long shot to make the roster. I mention this mainly just because it's cool as a Lions fan that McMullen's onboard, however long it lasts. Hey, you never know. Detroit's had good luck with UVA receivers in the past.
And speaking of early departures, Matt Packer has decided to join that club. This surprises me, frankly. Packer was picked in the 32nd round and I figured a good senior season would cut that draft round in half or so. All is quiet on the Tyler Cannon front; Cannon has four more days to sign if he's going to do so.
That makes three very reliable arms we have to replace instead of two, but Jeff White has your answer to that, as Branden Kline has turned down sixth-round money from the Red Sox to come to UVA. Outstanding. Kline has the usual sick and twisted stats of a kid who's obviously too good for high school - in his case, a 0.66 ERA and two strikeouts an inning - and should come in ready to contribute. Based on limited but highly effective summer league stints, Will Roberts and Justin Thompson could be ready to assume a larger role, and we should also be able to lean more heavily on Shane Halley. So fear not friends - the pitching is poised to get better, not worse.
I told you K.T. Harrell wasn't done moving up ESPN's list. He checks in now at #86 on the ESPNU 100 with a ranking of 93, a nice boost from the 90 he had before he committed. Regan and Harris don't make it, and neither does Trae Golden, but a few of our other targets are there: Kyrie Irving at #6 (!), James Johnson at #69, Michael Cobbins at #85.
Lastly we have - recruiting board! Yes! Actually boo. As with previous weeks, more names are dropping off than jumping on board. I have only two addition: LB Quayshawn Nealy, who we offered, and CB Louis Young, who's already decommitted twice from Stanford. Young claims to be a soft verbal to Stanford, but: riiiiiiight.
And the cuts are coming hard and heavy. CB Urell Johnson surprise-committed elsewhere, after, in reverse order: talking about taking all year to decide, decommitting from Southern Miss, surprise-committing to Southern Miss, and talking about taking all year to decide. So as a "verbal", he's off, for now, and would it surprise anyone to see him back at some point? Also gone are: LB Khairi Fortt, QB Munchie Legaux, DE Kareem Martin, and DT Bruce Gaston, all of whom came out with top threes or fives or sixes or whatever and didn't say Virginia when they did it. Fortt actually probably eliminated us a long time ago. Legaux has done all manner of mind-changing throughout his recruitment, but I think we were more of a novelty than anything there anyway. Martin is a little bit surprising; Gaston less so, but disappointing nonetheless - we need a DT in this class and Gaston was one of three we're focusing on. I'm getting antsy for a commitment here - it's been about five weeks.
First, a little fluff on John Phillips and Kevin Ogletree from the Cowboys' official site. Should be good news that the official site writer is putting stuff out there on these guys, right? And speaking of Cavalier wide receivers, Billy McMullen has been released by Seattle, and signed with the Lions yesterday. This probably is not significant - the Lions basically need warm bodies to run receiver drills with so many of them out, and McMullen is a long, long shot to make the roster. I mention this mainly just because it's cool as a Lions fan that McMullen's onboard, however long it lasts. Hey, you never know. Detroit's had good luck with UVA receivers in the past.
And speaking of early departures, Matt Packer has decided to join that club. This surprises me, frankly. Packer was picked in the 32nd round and I figured a good senior season would cut that draft round in half or so. All is quiet on the Tyler Cannon front; Cannon has four more days to sign if he's going to do so.
That makes three very reliable arms we have to replace instead of two, but Jeff White has your answer to that, as Branden Kline has turned down sixth-round money from the Red Sox to come to UVA. Outstanding. Kline has the usual sick and twisted stats of a kid who's obviously too good for high school - in his case, a 0.66 ERA and two strikeouts an inning - and should come in ready to contribute. Based on limited but highly effective summer league stints, Will Roberts and Justin Thompson could be ready to assume a larger role, and we should also be able to lean more heavily on Shane Halley. So fear not friends - the pitching is poised to get better, not worse.
I told you K.T. Harrell wasn't done moving up ESPN's list. He checks in now at #86 on the ESPNU 100 with a ranking of 93, a nice boost from the 90 he had before he committed. Regan and Harris don't make it, and neither does Trae Golden, but a few of our other targets are there: Kyrie Irving at #6 (!), James Johnson at #69, Michael Cobbins at #85.
Lastly we have - recruiting board! Yes! Actually boo. As with previous weeks, more names are dropping off than jumping on board. I have only two addition: LB Quayshawn Nealy, who we offered, and CB Louis Young, who's already decommitted twice from Stanford. Young claims to be a soft verbal to Stanford, but: riiiiiiight.
And the cuts are coming hard and heavy. CB Urell Johnson surprise-committed elsewhere, after, in reverse order: talking about taking all year to decide, decommitting from Southern Miss, surprise-committing to Southern Miss, and talking about taking all year to decide. So as a "verbal", he's off, for now, and would it surprise anyone to see him back at some point? Also gone are: LB Khairi Fortt, QB Munchie Legaux, DE Kareem Martin, and DT Bruce Gaston, all of whom came out with top threes or fives or sixes or whatever and didn't say Virginia when they did it. Fortt actually probably eliminated us a long time ago. Legaux has done all manner of mind-changing throughout his recruitment, but I think we were more of a novelty than anything there anyway. Martin is a little bit surprising; Gaston less so, but disappointing nonetheless - we need a DT in this class and Gaston was one of three we're focusing on. I'm getting antsy for a commitment here - it's been about five weeks.
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