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.
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-- 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.
Showing posts with label werman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label werman. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
weekend review
Sunday's baseball game was a marathon producing a very disappointing result. But never mind that. It was a good weekend because it's always a good weekend when we beat Maryland, which doesn't lose to Virginia, except for most of the time. So yes, lacrosse is this week's top subject of conversation.
UVA looked great at either end of the game and not so good in the middle. And I think I know why: they didn't listen when I said "patience" and then they did. You might've noticed by now that this team is really good at finding open guys five feet from the net, because Steele Stanwick is good at finding open guys five feet from the net and Chris Bocklet is really good at being that open guy. Sometimes these goals they score are just, things of beauty.
But sometimes they try and force the beauty into ugly spots. And that's where the turnovers happen. The defense isn't always screwed-up and out of position, and when the defense is nice and tight around the net, you can't force passes in there no matter your talent level. Regardless, they try, sometimes, and that's one reason we lost the Hopkins game and why Maryland was up two goals midway through the third on Saturday.
That said, excluded from the forcing-it category is Stanwick's twisting, falling-down, double-teamed goal in the fourth, which is the kind of play that sticks in the mind of a Tewaaraton voter when it's time to fill out the ballot. Oh yes, he's in the running again, there's no doubt about that. Colgate's Peter Baum already has 42 goals and could finish the season with 60-some, but Colgate has to make the tourney - as we've seen, the voters care about your postseason exploits. Stanwick leads the country in assists with 33 and has 14 goals as well, which lands him fourth in the country in PPG. If Stanwick won, he'd be the first men's recipient to win the award two years in a row; Cuse's Mike Powell was the first to win two but sandwiched in between was our own Chris Rotelli.
Folks are also saying the fourth-quarter run was precipitated by inserting Matt White into the lineup and that hopefully it means White will get more playing time in favor of Owen Van Arsdale, whose hot start has cooled considerably. And yeah they're not wrong, but then again White has started all ten games. It's not like he's not out there. He's just playing midfield, when his natural spot is really attack. If you want a real suggestion: Move White to attack, OVA to the bench, and put Ryan Tucker on the first-line midfield. Tucker's got a gun. So does Rob Emery, and they'll be playing together in next year's midfield so might as well get them some quality time on the same field.
Next week is North Carolina, who I was rooting for last night against Hopkins so they'd be all fat, happy, and content this coming Saturday. Two weeks from now is Duke, and then the ACC tourney, and by the way here are your tourney scenarios now that we've gotten past Maryland:
-- Beat both UNC and Duke: #1 seed (which would be appropriate and correct as we are the hosts), play either UNC or Duke, I don't know what the tiebreakers are past goal differential and those two teams would be #3 and #4 in some order.
-- Beat UNC, lose to Duke: #2 seed, play Carolina, which beat Maryland and would earn the tiebreaker over them.
-- Lose to UNC, beat Duke: #2 seed, play Maryland, who beat Duke and so would be the #3 seed.
-- Lose both games: #3 seed, play Carolina, who lost to Duke and so would be the #2 seed.
**********************************************************
So baseball also happened. What else happened is that UVA fans are officially going to sweat any lead in the late innings that's smaller than seven runs. After taking a 3-0 lead on Sunday, the Hoos gradually pissed away the whole thing until they were down 5-3; a ninth-inning comeback made it 6-5, and then, one half-inning away from finally winning a series in Raleigh, UVA did not even register one out en route to handing the game back to the Wolfpack. (OK, technically, they did. It was a sacrifice bunt. It's not like the pitching actually caused that to happen.)
I think it proved me rather prophetic, actually; these two teams are so closely matched it's unreal. It just so happens NC State has a better bullpen. As do most teams these days, unfortunately.
The best game - and not just because we won it - was definitely Saturday's, where the teams' two actual best pitchers matched up. Carlos Rodon is gonna be scary. He's scary now. And Branden Kline matched up pitch for pitch, except for a couple mistakes that ended up in the trees. It was the State bullpen that collapsed on Saturday; they were handed a tie game after a lightning delay forced out the starters, and UVA came through.
Friday was really only notable for Brian O'Connor's ejection, which was a surprise because BOC always brings his indoor voice to umpire arguments. It started off that way on Friday, too, until a button was pushed someway, somehow, and O'Connor went all Earl Weaver on the guy, except for the dust-kicking. If it was an effort to fire up the team, it didn't work, but I haven't gotten the impression BOC is the kind of guy to resort to that kind of trick. I think the umpire said something he didn't like.
So I had yet to see that happen, until this weekend, and I got to see something else I hadn't yet seen with my own eyes: Keith Werman behind the plate. He's got kind of a Peter Rowen thing going on:
He's also a pretty natural-looking catcher (except for the build), although I didn't see his basestealer-nabbing skills. NC State didn't run on him. (They scurred.)
Next week is a home series against Wake Forest, which is a halfway decent team. Even so, we should be disappointed with anything less than a series win. No moral victories there.
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In the world of basketball, it's a dead period right now until Thursday, so no contacting recruits, which also means no contacting all those potential transfers we're trying to bring in. T.J. McConnell, formerly of Duquesne, is officially down to either Arizona or UVA, and will check out Tucson pretty soon. The downside: McConnell's family supposedly knows Arizona's coach Sean Miller from small times. The plus side: Arizona is located in Tucson.
McConnell would be a prize catch. Another possibility: Rice transfer Dylan Ennis, who made the CUSA all-freshman team. In the big-man theater, Anthony Gill will request his release** (or has done so) from South Carolina, and this is obviously a thing because of this line from his official bio at South Carolina: "Choose (sic) South Carolina over Virginia and Wake Forest."
**Pay no attention to the line about tampering; it's a throwin by a pissed-off SC fan angry that we might take one of their best players.
Edit: RRRGGHHHH DAMMMMITTT I completely forgot to even mention this, which is loooonnngg overdue.
UVA looked great at either end of the game and not so good in the middle. And I think I know why: they didn't listen when I said "patience" and then they did. You might've noticed by now that this team is really good at finding open guys five feet from the net, because Steele Stanwick is good at finding open guys five feet from the net and Chris Bocklet is really good at being that open guy. Sometimes these goals they score are just, things of beauty.
But sometimes they try and force the beauty into ugly spots. And that's where the turnovers happen. The defense isn't always screwed-up and out of position, and when the defense is nice and tight around the net, you can't force passes in there no matter your talent level. Regardless, they try, sometimes, and that's one reason we lost the Hopkins game and why Maryland was up two goals midway through the third on Saturday.
That said, excluded from the forcing-it category is Stanwick's twisting, falling-down, double-teamed goal in the fourth, which is the kind of play that sticks in the mind of a Tewaaraton voter when it's time to fill out the ballot. Oh yes, he's in the running again, there's no doubt about that. Colgate's Peter Baum already has 42 goals and could finish the season with 60-some, but Colgate has to make the tourney - as we've seen, the voters care about your postseason exploits. Stanwick leads the country in assists with 33 and has 14 goals as well, which lands him fourth in the country in PPG. If Stanwick won, he'd be the first men's recipient to win the award two years in a row; Cuse's Mike Powell was the first to win two but sandwiched in between was our own Chris Rotelli.
Folks are also saying the fourth-quarter run was precipitated by inserting Matt White into the lineup and that hopefully it means White will get more playing time in favor of Owen Van Arsdale, whose hot start has cooled considerably. And yeah they're not wrong, but then again White has started all ten games. It's not like he's not out there. He's just playing midfield, when his natural spot is really attack. If you want a real suggestion: Move White to attack, OVA to the bench, and put Ryan Tucker on the first-line midfield. Tucker's got a gun. So does Rob Emery, and they'll be playing together in next year's midfield so might as well get them some quality time on the same field.
Next week is North Carolina, who I was rooting for last night against Hopkins so they'd be all fat, happy, and content this coming Saturday. Two weeks from now is Duke, and then the ACC tourney, and by the way here are your tourney scenarios now that we've gotten past Maryland:
-- Beat both UNC and Duke: #1 seed (which would be appropriate and correct as we are the hosts), play either UNC or Duke, I don't know what the tiebreakers are past goal differential and those two teams would be #3 and #4 in some order.
-- Beat UNC, lose to Duke: #2 seed, play Carolina, which beat Maryland and would earn the tiebreaker over them.
-- Lose to UNC, beat Duke: #2 seed, play Maryland, who beat Duke and so would be the #3 seed.
-- Lose both games: #3 seed, play Carolina, who lost to Duke and so would be the #2 seed.
**********************************************************
So baseball also happened. What else happened is that UVA fans are officially going to sweat any lead in the late innings that's smaller than seven runs. After taking a 3-0 lead on Sunday, the Hoos gradually pissed away the whole thing until they were down 5-3; a ninth-inning comeback made it 6-5, and then, one half-inning away from finally winning a series in Raleigh, UVA did not even register one out en route to handing the game back to the Wolfpack. (OK, technically, they did. It was a sacrifice bunt. It's not like the pitching actually caused that to happen.)
I think it proved me rather prophetic, actually; these two teams are so closely matched it's unreal. It just so happens NC State has a better bullpen. As do most teams these days, unfortunately.
The best game - and not just because we won it - was definitely Saturday's, where the teams' two actual best pitchers matched up. Carlos Rodon is gonna be scary. He's scary now. And Branden Kline matched up pitch for pitch, except for a couple mistakes that ended up in the trees. It was the State bullpen that collapsed on Saturday; they were handed a tie game after a lightning delay forced out the starters, and UVA came through.
Friday was really only notable for Brian O'Connor's ejection, which was a surprise because BOC always brings his indoor voice to umpire arguments. It started off that way on Friday, too, until a button was pushed someway, somehow, and O'Connor went all Earl Weaver on the guy, except for the dust-kicking. If it was an effort to fire up the team, it didn't work, but I haven't gotten the impression BOC is the kind of guy to resort to that kind of trick. I think the umpire said something he didn't like.
So I had yet to see that happen, until this weekend, and I got to see something else I hadn't yet seen with my own eyes: Keith Werman behind the plate. He's got kind of a Peter Rowen thing going on:
He's also a pretty natural-looking catcher (except for the build), although I didn't see his basestealer-nabbing skills. NC State didn't run on him. (They scurred.)
Next week is a home series against Wake Forest, which is a halfway decent team. Even so, we should be disappointed with anything less than a series win. No moral victories there.
**********************************************************
In the world of basketball, it's a dead period right now until Thursday, so no contacting recruits, which also means no contacting all those potential transfers we're trying to bring in. T.J. McConnell, formerly of Duquesne, is officially down to either Arizona or UVA, and will check out Tucson pretty soon. The downside: McConnell's family supposedly knows Arizona's coach Sean Miller from small times. The plus side: Arizona is located in Tucson.
McConnell would be a prize catch. Another possibility: Rice transfer Dylan Ennis, who made the CUSA all-freshman team. In the big-man theater, Anthony Gill will request his release** (or has done so) from South Carolina, and this is obviously a thing because of this line from his official bio at South Carolina: "Choose (sic) South Carolina over Virginia and Wake Forest."
**Pay no attention to the line about tampering; it's a throwin by a pissed-off SC fan angry that we might take one of their best players.
Edit: RRRGGHHHH DAMMMMITTT I completely forgot to even mention this, which is loooonnngg overdue.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
series preview: NC State
Date/Time: Fri-Sun, 3/30 - 4/1/12; 6:30, 6:30, 1:00
TV: ESPN3
Record against the Pack: 68-120-1
Last matchup: UVA won 2-1 (12-1, 2-6, 3-1); 4/23-4/24/11; Charlottesville
Last game: UVA 19, Towson 5 (3/28); NCSt. 4, ECU 3 (3/28)
Last weekend: UVA 3-0 over Clemson; UNC 2-1 over NCSt.
National rankings:
Baseball America: UVA unranked; NC State #20
Collegiate Baseball: UVA unranked; NC State #9
NCBWA: UVA #26, NC State #27
Perfect Game: UVA #47; NC State #19
Coaches: UVA unranked; NC State #22
Composite: UVA unranked; NC State #18
Opposing blogs: none really where you'll find any baseball info
NC State lineup:
C: Brett Austin (.318-0-16)
1B: Andrew Ciencin (.238-4-18)
2B: Matt Bergquist (.222-0-10)
3B: Trea Turner (.292-1-14)
SS: Chris Diaz (.372-1-26)
LF: Tarran Senay (.310-0-10)
CF: Jake Fincher (.236-0-9)
RF: Ryan Mathews (.329-4-16)
DH: Danny Canela (.282-1-12)
Pitching probables:
Friday: LHP Scott Silverstein (2-2, 2.10, 31 Ks) vs. RHP Ethan Ogburn (2-1, 1.73, 26 Ks)
Saturday: RHP Branden Kline (4-2, 3.10, 35 Ks) vs. LHP Carlos Rodon (4-0, 1.30, 47 Ks)
Sunday: RHP Artie Lewicki (1-1, 4.50, 21 Ks) vs. RHP Logan Jernigan (3-1, 4.03, 28 Ks)
We're pretty sure that teams like FSU, UNC, and Miami will finish ahead of the Hoos in the ACC standings. And we're pretty sure that teams like Wake Forest and Clemson, and maybe even GT, will finish behind. NC State is another story. There are better teams in the conference, but there aren't any bigger series than this one; the Wolfpack, fueled by a stellar recruiting class, are no longer a pest hovering in the bottom ranges of the ACC tournament. They were once capable of delivering the occasional surprise and little more; now they're a legit threat to win the whole thing. There is nothing better that UVA can do for its ACC tournament positioning than to go down to Raleigh and steal a series.
