twenty-one

National champ-peen-ship, y'all.  I'm long since on the record as admitting I don't get around to watching nearly as much UVA soccer as I'd like.  (I've considered remedying this next year by ignoring football, but that'd be all talk and no action on that front.)  In fact this season I've seen exactly two soccer games: the women's semifinal against Texas A&M and the men's national title against UCLA.  I had to miss the men's semis and women's finals for reasons of State.

It didn't take me long to decide I hated the announcers.  I wasn't even paying attention to them in the A&M game so I have no idea, but it was only about 20 minutes into the UCLA game before I decided the announcing was a zero on a scale of Pam Ward to Keith Jackson.  Their contempt for UVA's game plan was plain as day and got plainer as the first half wore on.  Although I did enjoy their description of the UVA strategy as "cynical."

Guess which strategy UVA went with?

You can't totally fault them, if the idea is that games should always be exciting shootouts.  But UVA came into the game 111th in the country in scoring average.  One-hundred and eleventh, it's not an extra-1 typo.  In only one tournament game did the Hoos score more than once.  UCLA came in with only one tournament game of fewer than three goals.  So it should be no surprise that Gelnovatch decided not to run 'n' gun with the Bruins.  "The beautiful game" it was not, but Gelnovatch isn't paid to entertain the pundits.

And frankly, it worked to almost complete perfection.  Actual perfection would've been a 1-0 win with the one goal probably coming off of some kind of set piece.  You don't counterattack to try and score, because that would expose you; you counterattack with the aim of getting a corner kick.  If it doesn't go in, which it usually doesn't but it's more than worth a try, bunker back down and try again.  I laughed when halftime rolled around and the announcers said UCLA had to be very pleased with the first half and then both coaches said the first 45 went completely UVA's way.  I might've considered it a Bruin domination, if UCLA had generated more than the occasional chance, but UVA's keeper Calle Brown was barely tested.  Owning the possession battle 45 yards out is one thing; it's another thing entirely to dictate the game.  UVA did so without having the ball.

The second half - a little more pressure, the Bruins clearly took their coaching to heart and were less patient, more attacking, but also a great deal more frustrated.  UCLA's Edgar Contreras ought to have been red-carded for a head-butt, but I can't completely fault the refs as the camera was right on it in real time and I still missed it until the replay.  But it was a clear sign that UCLA was used to being able to break down a defense, and UVA's brick wall was getting to them.

The game is likely to attract precisely zero new fans to the game of soccer, but just look at all the bothers I give.  You know I love me some pack-line defense, and so, apparently, does George Gelnovatch.  Tony Bennett wins basketball games 45-26, but he wins basketball games.  At the end of the day, here's the stat that matters most: 21.  And the one that matters second-most is 0.

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The first major bit of football attrition hit last week when Eli Harold declared for the draft.  That makes two; David Watford also decided to transfer, but the effect of that will be almost nil.  Except to eliminate bizarre message board posts wondering why he's on the field in any capacity at all, as if not being a good quarterback is the same as not being a good receiver.

UVA dodged a bullet when Max Valles announced that he'd be returning next year, quashing rumors to the contrary.  Smart - Valles would've been going almost entirely on physical attributes.  A year of opening some scouts' eyes would help him.  Harold, though he could benefit from another year, is probably in good shape anyway.  He showed this year that he can defend the run and isn't just a one-dimensional pass rusher.  Once he gets in front of scouts at the combine, he should make an appearance on draft boards and could easily be a second or third round pick; his ceiling, if the workouts look good, would be the low first.

As for our defense, it's a fairly major hit, but there's a long-run silver lining: next year, Harold and the Moores (Michael and Kwontie) would once again have dominated the playing time.  Great, because they'll do well, but no experience for the boatload of guys behind them.  Trent Corney should start off as the third DE, but there's a trio of redshirt freshmen who will get a chance to make a wave or two as well.