-- UVA at the plate
In the season preview I suggested (OK, more than suggested - outright averred) that NC State didn't have the pitching to be a threat in the ACC. Whoops. The Pack have an excellent Friday-Saturday combo in Ethan Ogburn - whose hurling is leaps and bounds ahead of previous years - and superfrosh Carlos Rodon. Rodon was a 16th-round pick last summer and would've gone higher but for signability issues, as he was well set on college. He was the prize of NC State's freshman class, and could very well be the staff ace by the end of the year; Rodon is allowing a .216 BA and striking out more than 10 per nine innings.
Ogburn's been no slouch either this year; his 1.73 ERA is almost four runs better than it was last year. There's a question about Sunday, where Logan Jernigan will get the ball, but doesn't have a strong grip on the job. Jernigan was knocked around last week by the Tar Heels and pulled in the 3rd inning. That said, Jernigan's allowed all of seven hits this year, in 22 1/3 innings, for an opponents' BA of .092. It's his walks - 18 of them - that have gotten him in trouble.
State's bullpen is pretty much outstanding too; it's very deep, and altogether, this staff leads the conference in a few pitching categories, notably opponents' BA, which is .213 overall. Are you gathering a theme here? That it's kind of tough to get a hit off these guys? They give up fewer than seven per game.
So it's the top-hitting team in the conference (UVA is hitting .324) vs. the stingiest pitching staff. In particular, Derek Fisher and Keith Werman have been on a tear lately. UVA will also have Reed Gragnani back after he missed last weekend with a minor leg injury, but Mitchell Shifflett is hitting well enough that Gragnani may have to fight Colin Harrington for a left field gig. (Not to mention, having Shifflett's wheels in the 8th spot ahead of Werman in the 9 hole makes for some interesting possibilities to make a defense sweat.) Gragnani, as a switch-hitter, might also end up in a super-sub role going forward. Guess we'll see.
At any rate, this is a weekend where we'll have to make every opportunity count. If UVA can string a few hits together in one inning, things might look good; NC State, however, is equally likely to scatter them and leave us with not much to work with. Could be interesting.
-- UVA in the field
Whit Mayberry didn't pitch at all against Towson this week, so I'm guessing he won't be available, even out of the pen, this weekend. Artie Lewicki is listed as the Sunday starter, of course. I don't expect Mayberry to be available on any weekend until he gets a little test drive in on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
So that thins out the pen a little, again. It'll be the same order as last weekend. They'll go against a respectable, if not quite fearsome, Wolfpack lineup. NC State starts three freshmen, beginning with leadoff hitter Trea Turner, a speed demon who's a perfect 25-for-25 on stolen base attempts. In other words, if he gets to first base, chances are about 2 in 3 that he'll get to second on his own. (It wouldn't surprise me if the only reason he doesn't go for second is because it's occupied. It's basically safe to assume that he will steal.)
So you've really got to keep Turner off the basepaths. The guaranteed steal puts a lot of pressure on the defense. NC State used to be something of a swing-for-the-fences kind of team, but they don't hit a lot of homers these days, and neither do they walk or strike out much. They'll make your fielders work, though they're not all that big on sacrifice bunting - at least not at Brian O'Connor levels.
There isn't a one-man-show in the lineup that hits for power and average, but they do have hitters. Chris Diaz is batting .372, generally from fifth in the order; Diaz only has one homer but does have good doubles power. If they could get Andrew Ciencin to hit better than .238, they might have a monster on their hands, but Ciencin - who hits from the three-hole thanks to his home-run power - has never been a guy to hit for average. Ryan Mathews is a solid all-around hitter, but almost never walks. Freshman catcher Brett Austin is the lineup's only switch-hitter. The bottom of the order will generally not be frightening, as Jake Fincher and Matt Bergquist are in for their defense. (Fincher, though, is the second-best base-stealing threat, on the rare occasion that he does get on base.)
Let's get back to base-stealing for a second. Turner is 25-for-25, but the rest of the team, minus his efforts, is also excellent. NC State minus Turner is 22-for-28, still a better percentage than UVA's 42-for-59 as a team. This will be a real test for Nate Irving, especially on Friday because Scott Silverstein has the worst lefty pickoff move ever.
Ultimately this is a good, not great, team at the plate. NC State doesn't have championship-level hitting, but they're solid. Keep Trea Turner the hell off the basepaths and you've taken the most important step. I don't worry too much about the bottom of the lineup, and the fact that they insist on batting a .238 hitter in the three spot is a bonus for opposing pitchers (and a waste of Turner's talents.) But by and large there aren't many slouches either, so the UVA pitching staff needs to pitch well, and it'd be impressive to limit the Pack the way they did Clemson last weekend.
-- Outlook
This is a huge series. So I wish I were more confident for it. If we can pull off a series win here it would be huge for the rest of the season, because the Pack are probably going to play right at our level or better all spring. Being on the road sucks, though, and State's pitching staff worries me. A sweep by either team would be a big surprise, but it would be the only surprise. A 2-1 series either way is almost guaranteed here, the teams are so closely matched. If you held a gun to my head, I'd pick NC State to take two, but I wouldn't have any confidence in the pick, either. I expect all three games to hinge on just a couple plays here and there and be almighty close.
Monday, March 19, 2012
weekend review
I was thinking of just posting a big picture of a fart, and that would've summed up my feelings about the weekend very nicely thank you, but maybe that would've been a cop out. If we're going to puff out our chests like we usually get to do on spring weekends, we gotta face the music when things go badly.
I don't need to break down the basketball, though. It's obvious to anyone what happened there: the basketball gods decided it wasn't going to happen, and that was that, and that decision was probably made back in February. There's no other way to explain the freak series of injuries that hit this team; I don't know who suffered more broken bones, UVA or the rest of the country, but either way it's close. The fates were not aligned for UVA this month, in everything from the actual on-floor competition to the race for accolades. It is not our month when Bernard James kicks Joe Harris ON HIS BROKEN HAND and James is the one who garners media sympathy.
(This is the section you should only read if you like throwing up in your mouth and having your screw-you-o-meter pegged, but Carolina fans are amusingly broken up over Kendall Marshall's injury. As if North Carolina is the team getting all the rotten luck this year. I hope it's a year's worth of rotten luck that's just beginning. Kendall Marshall doesn't specifically deserve to get hurt, but Carolina fans deserve to watch it happen, and if Creighton was going after John Henson, so much the better; Henson is a douchecanoe. I hope some Ohio Bobcat comes out next weekend with a sledgehammer painted with the words "John Henson's Wrist." Then maybe he'll learn the difference between a foul and a "foul." If Creighton was hammering the Tar Heel players all game, it's probably because they assumed they'd be called for a foul whether they did or not, like certain other Carolina opponents, so they might as well get their money's worth. What, me still bitter over that game at the JPJ? Noooooo.)
I'd like to offer some kind of appraisal as to what the team will look like next year and how it will fare, but I just have no idea. Here's what we lose:
- Mike Scott
- Sammy Zeglinski
- Mike Scott
- the ghost of Assane Sene
- Mike Scott
And here's the arriving cavalry:
- Teven Jones
- Evan Nolte
- Justin Anderson
- Mike Tobey
- Malcolm Brogdon's foot
- Joe Harris's left hand
A nominal starting lineup would be Evans, Brogdon, Harris, Mitchell, and Tobey. Maybe. It'll be a weirdly put-together team. A lot of tweener types, and quite a few who fit the mold of a 3 and not enough that fit the mold of a 2 or a 4. No bigs whatsoever besides Tobey, so it's sink or swim with him - hope his defense is up to Tony Bennett's standards or we'll never put anyone out there taller than 6'8". Defending opposing bigs will be a question of hoping Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins are up to the task, or else relying on a freshman who needs to become best friends with the weight room.
********************************************************
Baseball isn't having a great weekend either, and it ain't over yet. Two losses to Florida State mean that tonight is the last chance to salvage anything from the series. It was the world's first chance to get a glimpse of UVA baseball without buying a ticket to Davenport Field, and what they saw didn't impress.
Saturday's and Sunday's games were full of the kind of mistakes that set coaches' blood on fire. Mainly Saturday. The games were lost because of 1) the mistakes and 2) FSU pouncing ruthlessly on the opportunities because they're a top-ten team and that's what top-ten teams do. Sunday's story was a fantastic outing by Branden Kline - who returned to the starting rotation after a weekend off it - wasted by one bad inning of walks and HBPs. And pitching coach Karl Kuhn was probably already blowing a stack after the four HBPs (and seven walks) issued on Saturday. The next poor pitcher that plunks a Seminole batter probably rides the plane back to Charlottesville tied to a wing.
Pile that on top of the bad fielding effort and poor approach at the plate (FSU reliever Hunter Scantling threw about forty sliders and yet our batters continually looked surprised to see the slider....though it is a little strange to see a huge, hulking pitcher big enough to play defensive end for the Raiders pitching like Jamie Moyer.) Nate Irving probably also came in for a little slice of the coaches' wrath for two lazy efforts resulting in passed balls. Freshman catcher : baseball :: freshman point guard : basketball. He'll learn.
Perhaps most troubling: a commenter's suggestion that Chris Taylor might need to be moved off of shortstop. Taylor is a veteran player and the Hero of Irvine, but.... man, eight errors is kind of hard to argue with. He's also 2-for-19 in ACC play. (.253 on the season, but he's been padding his stats against JMU and Marist.) Might it be a better lineup to have Stephen Bruno at short and Reed Gragnani at third, with Colin Harrington and Mitchell Shifflett in the outfield? Maybe, but if that's even on Brian O'Connor's mind, it won't happen for a couple more weeks. A possible shorter-term solution: move Taylor to second and Keith Werman to short.
Still, O'Connor is not a knee-jerk type. Patience is a hallmark of his, if you've earned it. (Which Taylor has.) He's not stubborn either, but he'll probably always be much slower to make a move than fans will be to suggest it. Will Roberts tossed a perfect game last year and it still took two more weekends before he was moved to Sundays.
Tonight, Whit Mayberry takes the mound, and we'll see if the Hoos can put together nine innings and salvage a game in Tallahassee. Heck, I'd settle for innings that don't take five minutes to get through our half and twenty to get through theirs.
********************************************************
Thank God for lacrosse, and we almost weren't even able to say that, as the team fell behind 6-1 to Ohio State after the first quarter. Fortunately, the next three quarters were 10-3, Good Guys. Ohio State is in the rearview mirror, hopefully permanently; the Buckeyes play the kind of stalloriffic brand of lacrosse that makes people think a shot clock is a good idea. It's fairly hideous. According to people who were there (the only way to see the game otherwise was to fork money over to Ohio State, which I wasn't going to do) OSU went into stall mode in the second quarter, hoping to milk their five-lead for three-fourths of the game. They did this to Denver, too, causing notorious stallmaster Bill Tierney to whine about stalling.
There's no need to play teams like that, honestly. Buckeye fans are getting a little tired of a coach that hasn't been able to get OSU over the hump, so maybe that particular brand of lacrosse isn't long for Columbus, Ohio, but if UVA is going to make trips out to the Midwest, how about making Ann Arbor the next destination? Or, replace the OSU home-and-home we just finished up with one with, say, Georgetown - a much more local destination and, to my mind, a more interesting game.
Next week is a game that I think will determine the #1 seed in the tournament: Johns Hopkins. My favorite rivalry game in any sport not involving an ACC team. (I still think that once Syracuse becomes the ACC's fifth team, the conference should make an exception to its all-or-nothing policy and see if perhaps Hopkins is interested in making it six, for lax only. They probably wouldn't be, but it'd be worth a try.)
I don't need to break down the basketball, though. It's obvious to anyone what happened there: the basketball gods decided it wasn't going to happen, and that was that, and that decision was probably made back in February. There's no other way to explain the freak series of injuries that hit this team; I don't know who suffered more broken bones, UVA or the rest of the country, but either way it's close. The fates were not aligned for UVA this month, in everything from the actual on-floor competition to the race for accolades. It is not our month when Bernard James kicks Joe Harris ON HIS BROKEN HAND and James is the one who garners media sympathy.
(This is the section you should only read if you like throwing up in your mouth and having your screw-you-o-meter pegged, but Carolina fans are amusingly broken up over Kendall Marshall's injury. As if North Carolina is the team getting all the rotten luck this year. I hope it's a year's worth of rotten luck that's just beginning. Kendall Marshall doesn't specifically deserve to get hurt, but Carolina fans deserve to watch it happen, and if Creighton was going after John Henson, so much the better; Henson is a douchecanoe. I hope some Ohio Bobcat comes out next weekend with a sledgehammer painted with the words "John Henson's Wrist." Then maybe he'll learn the difference between a foul and a "foul." If Creighton was hammering the Tar Heel players all game, it's probably because they assumed they'd be called for a foul whether they did or not, like certain other Carolina opponents, so they might as well get their money's worth. What, me still bitter over that game at the JPJ? Noooooo.)
I'd like to offer some kind of appraisal as to what the team will look like next year and how it will fare, but I just have no idea. Here's what we lose:
- Mike Scott
- Sammy Zeglinski
- Mike Scott
- the ghost of Assane Sene
- Mike Scott
And here's the arriving cavalry:
- Teven Jones
- Evan Nolte
- Justin Anderson
- Mike Tobey
- Malcolm Brogdon's foot
- Joe Harris's left hand
A nominal starting lineup would be Evans, Brogdon, Harris, Mitchell, and Tobey. Maybe. It'll be a weirdly put-together team. A lot of tweener types, and quite a few who fit the mold of a 3 and not enough that fit the mold of a 2 or a 4. No bigs whatsoever besides Tobey, so it's sink or swim with him - hope his defense is up to Tony Bennett's standards or we'll never put anyone out there taller than 6'8". Defending opposing bigs will be a question of hoping Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins are up to the task, or else relying on a freshman who needs to become best friends with the weight room.
********************************************************
Baseball isn't having a great weekend either, and it ain't over yet. Two losses to Florida State mean that tonight is the last chance to salvage anything from the series. It was the world's first chance to get a glimpse of UVA baseball without buying a ticket to Davenport Field, and what they saw didn't impress.
Saturday's and Sunday's games were full of the kind of mistakes that set coaches' blood on fire. Mainly Saturday. The games were lost because of 1) the mistakes and 2) FSU pouncing ruthlessly on the opportunities because they're a top-ten team and that's what top-ten teams do. Sunday's story was a fantastic outing by Branden Kline - who returned to the starting rotation after a weekend off it - wasted by one bad inning of walks and HBPs. And pitching coach Karl Kuhn was probably already blowing a stack after the four HBPs (and seven walks) issued on Saturday. The next poor pitcher that plunks a Seminole batter probably rides the plane back to Charlottesville tied to a wing.
Pile that on top of the bad fielding effort and poor approach at the plate (FSU reliever Hunter Scantling threw about forty sliders and yet our batters continually looked surprised to see the slider....though it is a little strange to see a huge, hulking pitcher big enough to play defensive end for the Raiders pitching like Jamie Moyer.) Nate Irving probably also came in for a little slice of the coaches' wrath for two lazy efforts resulting in passed balls. Freshman catcher : baseball :: freshman point guard : basketball. He'll learn.
Perhaps most troubling: a commenter's suggestion that Chris Taylor might need to be moved off of shortstop. Taylor is a veteran player and the Hero of Irvine, but.... man, eight errors is kind of hard to argue with. He's also 2-for-19 in ACC play. (.253 on the season, but he's been padding his stats against JMU and Marist.) Might it be a better lineup to have Stephen Bruno at short and Reed Gragnani at third, with Colin Harrington and Mitchell Shifflett in the outfield? Maybe, but if that's even on Brian O'Connor's mind, it won't happen for a couple more weeks. A possible shorter-term solution: move Taylor to second and Keith Werman to short.
Still, O'Connor is not a knee-jerk type. Patience is a hallmark of his, if you've earned it. (Which Taylor has.) He's not stubborn either, but he'll probably always be much slower to make a move than fans will be to suggest it. Will Roberts tossed a perfect game last year and it still took two more weekends before he was moved to Sundays.
Tonight, Whit Mayberry takes the mound, and we'll see if the Hoos can put together nine innings and salvage a game in Tallahassee. Heck, I'd settle for innings that don't take five minutes to get through our half and twenty to get through theirs.
********************************************************
Thank God for lacrosse, and we almost weren't even able to say that, as the team fell behind 6-1 to Ohio State after the first quarter. Fortunately, the next three quarters were 10-3, Good Guys. Ohio State is in the rearview mirror, hopefully permanently; the Buckeyes play the kind of stalloriffic brand of lacrosse that makes people think a shot clock is a good idea. It's fairly hideous. According to people who were there (the only way to see the game otherwise was to fork money over to Ohio State, which I wasn't going to do) OSU went into stall mode in the second quarter, hoping to milk their five-lead for three-fourths of the game. They did this to Denver, too, causing notorious stallmaster Bill Tierney to whine about stalling.
There's no need to play teams like that, honestly. Buckeye fans are getting a little tired of a coach that hasn't been able to get OSU over the hump, so maybe that particular brand of lacrosse isn't long for Columbus, Ohio, but if UVA is going to make trips out to the Midwest, how about making Ann Arbor the next destination? Or, replace the OSU home-and-home we just finished up with one with, say, Georgetown - a much more local destination and, to my mind, a more interesting game.
Next week is a game that I think will determine the #1 seed in the tournament: Johns Hopkins. My favorite rivalry game in any sport not involving an ACC team. (I still think that once Syracuse becomes the ACC's fifth team, the conference should make an exception to its all-or-nothing policy and see if perhaps Hopkins is interested in making it six, for lax only. They probably wouldn't be, but it'd be worth a try.)
Monday, January 30, 2012
untracked is not a word
However, announcers would be using it right now to describe the state of affairs of UVA basketball, and the next time I see one (which will be the first) I'm gonna ask how they'd like to ride a train that got untracked.
Regardless, we know what they mean: things are going the way you want them to. I do not subscribe to the theory that the Boston College game "was closer than the final score." You may describe a game like that if it's close at the end and then we hit a whole bunch of free throws brought on by clock-stopping fouls. When you go on a 22-5 run to seal it up and it's five instead of three only because BC hit a meaningless jumper over our five-foot-something walk-on, it's perfectly fair to accept the final score as a proper one. Yes, the game was close three-quarters of the way. But look at it like this: if we'd started the game with a 22-5 run and then the last 30 minutes were dead even, the story would be how UVA "coasted" to an easy win that was never in doubt. Good teams blow up on bad ones, that's how things go.
That run was essentially the difference between Brick Sammy and Splash Sammy. That's the Z Factor. UVA could never have played the NC State game at the relatively frenetic early pace* and actually been in the lead at halftime without Sammy hitting threes. Likewise, the whole floor opened up against Boston College once Sammy knocked one down. Suddenly a whole galaxy of offensive options are open to us. This team is Sweet-16 capable when Sammy Zeglinski hits his jump shots, because he's the guy opponents don't game-plan for.
We're now in the middle of a stretch, starting with the BC game, where we alternate a theoretically easy game with a theoretically difficult one. So winning the difficult ones are a big deal. NC State is a difficult one, and you have to be encouraged by a game on the road where:
-- our second-biggest strength - defensive rebounding - wasn't working at all,
-- putting two and two together (the crowd not sounding frighteningly loud on TV plus Tony Bennett's description of the atmosphere as "festive") we come up with the extreme likelihood that our guys were hearing a lot of, um, interesting language from the student section,
-- an intelligent guy like Akil Mitchell calls the State players "borderline dirty" and says it in such a way that he knows he might get in trouble for saying it and doesn't care**
and yet we come out ahead. Don't care if it makes my heart bruise my ribs from the inside. Have some beer and settle down in there. It doesn't get any easier on the road, with the next two trips being to Tallahassee and Chapel Hill, so I'll take 'em where I can get 'em. Before the conference schedule began, you remember, I split the season's games up into two halves, one of mostly foregone conclusions and the other where the year would be maked or breaked. The "foregone" half has gone as assumed, and we're 2-1 in the important half. That means: go 3-2 in the rest of the important half and we're right where we want to be.
We'll finish today's basketball discussion with a little exercise. You're a basketball coach and your team is down by 1 with eight seconds to go and you have the ball. Who would you least rather be facing? Yeah, ditto.
*at one point in the first half the announcers made note of NC State playing a zone defense and suggested they were doing it "to slow Virginia down." I'll take "wacky basketball" for $400, Alex. "This school has the politest student section in the ACC." "What is Maryland?" Correct!
**and still NC State fans are whining about the refs. They let you take five steps with the ball while trying to inbound it. 99.9% of referees call that traveling, because they know what the rule book says. Then again, Roger Ayers is the same highly observant rocket scientist that let Louisiana-Lafayette put six guys on the court on the game-winning play. So.
***********************************************
- In a rare moment of candidness about his lineups, Brian O'Connor told Jeff White about this season's starting rotation, among other lineup revelations. It comes down to three righties (Branden Kline, Whit Mayberry, and juco addition Joel Effertz) and two lefties (Kyle Crockett and Scott Silverstein.) Kline and Crockett are locks. That's Friday-Saturday right there. If I were guessing right now I'd give Mayberry the solid edge for Sunday. BOC has talked in the past about being happy to see Mayberry taking no prisoners in attacking the plate, which is the BOC/Karl Kuhn way. Nibbling gets you banished to batting practice pitcher. Mayberry does a good job of attacking even without ideal stuff.
I would guess Effertz will land the weekday starter spot. If Silverstein starts, it leaves us without any remotely proven lefty bullpen options. (These coaches are not actually the type to obsess over lefty-righty matchups, though.) Effertz, by the way, comes from the same juco that sent us Cody Winiarski, and spent a year at Arizona before that.
By the way, I can't wait to see if Keith Werman gets any time behind the plate this year. Cue jokes about the equipment size and the idea that it's a strike if he can reach it. Humor aside, the Werm is the consummate ballplayer; really, if I told you that a random surprising position player was pulled in for some catcher duty this fall and is now listed as one on the roster, he's one of the least surprising choices. He could play first base or pitch an inning and I wouldn't bat an eye.
-- The TV schedule for the lacrosse season came out last week, and it's the same as last year with two additions: Stony Brook and Penn both on ESPN3. (Last year, Stony Brook wasn't on TV at all and Penn was on the UVA video service, which I sure hope returns this spring.) Otherwise all the usual suspects - three ACC games plus all the marquee matchups. This is what is known as a step in the right direction. I don't necessarily care for the TV-driven expansion of the ACC to 14 teams, but I can more than put up with it if it means eventually 100% of UVA lacrosse will be in front of my eyes. Add that to the seven televised baseball games (plus the ACC tournament) and you have the makings of a quality spring.
Speaking of lacrosse, on Thursday I plan to unveil a KenPom-esque math system for evaluating the college lax teams. Like KenPom's system for basketball, it is intended to be a tempo-free way of determining the quality of offense and defense each team plays. Should be fun if you're a math nerd.
-- BC Interruption had an interesting discussion on the future of the ACC basketball schedule, which will almost certainly be 18 games. The question on the table was: what to do about the permanent rotation buddies? Currently UVA plays two games every year against VT and Maryland, which is how it ought to be; you can see the rest of the pairings at BCI. The ACC will discuss going to one permanent buddy (which would certainly pair us with VT) but more likely will go to three. In BCI's world, we get Syracuse added to the rotation. I wouldn't exactly be fired up about adding that awesome of a team to the schedule as a guaranteed twice-a-year thing, but then I can understand wanting to make sure the schedule was nice and tough for maximum SOS purposes. But if you buy the north-middle-south alignment they have (which makes a lot of sense), then the only options to add are BC or the two Big East newcomers. So.
-- Did I miss something? It wouldn't be the first time. Regardless, here is Oday Aboushi on crutches. I don't know how old the picture is or what - it was tweeted a couple hours ago by Connor McCartin - or if it's an injury that'll last through the spring or anything at all really, but there it is. If running around in circles and waving your hands in the air is your thing (and let's face it we're UVA football fans so whose thing is that not?) then you are hereby licensed for twenty seconds of that.
-- In the "it's pronounced Jop" department, here is a free throw shot by the erstwhile UVA recruit. Even Mason Plumlee thinks that's shitty. The best part is he still got the customary high fives from teammates.
Regardless, we know what they mean: things are going the way you want them to. I do not subscribe to the theory that the Boston College game "was closer than the final score." You may describe a game like that if it's close at the end and then we hit a whole bunch of free throws brought on by clock-stopping fouls. When you go on a 22-5 run to seal it up and it's five instead of three only because BC hit a meaningless jumper over our five-foot-something walk-on, it's perfectly fair to accept the final score as a proper one. Yes, the game was close three-quarters of the way. But look at it like this: if we'd started the game with a 22-5 run and then the last 30 minutes were dead even, the story would be how UVA "coasted" to an easy win that was never in doubt. Good teams blow up on bad ones, that's how things go.
That run was essentially the difference between Brick Sammy and Splash Sammy. That's the Z Factor. UVA could never have played the NC State game at the relatively frenetic early pace* and actually been in the lead at halftime without Sammy hitting threes. Likewise, the whole floor opened up against Boston College once Sammy knocked one down. Suddenly a whole galaxy of offensive options are open to us. This team is Sweet-16 capable when Sammy Zeglinski hits his jump shots, because he's the guy opponents don't game-plan for.