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And the second major bit of football attrition is on the coaching staff, as Scott Wachenheim is off to VMI to play head coach.  Good for him - it's his first head-coaching gig, though he did have the title of OC and assistant HC at Liberty for a few years.  There can't be a tougher place in the world to win at football than VMI, except maybe the Citadel.  From his perspective, this is definitely striking while the iron is hot - the chances that most of this staff is out of a job next year are awfully high, and you might as well grab a promotion while it's there.  Even if London was on rock-solid ground, I think he'd go anyway, but still.

Wachenheim leaves with one of the most mixed legacies I've ever seen for an assistant coach.  He was vilified at times for the play of the O-line, and I think at least partially deservedly so.  But he leaves on a positive note, having gained a lot of credit for making the O-line not be a total black hole of suck despite being held together with Scotch tape and having to use 260-pound converted DE (or TE or whatever) Jack English as a left tackle.  And I think also deservedly so.

It leaves UVA with two openings to fill, including the impending (or already-occurred) retirement of Tom O'Brien, whose UVA career was basically a dud.  There's an inexplicable level of support for Ron Mattes, who was here like, a year, and performed no miracles.  He'll be here as soon as Bill Musgrave comes back, I'm sure.  A much more likely name, and these tea leaves sure read awfully clearly, thanks to Streaking the Lawn's Tweety account, is current Edmonton Eskimos O-line coach Jonathan Himebauch.

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For lack of anything to do in this basketball wilderness, I put together another season sim, since it had been a couple weeks and stuff happened.  You can find it below and on the original season sim post, for easier comparison to the previous version.

NC State and Notre Dame are on the rise; both won an early-season ACC game against Wake and FSU, respectively, and ND has been handling a lot of business as well.  NC State, not so much, but then, Wofford is actually awfully highly-ranked for a SoCon team.

Being as UVA has also been handling business, the Hoos leapfrogged Louisville, which itself didn't exactly fare badly, just not as well as UVA.  Maryland and VCU are both higher-ranked than all but five ACC teams, and UVA crushed both on the road.  It's becoming clear that there's a top three in this league, and as such, the race for the top seed has obvious huge implications.

UNBALANCE THIS

I AIN'T THE SMARTEST BULB IN THE SHED BUT I KNOW WHAT GOES UP NICE AND STRAIGHT AND DOESN'T NEED ANY BALANCING WHATSOEVER.

BANNERS.

Champions of ACC everything is its own reward, but UVA got a further lift from the tournament committee.  A #1 seed, that's a special season.  Even better is the draw.  Kansas is probably the toughest 2 seed, if they can get Joel Embiid healthy particularly; Villanova is UVA's two seed, and I'd rather see them than any of the others.  I'd far rather have Iowa State than any of the other 3's.  Despite the no-respect picks from the CBS clowns, Michigan State is not the toughest 4 seed; Louisville is.

Florida State, as in, the same Florida State who UVA beat three times by double digits, is higher in KenPom than either 8 seed Memphis or 9 seed George Washington.  They could've given us Gonzaga, Kentucky, Oklahoma State - not Pitt, it would've been against their rematch rules - and I'd have been a lot more worried.

We're in business.  The transformation from intriguing little upstart story to national title contender is complete.  The perception problem now lies with anyone who doesn't get it yet.  Bring your best, and score some points, if you can.

acc tourney preview

So that starts Wednesday.  It's officially the postseason, and that means obsessing over pitching staff usage and the goings-on in your little pods as the tournaments make their inexorable advance toward (hopefully) championships of some kind.  UVA's game times for the ACC are as such:

Wednesday, 3 PM: Virginia Tech
Thursday, 11 AM: Georgia Tech
Saturday, 11 AM: Florida State

Sure, don't put the conference's winningest team on in prime time or anything.  We wouldn't want anyone to see good baseball.  My whining aside, you've already seen series previews on each of these teams, so these will be just little capsules of each game.

-- Wednesday --

The Hokies haven't announced any rotation info for the tourney, but I think it's a safe bet that UVA will face their top pitcher, lefty Joe Mantiply.  Mantiply has gotten a lot better as the season went on; when I wrote the series preview a few weeks ago he was allowing a .304 batting average, which is now down to .256.  He's got good velocity for a lefty and has worked himself into being one of the ACC's legitimate top starters, though he didn't get an all-conference nod.