We're now in the middle of a stretch, starting with the BC game, where we alternate a theoretically easy game with a theoretically difficult one. So winning the difficult ones are a big deal. NC State is a difficult one, and you have to be encouraged by a game on the road where:
-- our second-biggest strength - defensive rebounding - wasn't working at all,
-- putting two and two together (the crowd not sounding frighteningly loud on TV plus Tony Bennett's description of the atmosphere as "festive") we come up with the extreme likelihood that our guys were hearing a lot of, um, interesting language from the student section,
-- an intelligent guy like Akil Mitchell calls the State players "borderline dirty" and says it in such a way that he knows he might get in trouble for saying it and doesn't care**
and yet we come out ahead. Don't care if it makes my heart bruise my ribs from the inside. Have some beer and settle down in there. It doesn't get any easier on the road, with the next two trips being to Tallahassee and Chapel Hill, so I'll take 'em where I can get 'em. Before the conference schedule began, you remember, I split the season's games up into two halves, one of mostly foregone conclusions and the other where the year would be maked or breaked. The "foregone" half has gone as assumed, and we're 2-1 in the important half. That means: go 3-2 in the rest of the important half and we're right where we want to be.
We'll finish today's basketball discussion with a little exercise. You're a basketball coach and your team is down by 1 with eight seconds to go and you have the ball. Who would you least rather be facing? Yeah, ditto.
*at one point in the first half the announcers made note of NC State playing a zone defense and suggested they were doing it "to slow Virginia down." I'll take "wacky basketball" for $400, Alex. "This school has the politest student section in the ACC." "What is Maryland?" Correct!
**and still NC State fans are whining about the refs. They let you take five steps with the ball while trying to inbound it. 99.9% of referees call that traveling, because they know what the rule book says. Then again, Roger Ayers is the same highly observant rocket scientist that let Louisiana-Lafayette put six guys on the court on the game-winning play. So.
***********************************************
- In a rare moment of candidness about his lineups, Brian O'Connor told Jeff White about this season's starting rotation, among other lineup revelations. It comes down to three righties (Branden Kline, Whit Mayberry, and juco addition Joel Effertz) and two lefties (Kyle Crockett and Scott Silverstein.) Kline and Crockett are locks. That's Friday-Saturday right there. If I were guessing right now I'd give Mayberry the solid edge for Sunday. BOC has talked in the past about being happy to see Mayberry taking no prisoners in attacking the plate, which is the BOC/Karl Kuhn way. Nibbling gets you banished to batting practice pitcher. Mayberry does a good job of attacking even without ideal stuff.
I would guess Effertz will land the weekday starter spot. If Silverstein starts, it leaves us without any remotely proven lefty bullpen options. (These coaches are not actually the type to obsess over lefty-righty matchups, though.) Effertz, by the way, comes from the same juco that sent us Cody Winiarski, and spent a year at Arizona before that.
By the way, I can't wait to see if Keith Werman gets any time behind the plate this year. Cue jokes about the equipment size and the idea that it's a strike if he can reach it. Humor aside, the Werm is the consummate ballplayer; really, if I told you that a random surprising position player was pulled in for some catcher duty this fall and is now listed as one on the roster, he's one of the least surprising choices. He could play first base or pitch an inning and I wouldn't bat an eye.
-- The TV schedule for the lacrosse season came out last week, and it's the same as last year with two additions: Stony Brook and Penn both on ESPN3. (Last year, Stony Brook wasn't on TV at all and Penn was on the UVA video service, which I sure hope returns this spring.) Otherwise all the usual suspects - three ACC games plus all the marquee matchups. This is what is known as a step in the right direction. I don't necessarily care for the TV-driven expansion of the ACC to 14 teams, but I can more than put up with it if it means eventually 100% of UVA lacrosse will be in front of my eyes. Add that to the seven televised baseball games (plus the ACC tournament) and you have the makings of a quality spring.
Speaking of lacrosse, on Thursday I plan to unveil a KenPom-esque math system for evaluating the college lax teams. Like KenPom's system for basketball, it is intended to be a tempo-free way of determining the quality of offense and defense each team plays. Should be fun if you're a math nerd.
-- BC Interruption had an interesting discussion on the future of the ACC basketball schedule, which will almost certainly be 18 games. The question on the table was: what to do about the permanent rotation buddies? Currently UVA plays two games every year against VT and Maryland, which is how it ought to be; you can see the rest of the pairings at BCI. The ACC will discuss going to one permanent buddy (which would certainly pair us with VT) but more likely will go to three. In BCI's world, we get Syracuse added to the rotation. I wouldn't exactly be fired up about adding that awesome of a team to the schedule as a guaranteed twice-a-year thing, but then I can understand wanting to make sure the schedule was nice and tough for maximum SOS purposes. But if you buy the north-middle-south alignment they have (which makes a lot of sense), then the only options to add are BC or the two Big East newcomers. So.
-- Did I miss something? It wouldn't be the first time. Regardless, here is Oday Aboushi on crutches. I don't know how old the picture is or what - it was tweeted a couple hours ago by Connor McCartin - or if it's an injury that'll last through the spring or anything at all really, but there it is. If running around in circles and waving your hands in the air is your thing (and let's face it we're UVA football fans so whose thing is that not?) then you are hereby licensed for twenty seconds of that.
-- In the "it's pronounced Jop" department, here is a free throw shot by the erstwhile UVA recruit. Even Mason Plumlee thinks that's shitty. The best part is he still got the customary high fives from teammates.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
game preview: California
TV: ESPN2
History against the Bears: 1-0
Last matchup: UVA 4, Cal 1; 6/19/11; Omaha, NE - College World Series
Last game: South Carolina 7, UVA 1 (6/21); Cal 7, Texas A&M 3 (6/21)
Blogs of the enemy: California Golden Blogs
Cal's possible lineup:
C: Chadd Krist (.297-2-43)
1B: Devon Rodriguez (.283-5-35)
2B: Tony Renda (.333-3-43)
SS: Marcus Semien (.279-5-35)
3B: Mitch Delfino (.265-4-21)
LF: Austin Booker (.310-1-24)
CF: Darrel Matthews (.274-0-18)
RF: Chad Bunting (.274-7-25)
DH: Vince Bruno (.301-0-13)
Pitching probables:
RHP Tyler Wilson (9-0, 2.33, 119 K's) vs. RHP Dixon Anderson (4-3, 3.90, 41 K's)
Cal's bullpen:
RHP Kevin Miller (6-4, 2.78, 86 Ks)
LHP Kyle Porter (6-0, 1.89, 57 Ks)
RHP Logan Scott (1-2, 3.09, 30 Ks)
RHP Matt Flemer (4-2, 1.86, 41 Ks, 6 sv)
Well, we meet again. South Carolina used a sizable streak of luck to beat the Hoos 7-1 yesterday, placing UVA in the loser's bracket against Cal, again, which beat Texas A&M in the early game. The other Carolina was the beneficiary of some of the screwiest base hits I've ever seen - one ball bouncing off home plate and over Keith Werman's head into right field, another hit off the tip - not the end of the barrel, but the tip - of the bat. Both drove in a run each.
But it's not like they needed the lucky bullshit to actually win the game. UVA did it to itself - Steven Proscia's first-inning error was costly to the tune of three runs, and the bats finally petered out after running on fumes in the past couple games. And South Carolina's line drives to the gap finished the job. They fielded well - even made Sportscenter with a web gem - and minus the bunts, out Virginia-ed Virginia.
If the Hoos are to earn a rematch against South Carolina, they'll have to do it against Cal's third starter, huge right-hander Dixon Anderson. Anderson hasn't pitched since Cal eliminated Rice in the regionals two weeks ago - he wasn't needed in the supers as the GBs dispatched Dallas Baptist in two games. Anderson is 6'6", and while his 23 walks aren't an alarming number at all, his 41 strikeouts - below 2 every 3 innings - are well below average. He was drafted in the ninth round this year, which is down from last year (he's a redshirt junior) where he was drafted in the sixth. Scouting reports from last year indicate a fastball that tops out at 94 and below-average command. Can't say how he's progressed this year but I would guess he hasn't improved those weaknesses much, as he's slipping in the draft.
Tyler Wilson should be able to go for the Hoos, having thrown under 40 pitches on Sunday in his last outing. The UVA bullpen should be fully stocked; I don't know if we can say the same about the Cal bullpen, with closer Matt Flemer having thrown 54 pitches yesterday against A&M. Strictly using the one-hour-per-pitch rule of recovery, Flemer won't be ready, but this is the CWS, man, so I ultimately don't think Cal will hold him back.
UVA is in a hole, no doubt about it. The difference between winning and losing on Tuesday is having to win just one of two, vice having to win three in a row. But optimism should reign supreme on Thursday. This is how the three games this weekend break down:
1) as little disrespect as possible to Cal (I can't say this and honestly claim none at all), but if UVA sends Tyler Wilson to the mound and he can't outpitch Dixon Anderson (whose high draft status is based more on projectability than results) and UVA can't beat regional-3-seed Cal, then we had no chance anyway.
2) after that, Danny Hultzen will take the mound. Probably against South Carolina's Michael Roth, but still - Danny Hultzen, man.
3) anything goes.
So. One step at a time. The Hoos gotta buckle down, see the ball better out of the hand of the pitcher, and get one job done at a time. It's been done before - ask Sakerlina.
Monday, June 20, 2011
game preview: South Carolina
TV: ESPN
History against the Gamecocks: 27-35
Last matchup: USC 8, UVA 2; 6/3/2006; NCAA Tournament, Charlottesville regional
Last game: UVA 4, Cal 1 (6/19); USC 5, Texas A&M 4 (6/19)
Blogs of the enemy: Garnet and Black Attack, Leftover Hot Dog
South Carolina possible lineup:
C: Robert Beary (.296-3-35)
1B: Christian Walker (.357-10-60)
2B: Scott Wingo (.350-4-28)
3B: Adrian Morales (.281-3-39)
SS: Peter Mooney (.276-3-35)
LF: Jake Williams (.273-2-38)
CF: Jackie Bradley, Jr., (.259-6-26)
RF: Evan Marzilli (.299-3-30)
DH: Brady Thomas (.305-4-39)
Pitching probables: RHP Will Roberts (11-1, 1.58, 91 K's) vs. RHP Colby Holmes (7-3, 3.78, 70 K's)
South Carolina's bullpen:
RHP John Taylor (6-1, 1.25, 63 K's)
LHP Steven Neff (3-1, 2.45, 29 K's)
RHP Jose Mata (3-0, 1.76, 16 K's)
LHP Tyler Webb (3-1, 3.21, 28 K's)
RHP Matt Price (6-3, 2.13, 68 K's, 18 sv)
UVA took care of Cal the same way they dispatched UC-Irvine: threatening most of the time and then finally stringing the hits together in the later innings. Danny Hultzen threw 6 1/3 innings with his Sunday-best slider but lousy fastball command, and didn't allow a run; he left with no possibility of a decision because the score was 0-0 at the time. It took - of all people - Keith Werman to get things going, setting the table with a single to lead off the seventh and driving home a run in the eighth with another base hit. Jared King followed up three absolutely awful at bats with an eighth-inning triple just over the right fielder's glove and scored on Werman's slap single to left.
The (slightly) bad news: the 0-0 game required Brian O'Connor to stretch Hultzen's arm as long as possible instead of holding back a little, and when he went to the pen it was for Tyler Wilson, who threw 2 1/3 innings in relief before giving way to Branden Kline for the final out. That means Will Roberts will take the hill on Tuesday instead of Wilson. Hultzen, of course, is right out.
In terms of starting pitching, Roberts should have the advantage. (Cue Gamecock fans: he didn't pitch against ess-eee-cee competition though.) He'll go against right-hander Colby Holmes. He's likely to pitch deeper into the game than Holmes is; South Carolina sometimes has a quick hook with Holmes. They yanked him in the fifth inning of their super-regional game against UConn despite only being down 2-1 at the time. He also got totally bombed out of the Ole Miss game. Holmes has a tendency to give up the gopherball; of the 26 home runs allowed by the South Carolina pitching staff, 12 are Holmes's responsibility. Holmes is one of those pitchers who throws three or four pitches but doesn't have consistent command of most of them yet. There's nothing that our hitters like better than a 91-mph fastball that isn't accompanied by a slider or change that gets over the plate. (That was Irvine ace Matt Summers's problem.) Holmes could have the breaking stuff working and have a fair amount of success; if not, he'll be pulled in the third inning and leave behind some tired outfielders and probably a sizable deficit.
However, the gopherball isn't a UVA specialty, and the CWS stadium is a big one, so don't expect anything to go flying out of the park. It's been playing very homer-unfriendly so far. And if UVA hitters can't jump on Holmes quickly, South Carolina may well be able to neutralize the UVA advantage on the hill by going to their bullpen early. The only unavailable pitcher after their game against A&M is the starter, Michael Roth, who wasn't pulled until the eighth inning. South Carolina will have a full bullpen; UVA will as well, but with Wilson's availability in question, doesn't have a long-relief horse like the Gamecocks' John Taylor. And closer Matt Price is lights-out and a 6th-round pick.
Roberts will have his hands full with the South Carolina lineup, of course. Christian Walker was a super-late round pick out of high school two years ago by the Dodgers, but being picked 1477th overall doesn't inspire one to try the professional track, and South Carolina is much the better for it. Walker has hit 10 home runs this year, driven in 60 runs, and bats .357. Scott Wingo, the walkoff hero of the A&M game, also bats .350+. He's an 11th-round pick this year. But the highest draft pick isn't Price, or Walker (who's only a sophomore), or Wingo - it's 9th hitter Jackie Bradley, picked 40th overall by the Red Sox. Bradley's had a disappointing season, batting only .259, which is why he's in the 9th slot, but his presence there just reinforces the notion that Roberts won't be able to relax just because he got to the bottom of the order. Bradley still packs a little pop in his bat and obviously, the major leagues think he's got a pile of talent.
I'd remind you that South Carolina is the defending national champion, but ESPN will probably take care of that for most of the game's duration, so I won't. One thing that is interesting is that this is the first time in quite a while that they've won their first CWS game. And of course, this being only UVA's second trip, it's the first time ever for UVA in the winner's bracket, too. Both teams have been to Omaha before, but still it's the Omaha debut for both pitchers; neither pitched in their respective teams' previous appearances here. I don't know if Gamecock fans are worried about Colby Holmes's mentality, but with a perfect game under Will Roberts's belt, I'm not worried about his handling of pressure.
What worries me is this: In seven previous games in this tournament so far, we've faced a three-seed five times, a four-seed once, and a two-seed once, and that two-seed had burned up its pitching staff and wasn't a very good two-seed anyway. This'll be UVA's first tournament test against a regional host, and a national seed at that. I won't call it luck, I call it the benefit of being the national #1 seed - your part of the bracket is likelier to flame out than the rest of it. But it's time to play with the big boys now. Can we get this done against an honest, legitimate title contender, the first such opponent in this tournament run? UVA will get no respect from Ess-Eee-Cee fans or most pundits - I mean, actual they-could-actually-win-this-tournament respect - until we beat one of their own, someone who's been all the way to the top before. UVA opened some eyes in 2009 by eliminating Irvine and Ole Miss, but there's a next step to be taken now, and Tuesday is our chance.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
27
Dave Matthews once sang that "two's a perfect number." I didn't agree then and I don't now; two doesn't even get you out of the top of the first. Ask Maryland what you can do with those two outs. Perfection requires twenty-seven. (And in the rarest of instances, twenty-eight.)
A perfect game always brings its own numbers with it. Baseball's numerically oriented like that. Will Roberts's perfection is no different. Like "one," as in the first perfect game ever thrown by a UVA pitcher. Or eight, the eighth nine-inning perfect game in NCAA history, or if you prefer, the number of shutouts now thrown by UVA pitchers this year, a previously unheard of statistic made possible by a combination of new, less bouncy bats and having cyborgs for pitchers. This perfect game happened to come with a special round number of its own: 2000, the number of wins in UVA history.
Still, it all comes back to 27. Baseball is the best sport partly because the numbers always tell the story. 27 up, 27 down means the same thing, every time. You don't get that in things like football or basketball, sports that are less binary, less digital, more flowing and analog. There's no equivalent achievement. You can score 50 points in basketball but there's nothing necessarily perfect about that. You can run for so many yards in a football game but there's nothing necessarily perfect about it. You still get tackled every time. But 27 is 27. 27 batters at the plate, and not one of them succeeded in the fundamental mission of baseball. There's something sublime about that.
Roberts helped himself along gorgeously. In a strange way it's perversely unfair that the back-slapping and hubbub over the perfect game overshadows a pitching performance that was - incredible as it sounds - even better than the phrase "perfect game" implies. Of the 27 batters, Roberts struck out 10, leaving just 17 chances for his fielders to screw up. And of those 17, 14 of them were putouts by the first baseman John Hicks; that is to say, ground balls. Keith Werman handled seven of them at second base (including the final out), the ideal location for a grounder. The baseball gods demand at least one lucky element to a perfect game, and Roberts got his when a hard ground bounced square off his shin and right in front of him for the easy toss to first. Roberts only saw three balls go into the air, and two of them fell into Werman's glove at second. With 10 strikeouts, 14 grounders, and two popups to second, that leaves just one ball for the outfield. (That flyout was hit by the same guy who rocketed the grounder off Roberts's leg.) Will Roberts did not stumble and luck his way into a perfect game.
Stuff:
- Werman's role in this should not go overlooked. The kid's got major glove chops. Werman's hitting a measly .213 and the lineup could be improved by putting Stephen Bruno (when he returns from what's become a succession of injuries) back at short and shuffling Chris Taylor to second, but there's a reason O'Connor doesn't do that and it has everything to do with Werman's outstanding glove. He made a couple non-routine plays to preserve the perfecto.
- I hear North Korea is looking for a new sports information director. Maybe the George Washington guys should apply for the job. I get that these official-site writeups are, first and foremost, about showcasing your own team's deeds and doings. It leads to occasionally comic moments, like Maryland omitting the score from the headline of a game writeup against Virginia because the score was 27-4 and that's embarrassing. But even then the score was in the first paragraph, and the next two talked about UVA. When the actual media has taken to pointing and laughing at your Baghdad Bobbery, that's how you know you've taken it a little too far. Next time, try the first paragraph instead of the seventh. There'll still be room to talk about the brilliant exploits of your mighty pitchers courageously working their way out of a bases-loaded jam for creation of great fortress of juche.
- Speaking of actual media: yes, top play on Sportscenter this morning. And a headline on MLB.com. UVA is not yet considered an elite program along the lines of an LSU or a Fullerton, but this is one step toward getting there.
A perfect game always brings its own numbers with it. Baseball's numerically oriented like that. Will Roberts's perfection is no different. Like "one," as in the first perfect game ever thrown by a UVA pitcher. Or eight, the eighth nine-inning perfect game in NCAA history, or if you prefer, the number of shutouts now thrown by UVA pitchers this year, a previously unheard of statistic made possible by a combination of new, less bouncy bats and having cyborgs for pitchers. This perfect game happened to come with a special round number of its own: 2000, the number of wins in UVA history.
Still, it all comes back to 27. Baseball is the best sport partly because the numbers always tell the story. 27 up, 27 down means the same thing, every time. You don't get that in things like football or basketball, sports that are less binary, less digital, more flowing and analog. There's no equivalent achievement. You can score 50 points in basketball but there's nothing necessarily perfect about that. You can run for so many yards in a football game but there's nothing necessarily perfect about it. You still get tackled every time. But 27 is 27. 27 batters at the plate, and not one of them succeeded in the fundamental mission of baseball. There's something sublime about that.
Roberts helped himself along gorgeously. In a strange way it's perversely unfair that the back-slapping and hubbub over the perfect game overshadows a pitching performance that was - incredible as it sounds - even better than the phrase "perfect game" implies. Of the 27 batters, Roberts struck out 10, leaving just 17 chances for his fielders to screw up. And of those 17, 14 of them were putouts by the first baseman John Hicks; that is to say, ground balls. Keith Werman handled seven of them at second base (including the final out), the ideal location for a grounder. The baseball gods demand at least one lucky element to a perfect game, and Roberts got his when a hard ground bounced square off his shin and right in front of him for the easy toss to first. Roberts only saw three balls go into the air, and two of them fell into Werman's glove at second. With 10 strikeouts, 14 grounders, and two popups to second, that leaves just one ball for the outfield. (That flyout was hit by the same guy who rocketed the grounder off Roberts's leg.) Will Roberts did not stumble and luck his way into a perfect game.
Stuff:
- Werman's role in this should not go overlooked. The kid's got major glove chops. Werman's hitting a measly .213 and the lineup could be improved by putting Stephen Bruno (when he returns from what's become a succession of injuries) back at short and shuffling Chris Taylor to second, but there's a reason O'Connor doesn't do that and it has everything to do with Werman's outstanding glove. He made a couple non-routine plays to preserve the perfecto.
- I hear North Korea is looking for a new sports information director. Maybe the George Washington guys should apply for the job. I get that these official-site writeups are, first and foremost, about showcasing your own team's deeds and doings. It leads to occasionally comic moments, like Maryland omitting the score from the headline of a game writeup against Virginia because the score was 27-4 and that's embarrassing. But even then the score was in the first paragraph, and the next two talked about UVA. When the actual media has taken to pointing and laughing at your Baghdad Bobbery, that's how you know you've taken it a little too far. Next time, try the first paragraph instead of the seventh. There'll still be room to talk about the brilliant exploits of your mighty pitchers courageously working their way out of a bases-loaded jam for creation of great fortress of juche.
- Speaking of actual media: yes, top play on Sportscenter this morning. And a headline on MLB.com. UVA is not yet considered an elite program along the lines of an LSU or a Fullerton, but this is one step toward getting there.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
series preview: Maryland
Date/Time: March 25-27; 6:00/1:00/1:00
TV: UVA webcast only
History against the Terps: 101-76
Last matchup: UVA sweep (5-1, 27-4, 11-2); 4/16/10 - 4/18/10; College Park
Last game: UVA 5, Towson 0 (3/23); Md. 8, GWU 2 (3/22)
Last weekend: UVA 2-1 over FSU; BC 2-1 over Md.
National rankings:
Baseball America: UVA #3; Md. unranked
Collegiate Baseball: UVA #3; Md. unranked
NCBWA: UVA #3; Md. unranked
Perfect Game: UVA #3; Md. unranked
Coaches: UVA #3; Md. unranked
Opposing blogs: no baseball-inclined ones
So, Maryland has been godawful at baseball. This year, probably less so. Second-year coach Erik Bakich is working on fixing the laughingstockitude that was Maryland baseball and has them taking steps from being the laugher of the East Coast to merely bad. This is bad for my ability to write jokes about Maryland but good for the ACC in general when the bad teams aren't pitching-free zones. More improvement may or may not be on tap for the future, but for now Maryland is still an extreme longshot to be eligible for any kind of postseason play. Thus, anything less than a sweep would be disappointing.
HOW WE CAN WIN**
- Roll out the lefties. Southpaws, they haz none. The only left-handed pitcher on Maryland that we're ever likely to see on the hill is Sunday starter Eric Potter. The left-handed batters in our lineup mostly aren't full-time regulars, but they've seen their share of at-bats. Keith Werman is the only really everyday lefty, but David Coleman, Danny the Destroyer, and Reed Gragnani all bat from that side of the plate too. Along with possibly Ryan Levine, they'll see plenty of plate appearances to take advantage of the fact that pretty much everyone the Terps trot out from the bullpen will be right-handed.
- Dominate on Friday. Maryland's pen isn't half bad, but it's shallow. Much shallower than ours, at any rate. It can be taken advantage of. Brian O'Connor is a master of pitching staff usage, but his job there can be cake and a half this week if his job is made that much easier by his hitters burning through Maryland pitchers on the first day of the series. Danny will strike out 13 batters, of course, so if the batters can open up a can on Sander Beck (the likely Friday starter) and then open up a can on his relief, we can turn to someone who might normally be a weekday guy and save the bigger guns for the later games, and let them pitch against a bullpen that's wearing thin quickly.
**By "win" I mean sweep. Can't afford to give up a game against the Marylands of the world, especially since we don't get a series against Wake.
HOW WE CAN LOSE
- Let a pitchers' duel break out. Any one of the games could be. Sander Beck held Georgia Tech(!) to one lousy run, David Carroll held Texas(!!) to one lousy run, and I actually think it's Eric Potter who's pitching the best of the three. His .181 opponents' BA has a lot to do with it. Not that our own pitchers can't hold up in a pitcher's duel, of course. They're still better. But Maryland's best hope for stealing a game in any of their series is in a pitchers' duel. They don't have the lineup horses to win anything 10-8. They've hit double digits once this year: against Liberty, whom they'd lost to the day before.
HOW THE SERIES WILL GO
Seriously, if we lose even one it'll be a big disappointment. GT swept 'em, FSU will probably sweep 'em, Clemson will probably sweep 'em. Win them all, or else have to try and earn the tournament 1 seed the hard way. Fortunately, a sweep is exactly what I see with my magic 8-ball. Maryland scores no more than eight runs all weekend, strikes out at least 10 times against Hurricane Danny, and UVA is 8-1 with an excellent chance to return to at least a tie atop the division standings, what with Miami hosting Georgia Tech this weekend.
Friday, June 11, 2010
series preview: Oklahoma
After two weekends of screwing around with the pitching rotations, it's time once again for a straight-up weekend duel. Best two out of three; winner goes to Omaha. It's that easy. Here's a look at an opponent that we Hoos aren't that familiar with.
Possible lineup:
CF Chris Ellison (.329-4-30)
LF Max White (.307-14-40)
3B Garrett Buechele (.387-16-62)
1B Cameron Seitzer (.317-14-51)
C Tyler Ogle (.308-8-40)
RF Cody Reine (.333-6-31)
2B Danny Black (.339-5-47)
DH Ricky Eisenberg (.306-3-12)
SS Caleb Bushyhead (.329-5-35)
Rotation:
RHP Michael Rocha (7-1, 3.50)
RHP Zach Neal (8-3, 4.42)
RHP Bobby Shore (9-4, 4.23)
Bullpen:
RHP Jeremy Erben (7-1, 3.90)
RHP Jack Mayfield (4-0, 2.03)
LHP J.R. Robinson (2-3, 4.61)
RHP Ryan Duke (3-1, 3.51, 11 SV)
The Sooners shifted their lineup a lot during the course of the season, but that's the one they finished up with - it stayed that way during both the Big 12 tournament and last week's regional games against Oral Roberts and UNC. Since lefty Danny Hultzen is taking the mound tomorrow, you may see some changes in that lineup: right-handed Kaleb Herren, for example, could step in at the expense of the left-handed Cody Reine in right field. Oklahoma has a lot of left-right flexibility, so expect a lot of pinch-hitting to nullify any matchup advantages that Brian O'Connor might want to try and exploit.