UVA's last outing against Mantiply didn't go all that well; Kenny Towns and Derek Fisher took him deep, but they were solo shots only and the Hoos managed three runs in seven innings.  Brandon Waddell will oppose the Hokies; he gave up six runs in 5 2/3 in the Friday game against VT, but the UVA bats bombed the Hokie pitching and handed him the win.

Tech's lineup, as before, is largely about the six or so players that make it go.  Tyler Horan finished the regular season leading VT in nearly every applicable category, including a .344 BA and 11 HR.  The bottom three aren't a major threat, but if you let the top six string things together it's a long day.

-- Thursday --

Georgia Tech will have their FSU game under their belt by game time Thursday, and UVA won't have to face Buck Farmer, who mowed down the Hoos' lineup in the first meeting.  Instead it'll be righty Dusty Isaacs facing off against Scott Silverstein.  This was also the Saturday matchup in the regular season, which UVA won 7-2 with five runs in four innings off of Isaacs.  Silverstein, meanwhile, had one of his best days of the year, allowing just one in seven innings and whiffing nine.

We need that kind of performance again, because GT's lineup as usual is built around trying to get on base in front of their gorillas; this year, said gorillas are named Zane Evans and Daniel Palka, and they combined for 31 homers and 125 RBIs in the regular season.  GT's lineup makes them dangerous, but this pitching matchup was a pretty favorable one the first time around, and should be somewhat so again.

-- Saturday --

This is the final game of pool play on our side of the bracket, so we'll know for sure going in what the story is as per trying to get to Sunday.  Obviously, the most likely thing is that we have to win to get there (if we aren't already eliminated from contention.)  O'Connor hasn't picked his pitcher yet for this game; probably, it'll be Nick Howard if we need to win or if we're already out (the latter being just for the sake of getting Howard some work, as he didn't pitch against UNC), and if somehow we've already clinched a spot in the Sunday championship, then we probably save Howard for Sunday and toss Whit Mayberry instead.

FSU, meanwhile, has already made their choice: southpaw Brandon Leibrandt, who opposed Scott Silverstein in the regular season and lost despite pitching a gem.  UVA only scratched out four hits and two runs, but it was enough because Silverstein pitched his other best game of the year: seven shutout innings.  The actual likely starter, Howard, also pitched a terrific game the next day to polish off the regular season sweep.

FSU may actually have the least scary lineup in the pool.  It's deeper than either VTs or GTs but doesn't have the top-end power and for-average hitting that the Techs bring.  The pressure will be on the Noles, given their inability back in April to break through against UVA's pitching.  If we can get through the first two games with a 2-0 record and a reasonably intact bullpen, the final hurdle will be ours for the taking.

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I would obviously be remiss if I said nothing about the tennis, which beat UCLA in a drama-filled matchup for the program's first national title in its history and the ACC's first in that sport since like the caveman days.  (If you count Notre Dame's 1959 title.  Otherwise it's the ACC's first in that sport since ever.)  UVA swept through every round up to and including the quarterfinals without losing a match; a 4-1 win over Georgia was closer than that score indicated, and a 4-3 win over UCLA was closer than that score indicated too.  #3 singles player Mitchell Frank finished off the title win with a really gutty come-from-behind win after dropping his first set 6-0.

And I've already edited the Wikipedia page, you're welcome.

Fun facts:

-- This is UVA's 20th NCAA-sanctioned national title and 27th counting other sanctioning bodies (such as pre-NCAA lacrosse action and indoor tennis.)

-- UVA has won a national title in something for five years in a row.  (This blog will complete its fifth season whenever baseball wraps up.  Hmmmm.  I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.)

-- And it hasn't been done by owning a death grip on some esoteric sport, like the way USC has won the last five (and probably six, soon enough) men's water polo titles.  Five titles, one per year, in four different sports: men's soccer, men's lacrosse, men's tennis, and two in crew.  Not too many schools, if any, can claim that kind of broad-based excellence.

So.  Many congrats to Brian Boland, who's had his team on the cusp for a long time now and finally broke through.  UVA didn't lose to a single opponent all year, and hasn't lost to a conference opponent since 2006.