Regardless of who subs in and out, there's one thing you won't see in the lineup: weak spots. It's too late in the season for that. Even St. John's with their very scary middle, had some really lame hitters at the bottom. None of that for Oklahoma. And their home park, Mitchell Field, is a pitchers' park with dimensions even larger than those of Davenport, so they won't suddenly find themselves with warning-track power.
In order to beat them, our pitchers will need to have their off-speed stuff on point. The Sooners' bats like to swing, and they're prone to missing. They're tops in the Big 12 in strikeouts. Just don't hang a curve: they also lead the Big 12 in slugging %.
As for the pitching, there's another thing you'll see missing: lefties. That's a positive for our lineup, and hopefully some of our spark plugs like Jarrett Parker and Keith Werman can have a big weekend. Michael Rocha is the announced starter for Oklahoma against Danny Hultzen; Rocha has been a reliever most of the season, but against Kansas in the Big 12 tournament, he showed the ability to pitch deep into a game, going eight innings for the win.
The Sooner arms are about like their bats, really: mostly not eye-popping, but solid and without weak points. It should work in our favor that any lefties they might put on the mound are either seldom-used, hittable, or both. Still, the bats will need to be on their best behavior all weekend, because Oklahoma has a good, deep bullpen and won't have any qualms about pulling a struggling starter and choking off any rallies.
The game 3 matchups are TBD, because that always depends on who the coaches bring in to relieve. In our case, that basically means that Branden Kline will start on Monday if we didn't use him on Saturday or Sunday. Oklahoma's Bobby Shore is a safer bet to get the nod, as he's been strictly a starter all year and the Sooner pen is deep enough that he shouldn't be needed in any emergency duty.
Tough weekend - in other words, just like being back in the ACC regular season. If the pitching holds up (translation: if Hultzen pitches like Hultzen and Morey pitches like Morey) then this thing is UVA's to win. After all, the Hoos won 9 of 10 ACC series. If not, it could be an interesting series full of double-digit scoring. Two more wins to Omaha.
Possible lineup:
CF Chris Ellison (.329-4-30)
LF Max White (.307-14-40)
3B Garrett Buechele (.387-16-62)
1B Cameron Seitzer (.317-14-51)
C Tyler Ogle (.308-8-40)
RF Cody Reine (.333-6-31)
2B Danny Black (.339-5-47)
DH Ricky Eisenberg (.306-3-12)
SS Caleb Bushyhead (.329-5-35)
Rotation:
RHP Michael Rocha (7-1, 3.50)
RHP Zach Neal (8-3, 4.42)
RHP Bobby Shore (9-4, 4.23)
Bullpen:
RHP Jeremy Erben (7-1, 3.90)
RHP Jack Mayfield (4-0, 2.03)
LHP J.R. Robinson (2-3, 4.61)
RHP Ryan Duke (3-1, 3.51, 11 SV)
The Sooners shifted their lineup a lot during the course of the season, but that's the one they finished up with - it stayed that way during both the Big 12 tournament and last week's regional games against Oral Roberts and UNC. Since lefty Danny Hultzen is taking the mound tomorrow, you may see some changes in that lineup: right-handed Kaleb Herren, for example, could step in at the expense of the left-handed Cody Reine in right field. Oklahoma has a lot of left-right flexibility, so expect a lot of pinch-hitting to nullify any matchup advantages that Brian O'Connor might want to try and exploit.
Regardless of who subs in and out, there's one thing you won't see in the lineup: weak spots. It's too late in the season for that. Even St. John's with their very scary middle, had some really lame hitters at the bottom. None of that for Oklahoma. And their home park, Mitchell Field, is a pitchers' park with dimensions even larger than those of Davenport, so they won't suddenly find themselves with warning-track power.
In order to beat them, our pitchers will need to have their off-speed stuff on point. The Sooners' bats like to swing, and they're prone to missing. They're tops in the Big 12 in strikeouts. Just don't hang a curve: they also lead the Big 12 in slugging %.
As for the pitching, there's another thing you'll see missing: lefties. That's a positive for our lineup, and hopefully some of our spark plugs like Jarrett Parker and Keith Werman can have a big weekend. Michael Rocha is the announced starter for Oklahoma against Danny Hultzen; Rocha has been a reliever most of the season, but against Kansas in the Big 12 tournament, he showed the ability to pitch deep into a game, going eight innings for the win.
The Sooner arms are about like their bats, really: mostly not eye-popping, but solid and without weak points. It should work in our favor that any lefties they might put on the mound are either seldom-used, hittable, or both. Still, the bats will need to be on their best behavior all weekend, because Oklahoma has a good, deep bullpen and won't have any qualms about pulling a struggling starter and choking off any rallies.
The game 3 matchups are TBD, because that always depends on who the coaches bring in to relieve. In our case, that basically means that Branden Kline will start on Monday if we didn't use him on Saturday or Sunday. Oklahoma's Bobby Shore is a safer bet to get the nod, as he's been strictly a starter all year and the Sooner pen is deep enough that he shouldn't be needed in any emergency duty.
Tough weekend - in other words, just like being back in the ACC regular season. If the pitching holds up (translation: if Hultzen pitches like Hultzen and Morey pitches like Morey) then this thing is UVA's to win. After all, the Hoos won 9 of 10 ACC series. If not, it could be an interesting series full of double-digit scoring. Two more wins to Omaha.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Charlottesville regional preview
No traveling for the Hoos this year, at least not for a couple weeks. The reward for being one of the top 8 teams in the NCAA baseball tournament is to host a four-team regional, and a super-regional if they make it out of the weekend. The only puzzling decision is making UVA the #5 seed instead of the top-3 seed they deserved, but it's been pretty much confirmed that everyone who knows anything about baseball thinks that's retarded. (Ratcliffe at the CDP says we got "the fuzzy end of the lollipop" which sounds like the weirdest G-rated euphemism ever for something very X-rated. Use your imagination.)
That being said, it's not a bad draw. Here's a preview of the three teams coming to Charlottesville this weekend:
Ole Miss
You recognize the name. You won't really recognize the team. Last year's Rebel squad was good enough to be in Omaha had they been maybe a little more fortunate on the draw. That team could hit and had plenty of quality options behind Drew Pomeranz on the mound. This team still has Pomeranz, but the hitting and the pitching isn't nearly up to snuff with last year's team. They ended up with a middling finish in the SEC, the result of a really maddening season in which they would do things like sweep powerhouse LSU but drop a series to doormat Tennessee. You're always in for a fight when you take on an SEC team in the NCAAs, but as #2 seeds go, we could have had a worse draw.
Possible lineup:
CF Tim Ferguson (.301-8-33)
3B Zach Miller (.279-2-46)
RF Matt Smith (.344-12-51)
DH Matt Snyder (.343-10-33)
LF Taylor Hashman (.307-9-40)
2B Alex Yarbrough (.285-3-37)
1B Miles Hamblin (.225-6-39)
SS Kevin Mort (.279-2-22)
C Taylor Hightower (.285-0-17)
Rotation:
RHP Drew Pomeranz (8-2, 2.21)
RHP Aaron Barrett (7-4, 4.16)
RHP David Goforth (1-5, 8.41)
RHP Rory McKean (4-2, 5.65)
Bullpen:
LHP Matt Crouse (5-1, 3.12)
RHP Trent Rothlin (3-4, 4.43)
RHP Eric Callender (4-1, 5.83)
LHP Matt Tracy (4-3, 5.98)
RHP Brett Huber (2-0, 2.54, 12 SV)
Ole Miss against the ACC: no games
The lineup is largely conjecture; as you can see, Ole Miss has struggled to find any consistency from the bottom half. In some cases they have two players to choose from at a certain position: one that can't hit for contact and one that has no power. And of the seven players with .300 or greater batting averages from last year, four are gone and one was Miller, for whom the bottom dropped out this year.
Since Davenport qualifies as a pitcher's park - smaller than Ole Miss's Swayze Field in the alleys and out to center - I think we'll see Ole Miss lean toward contact hitters, so you might also see backup outfielder Tanner Mathis in the lineup against right-handers.
As for the pitchers, there's conflicting information as to who'll get the call on Friday for Ole Miss. Might as well go with the direct quote from Rebels' coach Mike Bianco, who says top-ten-pick-in-waiting Drew Pomeranz will get the start against St. John's. That means the Hoos, if UVA and Ole Miss win, will face Aaron Barrett. And it means Barrett will have to go against Danny Hultzen, as O'Connor has tabbed Cody Winiarski to start on Friday. (The right choice: if we can't beat the #147 team in the country with any of our weekend starters, we'll never get to Omaha anyway.)
After Pomeranz and Barrett, though, the rotation is almost totally worthless. The Rebels missed out on a lot of sweeps - including one against SEC punching bag Georgia - because they have no third starter at all. If the series holds true to seeding form and UVA faces Ole Miss in a championship game on Sunday, the hitters will be absolutely salivating at the prospect of a few at-bats each against a used-up Ole Miss pen. With Pomeranz going on Friday, a UVA-Ole Miss matchup should be in the cards for Saturday, and the Rebels don't have the bats to chase Hultzen nor the arms to win any games after Saturday.
St. John's
Dangerous matchup for Ole Miss here, as the Johnnies can hit and have one quality pitcher. They caught a break on the schedule by not having to play regular-season champ UConn, but nevertheless had to get past the Huskies for the Big East championship, which they did. Ace Kyle Hansen pitched into the 7th inning against UConn after having gone eight full frames just four days earlier.
A lot of the Storm's best players are freshman, including Hansen and masher extraordinaire Jeremy Baltz. Not good for future Big East opponents, but here's hoping experience and guile plus a loud Davenport win out in any potential UVA-SJU matchup.
Possible lineup:
CF Scott Ferrara (.282-1-29)
RF Jimmy Parque (.352-4-44)
SS Joe Panik (.383-8-48)
LF Jeremy Baltz (.393-20-74)
3B Greg Hopkins (.367-6-55)
2B Matt Wessinger (.284-4-43)
1B Paul Karmas (.329-8-52)
DH Sean O'Hare (.352-1-29)
C Joe Witkowski (.217-0-8)
Rotation:
RHP Kyle Hansen (8-1, 3.09)
RHP Bruce Kern (6-5, 5.91)
RHP Nick Cenatiempo (1-1, 6.34)
RHP Matt Carasiti (7-4, 5.88)
Bullpen:
LHP Kevin Kilpatrick (1-1, 3.57)
RHP Stephen Rivera (4-2, 3.65)
RHP Ryan Cole (3-1, 3.96)
LHP Sean Hagan (4-1, 4.74)
RHP Daniel Burawa (1-0, 2.78, 11 SV)
St. John's against the ACC: lost to UNC 8-2, beat Boston College 17-9
Extrapolate Jeremy Baltz's numbers out to a 162-game MLB season and you get 56 HRs and 207 RBIs. Jeesh. 20 and 74 are damn good for major leaguers, never mind someone who's only played 58 games in his entire college career. Do not make a mistake pitching to Baltz.
St. John's plays in a bandbox, however: about 320 down the lines and just 380 to straightaway center. They're going to have an extremely tough road in this regional: first Drew Pomeranz, then likely Danny Hultzen if they get past Pomeranz, all in an unfamiliar pitcher's park.
And after Hansen in the rotation - nothing. They have a good bullpen; important because starting pitchers like Cenatiempo have a nasty habit of giving up a lot of hits and not pitching deep into games. Rivera and Kilpatrick are the long-relief types and they figure to get a lot of work this weekend.
If St. John's is the Saturday opponent, Kern will likely oppose the Hoos. He's a better pitcher than that ERA would indicate; decent strikeout pitcher, but in the end nothing worse than UVA's seen in ACC competition, and no match for Hultzen. This is a rotation even thinner than Ole Miss's, but the bullpen is better. Even so, if St. John's is going to win games this weekend, they'll need to be by scores of 12-8. And if they're going to win the whole regional, they'll have to do as they did in the Big East tournament and pitch Hansen on short rest. If SJU manages to make it to Monday for a winner-take-all game, don't be surprised to see them trot him out there.
VCU
The baseball committee thinks all #4 seeds are equal, and assigns them to regionals by pure geography. Thus, VCU. The Rams have the only .400 hitter in the regional other than Keith Werman, but might also go the entire weekend without hitting a home run. You want a light-hitting team? VCU is it: 33 home runs all year, and 20 of them hit by two players.