Speaking of conference opponents, while we're busy collecting trophies, there's still one straggler that doesn't show up in the annals of the elite.  A moment of silence for an empty case, please.

HAPPY HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

LAX CHAMPS!!  NATIONAL CHAMPS!  HIT A TERP WITH A STICK!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE BUT I'M A BLOGGER SO I HAVE TO SHIT SOMETHING ONTO THE PAGE!  AND YELL!  AND WITH THE EXCLAMATION POINTS TOO!  HERE GOES NOTHING:  WAHOOWA BABY IT'S LIKE SUPERCALIFRAGILISTIC-EXPIALIDOCIOUS FOR VIRGINIA FANS!

BEST WEEKEND EVER YES I THINK PROBABLY SO! 

long weekend review

Well, yeah. It could definitely have been a better weekend as far as weekends go. You know all about lacrosse because I already told you all about lacrosse. Major punch in the gut. I tell you what: given that the ACC baseball tournament game against Miami asn't going to change our own fortunes win or lose, I think I'd have traded that win for a win against Duke in lacrosse.

And I realize this is going to make half of you gag and the other half just straight-out barf, but I was happy to see that Duke ended up winning the tournament. My Michigan-fan contempt for Notre Dame overrides my UVA-fan contempt for Duke. And besides, Michigan is tossing around the idea of going varsity in lacrosse and if they do, it's going to be enough of a challenge to recruit against Notre Dame without a trophy in South Bend, let alone with one. Anyway, Duke had by far the better season and was by far the more deserving team. So, uh, yay. Ewwww, but yay.

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As for baseball, the ACC tournament could have gone better than it did, but it certainly could have gone worse. UVA finished 2-1 in pool play, but the tiebreaker sent Florida State to the championship game, since the one loss was to FSU. I think given the format it's a tiebreaker that makes sense, but naturally now that we're on the losing end of it, everyone thinks this format stinks and who came up with this shit anyway? Admittedly, it's a weird format. Double-elimination is the usual standard in baseball; a traditional bracket doesn't work well since baseball, more than any other sport, can turn on a roll of the dice or a hot pitcher. Look at San Diego State last year. Not a great team overall, but their one ace gave them a legit shot at knocking off the ACC champion. So most tournaments are double-elimination, but the ACC coaches didn't like it because it burns up everybody's bullpen and leaves them with tired arms for the NCAA regionals the following week.

This isn't a great format either, given that in four years it's turned out the following championship matchups:

2 vs. 8
1 vs. 6
1 vs. 6
5 vs. 7

The bottom half of the pools (5 through 8) have made the championship more than the top half (1 through 4.) That's not really the sign of a good format. Not only that, but the divisions really screw up the seeding. We did end up beating Miami, but if seeded strictly by record, they should have been swapped with Clemson and GT should have had to deal with the Canes - but also been the top seed in their group. Since everyone's got different ideas to fix it, here's mine - it's this simple. Teams would still only have to play four games at the most, and likely enough that would never happen. Plus: major, major advantage for the high seeds. It was totally sweet to win the ACC championship last year as a six seed, but baseball teams play wayyy more games than any other sport against the rest of the conference - it sucks being on the other side of the coin, dominating a 30-game season, and then losing out on the championship because why? losing to FSU for one, but that wouldn't have mattered if Miami hadn't choked against BC.

So that would be a good way to fix things up, and you could even shorten the tournament by a day if you felt like it. Or not. It's flexible.

Anyway, the ACC tournament being over, that means it's Big Show time, and thusly, here is the bracket. It was a foregone conclusion that UVA would host a regional, but Tim Weiser and the rest of the selection committee displayed their astounding ignorance (or outright contempt of UVA) yet again in declaring UVA the 5th seed behind Coastal Carolina. Here's the man hisself, 'splaining hisself:

There is very little difference between the teams among the top 8 national seeds. Each of these teams has achieved a high level of success during the year and making distinctions between them is incredibly difficult. Ultimately, the committee makes secret ballot votes to rank teams based on a variety of factors (e.g., RPI, regular season championship, conference championship, non-conference performance, etc.) to seed these elite teams. Note, however, that the committee does not consider coaches polls or media polls as a factor in their decision making.