Possible lineup:
CF Matt Leskiw (.270-0-14)
2B Richard Gonzalez (.391-0-37)
3B Joe Van Meter (.433-10-72)
1B Brent Mikionis (.332-10-50)
RF John Lenherr (.293-2-35)
SS Nick Kime (.250-0-10)
LF Paul Nice (.278-2-29)
C Taylor Perkins (.306-2-30)
DH Doug Otto (.281-4-33)
Rotation:
RHP Seth Cutler-Voltz (8-3, 3.20)
RHP Kyle Haynes (3-3, 5.40)
LHP Ryan Farrar (4-5, 8.14)
LHP Michael Graham (4-4, 7.36)
Bullpen:
RHP Jonathan Watson (4-2, 2.78)
RHP Kyle Pelchy (2-0, 4.12)
LHP Brennan Huelse (1-1, 3.54)
RHP Robbie Andrews (1-2, 3.18, 9 SV)
VCU against the ACC: lost to Maryland 7-2, lost to UVA 10-5
One month to the day of the regional opener against VCU, UVA was playing a weekday game against these same Rams. The Hoos won 10-5, scoring runs off of every pitcher VCU sent to the mound, and Branden Kline gave up four runs in six innings for the win. VCU actually hit two home runs in that game. I haven't bothered to check if that was their only multi-homer game all year, but it's possible. Get through VCU's 3 and 4 hitters and the ball is not at all likely to leave the yard.
VCU will throw Seth Cutler-Voltz against us, and he's got more than just a cool name going for him. SCV is coming off two complete-game wins in a row, and any hope of an upset lies with his right arm. The thing is, though, Cutler-Voltz has yet to throw against anyone worth talking about, and no, JMU doesn't count. Fellow tournament 4-seed Bethune-Cookman is the only opponent resembling a difficult team on Cutler-Voltz's resume, and they shelled him.
Right-hander Winiarski should match up well against VCU's lineup, which figures to trot out just two lefties and no switch-hitters. VCU's non-home-run-hitting lineup is also a better matchup for Cody than the other lineups in the regional, as he's a soft-tosser and has a much greater tendency than our other pitchers to give up home runs. But the bottom line is this: Cody is a weekend starter, and if we can't beat a four-seed, #147-RPI team with a weekend starter, then Omaha was never going to happen anyway.
Outlook for UVA
Keith Werman and Franco Valdes may not have been everyday starters this year, but chances are we'll never see a southpaw this weekend, so look for both to get plenty of at-bats this weekend. Along with Dan Grovatt and Jarrett Parker, that's a solid number of lefties to send to the plate against all these right-handers we'll see; first Cutler-Voltz, then Kern or Barrett, and then whatever poor schlub and his 6+ ERA has to face this lineup after that.
The biggest game is the second one. It's good to be the king; the 1 seed has the luxury of being able to hold back their ace for Saturday, expecting that it won't take your top pitcher to beat Friday's opponent. A win on Saturday either gives us a one-win (vice three-in-a-row) path to victory, or it (heaven forbid we end up in this situation) staves off elimination, so having Hultzen available for that game is huge. Especially if it's against St. John's and their murderer's row.
This is set up very, very nicely for UVA to win. The difference in pitching staffs is a mile wide. No, I'm not spoiled by looking at our own; there are plenty of teams that didn't make this tournament that have deeper and better pitching staffs than the three that got sent to Charlottesville. Even if we have to play Sunday morning in an elimination game, by that time our opponent will have burned through just about every worthwhile pitcher and we'll have Robert Morey. And if we go 2-0 on Friday and Saturday, it's over; some poor used-up staff is going to have to try and win two in a row against Morey and then (probably) Kline. Ain't happening. If we go 2-0, the third game will be a slaughter.
But to get to 2-0, the bats need to perk up. The Miami game was a great reassurance, because the rest of the ACC tournament and a few of the weekends prior were starting to see things go cold at the plate. Still - this weekend could be just the tonic, especially if we never see Drew Pomeranz.
That being said, it's not a bad draw. Here's a preview of the three teams coming to Charlottesville this weekend:
Ole MissYou recognize the name. You won't really recognize the team. Last year's Rebel squad was good enough to be in Omaha had they been maybe a little more fortunate on the draw. That team could hit and had plenty of quality options behind Drew Pomeranz on the mound. This team still has Pomeranz, but the hitting and the pitching isn't nearly up to snuff with last year's team. They ended up with a middling finish in the SEC, the result of a really maddening season in which they would do things like sweep powerhouse LSU but drop a series to doormat Tennessee. You're always in for a fight when you take on an SEC team in the NCAAs, but as #2 seeds go, we could have had a worse draw.
Possible lineup:
CF Tim Ferguson (.301-8-33)
3B Zach Miller (.279-2-46)
RF Matt Smith (.344-12-51)
DH Matt Snyder (.343-10-33)
LF Taylor Hashman (.307-9-40)
2B Alex Yarbrough (.285-3-37)
1B Miles Hamblin (.225-6-39)
SS Kevin Mort (.279-2-22)
C Taylor Hightower (.285-0-17)
Rotation:
RHP Drew Pomeranz (8-2, 2.21)
RHP Aaron Barrett (7-4, 4.16)
RHP David Goforth (1-5, 8.41)
RHP Rory McKean (4-2, 5.65)
Bullpen:
LHP Matt Crouse (5-1, 3.12)
RHP Trent Rothlin (3-4, 4.43)
RHP Eric Callender (4-1, 5.83)
LHP Matt Tracy (4-3, 5.98)
RHP Brett Huber (2-0, 2.54, 12 SV)
Ole Miss against the ACC: no games
The lineup is largely conjecture; as you can see, Ole Miss has struggled to find any consistency from the bottom half. In some cases they have two players to choose from at a certain position: one that can't hit for contact and one that has no power. And of the seven players with .300 or greater batting averages from last year, four are gone and one was Miller, for whom the bottom dropped out this year.
Since Davenport qualifies as a pitcher's park - smaller than Ole Miss's Swayze Field in the alleys and out to center - I think we'll see Ole Miss lean toward contact hitters, so you might also see backup outfielder Tanner Mathis in the lineup against right-handers.
As for the pitchers, there's conflicting information as to who'll get the call on Friday for Ole Miss. Might as well go with the direct quote from Rebels' coach Mike Bianco, who says top-ten-pick-in-waiting Drew Pomeranz will get the start against St. John's. That means the Hoos, if UVA and Ole Miss win, will face Aaron Barrett. And it means Barrett will have to go against Danny Hultzen, as O'Connor has tabbed Cody Winiarski to start on Friday. (The right choice: if we can't beat the #147 team in the country with any of our weekend starters, we'll never get to Omaha anyway.)
After Pomeranz and Barrett, though, the rotation is almost totally worthless. The Rebels missed out on a lot of sweeps - including one against SEC punching bag Georgia - because they have no third starter at all. If the series holds true to seeding form and UVA faces Ole Miss in a championship game on Sunday, the hitters will be absolutely salivating at the prospect of a few at-bats each against a used-up Ole Miss pen. With Pomeranz going on Friday, a UVA-Ole Miss matchup should be in the cards for Saturday, and the Rebels don't have the bats to chase Hultzen nor the arms to win any games after Saturday.
St. John'sDangerous matchup for Ole Miss here, as the Johnnies can hit and have one quality pitcher. They caught a break on the schedule by not having to play regular-season champ UConn, but nevertheless had to get past the Huskies for the Big East championship, which they did. Ace Kyle Hansen pitched into the 7th inning against UConn after having gone eight full frames just four days earlier.
A lot of the Storm's best players are freshman, including Hansen and masher extraordinaire Jeremy Baltz. Not good for future Big East opponents, but here's hoping experience and guile plus a loud Davenport win out in any potential UVA-SJU matchup.
Possible lineup:
CF Scott Ferrara (.282-1-29)
RF Jimmy Parque (.352-4-44)
SS Joe Panik (.383-8-48)
LF Jeremy Baltz (.393-20-74)
3B Greg Hopkins (.367-6-55)
2B Matt Wessinger (.284-4-43)
1B Paul Karmas (.329-8-52)
DH Sean O'Hare (.352-1-29)
C Joe Witkowski (.217-0-8)
Rotation:
RHP Kyle Hansen (8-1, 3.09)
RHP Bruce Kern (6-5, 5.91)
RHP Nick Cenatiempo (1-1, 6.34)
RHP Matt Carasiti (7-4, 5.88)
Bullpen:
LHP Kevin Kilpatrick (1-1, 3.57)
RHP Stephen Rivera (4-2, 3.65)
RHP Ryan Cole (3-1, 3.96)
LHP Sean Hagan (4-1, 4.74)
RHP Daniel Burawa (1-0, 2.78, 11 SV)
St. John's against the ACC: lost to UNC 8-2, beat Boston College 17-9
Extrapolate Jeremy Baltz's numbers out to a 162-game MLB season and you get 56 HRs and 207 RBIs. Jeesh. 20 and 74 are damn good for major leaguers, never mind someone who's only played 58 games in his entire college career. Do not make a mistake pitching to Baltz.
St. John's plays in a bandbox, however: about 320 down the lines and just 380 to straightaway center. They're going to have an extremely tough road in this regional: first Drew Pomeranz, then likely Danny Hultzen if they get past Pomeranz, all in an unfamiliar pitcher's park.
And after Hansen in the rotation - nothing. They have a good bullpen; important because starting pitchers like Cenatiempo have a nasty habit of giving up a lot of hits and not pitching deep into games. Rivera and Kilpatrick are the long-relief types and they figure to get a lot of work this weekend.
If St. John's is the Saturday opponent, Kern will likely oppose the Hoos. He's a better pitcher than that ERA would indicate; decent strikeout pitcher, but in the end nothing worse than UVA's seen in ACC competition, and no match for Hultzen. This is a rotation even thinner than Ole Miss's, but the bullpen is better. Even so, if St. John's is going to win games this weekend, they'll need to be by scores of 12-8. And if they're going to win the whole regional, they'll have to do as they did in the Big East tournament and pitch Hansen on short rest. If SJU manages to make it to Monday for a winner-take-all game, don't be surprised to see them trot him out there.
VCUThe baseball committee thinks all #4 seeds are equal, and assigns them to regionals by pure geography. Thus, VCU. The Rams have the only .400 hitter in the regional other than Keith Werman, but might also go the entire weekend without hitting a home run. You want a light-hitting team? VCU is it: 33 home runs all year, and 20 of them hit by two players.
Possible lineup:
CF Matt Leskiw (.270-0-14)
2B Richard Gonzalez (.391-0-37)
3B Joe Van Meter (.433-10-72)
1B Brent Mikionis (.332-10-50)
RF John Lenherr (.293-2-35)
SS Nick Kime (.250-0-10)
LF Paul Nice (.278-2-29)
C Taylor Perkins (.306-2-30)
DH Doug Otto (.281-4-33)
Rotation:
RHP Seth Cutler-Voltz (8-3, 3.20)
RHP Kyle Haynes (3-3, 5.40)
LHP Ryan Farrar (4-5, 8.14)
LHP Michael Graham (4-4, 7.36)
Bullpen:
RHP Jonathan Watson (4-2, 2.78)
RHP Kyle Pelchy (2-0, 4.12)
LHP Brennan Huelse (1-1, 3.54)
RHP Robbie Andrews (1-2, 3.18, 9 SV)
VCU against the ACC: lost to Maryland 7-2, lost to UVA 10-5
One month to the day of the regional opener against VCU, UVA was playing a weekday game against these same Rams. The Hoos won 10-5, scoring runs off of every pitcher VCU sent to the mound, and Branden Kline gave up four runs in six innings for the win. VCU actually hit two home runs in that game. I haven't bothered to check if that was their only multi-homer game all year, but it's possible. Get through VCU's 3 and 4 hitters and the ball is not at all likely to leave the yard.
VCU will throw Seth Cutler-Voltz against us, and he's got more than just a cool name going for him. SCV is coming off two complete-game wins in a row, and any hope of an upset lies with his right arm. The thing is, though, Cutler-Voltz has yet to throw against anyone worth talking about, and no, JMU doesn't count. Fellow tournament 4-seed Bethune-Cookman is the only opponent resembling a difficult team on Cutler-Voltz's resume, and they shelled him.
Right-hander Winiarski should match up well against VCU's lineup, which figures to trot out just two lefties and no switch-hitters. VCU's non-home-run-hitting lineup is also a better matchup for Cody than the other lineups in the regional, as he's a soft-tosser and has a much greater tendency than our other pitchers to give up home runs. But the bottom line is this: Cody is a weekend starter, and if we can't beat a four-seed, #147-RPI team with a weekend starter, then Omaha was never going to happen anyway.
Outlook for UVA
Keith Werman and Franco Valdes may not have been everyday starters this year, but chances are we'll never see a southpaw this weekend, so look for both to get plenty of at-bats this weekend. Along with Dan Grovatt and Jarrett Parker, that's a solid number of lefties to send to the plate against all these right-handers we'll see; first Cutler-Voltz, then Kern or Barrett, and then whatever poor schlub and his 6+ ERA has to face this lineup after that.
The biggest game is the second one. It's good to be the king; the 1 seed has the luxury of being able to hold back their ace for Saturday, expecting that it won't take your top pitcher to beat Friday's opponent. A win on Saturday either gives us a one-win (vice three-in-a-row) path to victory, or it (heaven forbid we end up in this situation) staves off elimination, so having Hultzen available for that game is huge. Especially if it's against St. John's and their murderer's row.
This is set up very, very nicely for UVA to win. The difference in pitching staffs is a mile wide. No, I'm not spoiled by looking at our own; there are plenty of teams that didn't make this tournament that have deeper and better pitching staffs than the three that got sent to Charlottesville. Even if we have to play Sunday morning in an elimination game, by that time our opponent will have burned through just about every worthwhile pitcher and we'll have Robert Morey. And if we go 2-0 on Friday and Saturday, it's over; some poor used-up staff is going to have to try and win two in a row against Morey and then (probably) Kline. Ain't happening. If we go 2-0, the third game will be a slaughter.