OK, RPI is a factor, yes, yes: Coastal is somehow higher despite playing in a one-bid league instead of an eight-bid league. Of course, UVA is higher than 3rd-seeded Florida, but whatever. Regular season championship: well, both Coastal and UVA have this in hand, as does Florida. I'd like to think that the ACC outweighs the Big South in the committee's minds, but apparently not. Conference championship: Coastal has this, but again - Big South. Non-conference performance. Well, Coastal did pretty well, except for one little hiccup. They did schedule better teams than we did for the most part, but we did actually schedule them, after all, and it's hard to get the committee to count our fall scrimmage series.

Assuming for a minute that there's absolutely no regional bias in the committee and they are purely robots assessing the raw data in front of them, the only conclusion is that the committee considers every conference equal for the purposes of winning conference championships (after all, Florida, which is not the SEC champion, is seeded higher than Coastal.) They also appear to weight non-conference schedule - not performance, mind you, and especially not head-to-head results, just schedule - higher than any other factor. Coastal plays an OOC schedule heavy on the tournament hopefuls to make up for the fact that they play in a conference that sucks donkey balls. We do the opposite. Out of 58 games we've played, a majority of them are ACC games, so you'd think this would carry some weight. It does not.

Fortunately, this is nothing like being shipped to bloody damn California. Given the regional we got handed, it's not really a screwjob, just an obnoxious insult. Tomorrow, you get a breakdown of the regional, which includes Friday's opponent VCU, St. John's as the three-seed, and Ole Miss, which totes a trailer-load of story lines into Charlottesville this weekend. You might remember them from last year. If you don't, don't worry about it - they haven't forgotten us.

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Let's end on a high note. Would a national championship suffice? Rowing is not the highest-profile sport in existence, but hey, they all count the same when you're adding up NCAA titles. Muchos felicitaciones to the ladies of the rowing team, who brought home UVA's second national title this season, placing their trophy next to the one for soccer in the ever-burgeoning trophy case. This is a team with a small but special corner of appreciation on this blog, as the crew team is the only one at UVA whose roster also includes graduates of my high school alma mater as well. High praise is in order for the lady rowers, and especially GP South Blue Devils Caroline Sweeny and Lauren Shook, both of whom rowed for the Second Varsity 8 at the NCAA championships. Many huzzahs.

hair of the dog for your championship celebration hangover

It struck me sometime after the game yesterday that that is the sort of game which perfectly displays two things:

1) why America doesn't dig on soccer like the rest of the world does
2) why the rest of the world does

The rest of the world has given us a game where you can run up and down the field for 110 minutes, kicking a ball around, and not ever achieve the one solitary mission of the exercise. This doesn't jive with a country that loves a sport where failure to score once a minute results in a low-scoring borefest. It shouldn't come as much surprise, then, that the NCAA soccer finals are held in a not-even-close-to-full "soccer park" that seats 7,000, and the lacrosse finals are in a 68,000-seat NFL glitzpalace. A matchup between the #3 and #4 defenses in history doesn't promise fireworks.

Well, America's missing out. There's nothing like the knowledge that one solitary mistake means your doom to put your heart in your throat for two and a half hours. The confluence of historically proficient defenses puts historical pressure on those defenses, and you and I the spectators spend the whole time going "Yes...yes...NO NO, STOP THAT....ok phew...get that get that GET THAT, SHOOT DAMMIT ARGH...don't let him....aw what are you doing???....someone PLEASE NOOOO oh thank god agh don't ever do that to me again.....now get the ball NO NOT THAT WAY JUST %&$#ING KICK IT! great another corner please just grab the ball this time." At least, that was me. I don't know, maybe you have the ability to sit there in stone silence every time the ball gets close to one goal or another.

So it's a shame that America missed that one. If this was another sport, it'd have been an instant classic, no doubt. You've got the #1 and #2 seeds, two of the best defenses that ever existed, and one team looking for undefeated immortality. And then they beat the hell out of each other in the driving rain and play a game as tightly contested as it's possible to be, all the way through to the Hollywood finish.

Well, not quite Hollywood. There's no way Hollywood would have drawn up the finish quite exactly the way it was. Championships are won many ways, but not by moonshot penalty kicks that end up in the parking lot. There has got to be a less cruel way to write that story. It's not that I enjoy this title less because we won on their miss and not our score, it's just that I would have saved that particular ending for someone I hated more. Way more. I don't think I've ever seen a more miserable picture of defeat than that Akron team; when the kangaroo mascot is out pulling condolences duty, you know it's bad. And it's too bad because they were laying their guts on the line for 110+ minutes and generally acting like the dictionary definition of "worthy opponent." Sometimes the schadenfreude of seeing the other guy lose is included in the joy of winning. Not so, here.

But a national title is a national title, after all. After we managed to make a big dent in the ACC tournament last year despite losing everyone who'd ever scored us a goal to injury, I expected bigger things this season. And then we lost all our exhibition games, and left our goal-scoring mojo on the tarmac in Portland after the season-opening tournament, and tied Liberty, and things looked bleak and all underachievey and I realized I had absolutely no way to figure out for myself what was going wrong because nobody televises soccer games, and all in all it was frustrating. Trophies fix everything. And after the party is over, there's still the fun times of checking out where that trophy puts you in the historical picture. I'd go over it, but it's already been done better than I would have, so just you click on that if you want some interesting numbers. The cliffnotes version is that we're now just one shy of Indiana, which doesn't seem to think it's in line for another title any time soon as they recently fired their coach.

Babblings in bullet format follow:

- If there's one guy to feel really, really happy for, it's Sean Hiller. Guy spends the bulk of the season plastered to the bench, gets basically some garbage time in the tournament and zero minutes in Cary, and then gets called on for the penalty kick - which turns out to be the winner. Gelnovatch has balls the size of grapefruits for putting a guy cold into the national title game like that just because he scores 'em in practice. Gotta appreciate a coach who has confidence in his whole roster and shows it.

- I toyed around with the idea of suggesting in the game preview that, after playing a pretty tame, clean game against Wake, we'd change gears against Akron and try and rough it up a little bit. They hadn't faced a lot of adversity all season - you know, close games, high-pressure opponents (the MAC tournament is a joke) - that sort of thing. Maybe give them something to think about as the game goes on. I couldn't think of a good reason why that would be something we'd do - just a gut feeling - so I left it out. Five yellow cards and 32 fouls later, my gut thinks my brain is stupid. I would say we deserved the 22 fouls called on us - if some were chintzy, others were missed, so it evens out - but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe, you know, the ref would please consider calling a few on Akron too? Their official final count was 10; let's just say I respectfully disagree with such a low number.

- You know what I never said to myself or the TV during either of the two games this weekend? "Dammit, Volk." I think I swore under my breath at least once at every other player on the team for something - bad pass, missed opportunity on account of too much dicking around, crappy clear, whatever - except Mike Volk. The reason Gelnovatch's way-defensive philosophy works is because of the rock-solid Mike Volks of the world.

- Another guy that I thought played a pretty solid game was Neil Barlow. Couldn't see it on the scoresheet, obviously, because there's nothing to see there at all, but Barlow impressed.

- A friend of mine at work watched the Akron-UNC replay on Saturday and asked me if this soccer tournament wasn't really just an ACC party that we let somebody crash out of generosity. Well, yeah, it sort of tends to be that way. It's been six years since the last time a College Cup was held without at least two ACC teams. Even the field said ACC on it, as much as they tried to clean it off.

- Wooooooo!

Akron video

Normally I just procrastinate on this stuff, but a national championship calls for same-day delivery. (I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's still Sunday as far as I'm concerned. Get off me.) The videos page, therefore, is updated with sweet sweet national title goodness. Go watch. It's the first soccer highlight video I've even had a chance to make, but I'm way happy with how it turned out. If I do say so myself.

And yes, eventually, the semifinal against Wake will be posted too. But that probably won't be til after Christmas. Way things go.

NATIONAL CHAMPS!