But to get to 2-0, the bats need to perk up. The Miami game was a great reassurance, because the rest of the ACC tournament and a few of the weekends prior were starting to see things go cold at the plate. Still - this weekend could be just the tonic, especially if we never see Drew Pomeranz.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
some stuff
Stuff goin' on - let's do a little catching up on it.
- Hat tip to Gobbler Country on this one; you can see a screenshot of the new football uniforms in action here. Screenshot because it's from NCAA '11. Picture #14 is what you want. There's only one problem: they messed them up. The players in the screenshot are wearing the NFL-style socks that disappeared along with most of the rest of Groh's additions to the look. (You have to admit, it probably looks better that way because there's hardly anything on the uniforms to break up all that white.) There's also no ACC patch, even though the rest of the depicted ACC teams have them. (Nutjob conspiracy theorists, you now have your flimsy ammunition: Big Ten teams wear no conference patch.) And I can't tell if there's an orange outline on the numbers, but if there's supposed to be, it's nowhere as distinguishable as it is on the real thing.
I still say this new look will be a lot better if we keep the white-on-white and blue-on-blue to a bare minimum.
- All-ACC baseball teams are out and the Hoos are very well represented. As you'd expect from the regular-season champion, no school has more players named than UVA does; seven in all with three on the first team (Arico, Gosselin, and ACCy Young winner Danny Hultzen) and four on the second team (Morey, Parker, Werman, and Cannon.)
- This has nothing at all to do with UVA athletics, but please oh please oh please let this guy's middle name be Maury.
- Speaking of baseball, the ACC tournament got off on the right foot for UVA with a 6-4 win over Boston College this afternoon. A game that was a little closer than we'd have liked to see means that top long reliever Tyler Wilson is now used up til Saturday and won't be available tomorrow. That puts a little more pressure on Morey to go a long way. However. Florida State lost to Miami today as well, so in all but the most unlikely of scenarios (that being BC winning both the rest of their games) UVA will have to beat Miami to play on Sunday. The flip side is that beating FSU tomorrow might not be absolutely necessary.
In fact, the strong possibility exists that it'll be totally meaningless. The early game tomorrow is Miami/BC. If Miami wins, the FSU game won't mean anything and the Miami game will determine the championship. Why? Say we lose to FSU but then beat Miami. Then we're 2-1, Miami is 2-1, and Florida State is either 2-1 (with a win over BC on Friday) or 1-2 (with a loss.) Either way, the tiebreakers break in our favor. If I were Brian O'Connor, I'd have both Morey and Kline (or Neal Davis) get ready and wait for the result of the early game before choosing a starter. Being able to save Morey for a possible Sunday game would be big. Reason not to: If he pitches on Sunday he won't be available for early NCAA regional games. Still, it's a strong consideration.
- Recruiting board update! It was getting a little old. It's also getting a little long. The evaluation period just finished up, and the coaches aimed the offer cannon out of state at players they were getting their first good looks at. Not a lot of players come off the board during this time, because they're getting flooded with offers and aren't narrowing things down yet. And they're taking SATs and ACTs and final exams, so campus visits are at a minimum. When the summer camp circuit and visit circuit fires up, that's when players will start knocking schools off their lists or make their commitments. So here are the updates - many more additions than removals:
- LB Daquan Romero (committed to UNC) and QB Gary Nova (Pitt) are the only removals.
- DT Vincent Croce is added to blue. Originally I figured his offer list was just entirely too big to even bother adding him, but what do you know, he has UVA in a top 3.
- TE Darius Redman, LB Nick Menocal, DEs Zach Wood and Stephon Sanders, and CB Blake Countess are added to yellow. All were beneficiaries of the offer gun. Menocal attends school in Florida with 2010 signee Pablo Alvarez.
- WR Tacoi Sumler is added to red. Sumler's offer list is divided into Volumes I, II, and III, it's that big, so we're not getting him, but he's a former teammate of early enrollee Michael Strauss, so hey, why not.
- Moved WR Dominique Terrell from yellow to red.
- Moved WR Daniel Adams from yellow to blue.
- Hat tip to Gobbler Country on this one; you can see a screenshot of the new football uniforms in action here. Screenshot because it's from NCAA '11. Picture #14 is what you want. There's only one problem: they messed them up. The players in the screenshot are wearing the NFL-style socks that disappeared along with most of the rest of Groh's additions to the look. (You have to admit, it probably looks better that way because there's hardly anything on the uniforms to break up all that white.) There's also no ACC patch, even though the rest of the depicted ACC teams have them. (Nutjob conspiracy theorists, you now have your flimsy ammunition: Big Ten teams wear no conference patch.) And I can't tell if there's an orange outline on the numbers, but if there's supposed to be, it's nowhere as distinguishable as it is on the real thing.
I still say this new look will be a lot better if we keep the white-on-white and blue-on-blue to a bare minimum.
- All-ACC baseball teams are out and the Hoos are very well represented. As you'd expect from the regular-season champion, no school has more players named than UVA does; seven in all with three on the first team (Arico, Gosselin, and ACCy Young winner Danny Hultzen) and four on the second team (Morey, Parker, Werman, and Cannon.)
- This has nothing at all to do with UVA athletics, but please oh please oh please let this guy's middle name be Maury.
- Speaking of baseball, the ACC tournament got off on the right foot for UVA with a 6-4 win over Boston College this afternoon. A game that was a little closer than we'd have liked to see means that top long reliever Tyler Wilson is now used up til Saturday and won't be available tomorrow. That puts a little more pressure on Morey to go a long way. However. Florida State lost to Miami today as well, so in all but the most unlikely of scenarios (that being BC winning both the rest of their games) UVA will have to beat Miami to play on Sunday. The flip side is that beating FSU tomorrow might not be absolutely necessary.
In fact, the strong possibility exists that it'll be totally meaningless. The early game tomorrow is Miami/BC. If Miami wins, the FSU game won't mean anything and the Miami game will determine the championship. Why? Say we lose to FSU but then beat Miami. Then we're 2-1, Miami is 2-1, and Florida State is either 2-1 (with a win over BC on Friday) or 1-2 (with a loss.) Either way, the tiebreakers break in our favor. If I were Brian O'Connor, I'd have both Morey and Kline (or Neal Davis) get ready and wait for the result of the early game before choosing a starter. Being able to save Morey for a possible Sunday game would be big. Reason not to: If he pitches on Sunday he won't be available for early NCAA regional games. Still, it's a strong consideration.
- Recruiting board update! It was getting a little old. It's also getting a little long. The evaluation period just finished up, and the coaches aimed the offer cannon out of state at players they were getting their first good looks at. Not a lot of players come off the board during this time, because they're getting flooded with offers and aren't narrowing things down yet. And they're taking SATs and ACTs and final exams, so campus visits are at a minimum. When the summer camp circuit and visit circuit fires up, that's when players will start knocking schools off their lists or make their commitments. So here are the updates - many more additions than removals:
- LB Daquan Romero (committed to UNC) and QB Gary Nova (Pitt) are the only removals.
- DT Vincent Croce is added to blue. Originally I figured his offer list was just entirely too big to even bother adding him, but what do you know, he has UVA in a top 3.
- TE Darius Redman, LB Nick Menocal, DEs Zach Wood and Stephon Sanders, and CB Blake Countess are added to yellow. All were beneficiaries of the offer gun. Menocal attends school in Florida with 2010 signee Pablo Alvarez.
- WR Tacoi Sumler is added to red. Sumler's offer list is divided into Volumes I, II, and III, it's that big, so we're not getting him, but he's a former teammate of early enrollee Michael Strauss, so hey, why not.
- Moved WR Dominique Terrell from yellow to red.
- Moved WR Daniel Adams from yellow to blue.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Q&A with From The Rumble Seat
As is tradition around these parts, a matchup with Georgia Tech - especially a big one like this - means a Q&A exchange with GT blog From The Rumble Seat, at which you can find the counterpart interview. By now you should be familiar with the concept. This stands in for any kind of a series preview - it's easy when you let someone else write it. My questions, their answers:
1. Of the ACC contenders, and some of the noncontenders as well, GT's schedule to date has been the weakest. How much of the impressive batting statistics can be attributed to lousy pitching and how much is for real?
That's a valid question. Winfield himself was concerned about how our offense would look once the Jackets faced a formidable opponent like Carolina. We'd say the statistics speak for themselves: 26 runs, 4 HRs, 33 hits (12 of which for extra bases). Even though the opponents have been relatively weak, Georgia Tech has not let up on the gas pedal. The same cannot be said for UVA who let a sub-0.500 Wolfpack squad sneak by them. (Editor's note: Just for that, I'm gonna point out that even Carolina isn't necessarily the formidable opponent we thought they'd be earlier. As things are shaping up, UNC baseball is the UNC basketball of baseball season.)
2. The likely Friday matchup between Danny Hultzen and Deck McGuire looks like one of the best that college baseball fans will see all year, nationwide. But both teams also bat .344, tying them for the lead in the ACC. What do you expect out of this matchup?
Honestly, I think it will be a pitchers duel. I expect a game along the lines of 2-1 or 3-2. The opening game GT vs. UNC series went the same way, with 2 greate pitchers matching up against one another. Should be a heckuva a game... if you're a true baseball fan, this will be the one to watch.
3. Is this an Omaha-or-bust year for the Jackets? Both in terms of expectations, and the likely makeup of next year's team after this year's draft?
Yes, Tech's goal is definitely Omaha. We are tired of losing in super regional play especially when we host the super regional every other year. We have the sticks to score with any team in the country and finally have the depth at pitching required to win four or five games straight in the post season. Currently, Tech is on pace to best our last CWS team's season ERA and batting average. As long as the bats keep swinging against weekend ACC pitching rotations and the midweek pitchers continue to win, Tech fans are incredibly optimistic about our chances to make it into Rosenblatt's final season.
4. What's Hall's substitution philosophy? Will he ride the starters as long as he can? Platoon much? Big on lefty-righty matchups or just let your hitters hit and pitchers pitch and make the other team beat your best?
Offensively, we don't think he's real big on the right-lefty matchups, especially this year. He's said several times this season that he feels comfortable with any one of our hitters against a righty or lefty. As pitchers go, he's not going to keep anyone to a pitch count. He does tend to go for the favorable right-lefty matchup if he respects the other team's hitters. Concerning innings pitched, our starters usually go 5-6 innings and then middle relievers take over from there. Deck McGuire, however, has pitched about 2 more innings per game than typical Tech weekend starters just because he's performed so admirably. He's already thrown two complete games and is pitching about 7.6 innings/game.
5. I bet our fan favorite is tinier than your fan favorite. Who is the fan favorite? Not necessarily the baddest hitter or smoothest fielder - who on the Tech roster is the guy that you just call a ballplayer?
We don't want to denigrate any of our players or talk out of our asses on this question as Ted is currently in Kansas and has not made a game. Bird is in South Carolina and has not made a game yet either. Winfield has made it to several games but is completely out of touch with the Georgia Tech baseball fan base. So, if we were to pick a single player as a fan favorite, it would have to be Georgia Tech football's A-back, Roddy Jones. He was a highly heralded football and baseball recruit so the transition hasn't been too bad for him. He's still working on his batting technique but he's got the speed to steal bases and has been called upon to pinch run several times this season. Besides Deck McGuire, he's probably the most recognizable player on Tech's baseball squad despite the fact that he's struck out 6 times in 8 at bats. (Editor's note: I was thinking of Keith Werman here, and FTRS actually selected someone who Werman can almost see eye to eye with. Almost. But Jones has at least 40 pounds on the Werm.)
Don't forget to check out FTRS for my answers to their inquiries. And as always muchas mercis to the premier GT blog in the land.
1. Of the ACC contenders, and some of the noncontenders as well, GT's schedule to date has been the weakest. How much of the impressive batting statistics can be attributed to lousy pitching and how much is for real?
That's a valid question. Winfield himself was concerned about how our offense would look once the Jackets faced a formidable opponent like Carolina. We'd say the statistics speak for themselves: 26 runs, 4 HRs, 33 hits (12 of which for extra bases). Even though the opponents have been relatively weak, Georgia Tech has not let up on the gas pedal. The same cannot be said for UVA who let a sub-0.500 Wolfpack squad sneak by them. (Editor's note: Just for that, I'm gonna point out that even Carolina isn't necessarily the formidable opponent we thought they'd be earlier. As things are shaping up, UNC baseball is the UNC basketball of baseball season.)
2. The likely Friday matchup between Danny Hultzen and Deck McGuire looks like one of the best that college baseball fans will see all year, nationwide. But both teams also bat .344, tying them for the lead in the ACC. What do you expect out of this matchup?
Honestly, I think it will be a pitchers duel. I expect a game along the lines of 2-1 or 3-2. The opening game GT vs. UNC series went the same way, with 2 greate pitchers matching up against one another. Should be a heckuva a game... if you're a true baseball fan, this will be the one to watch.
3. Is this an Omaha-or-bust year for the Jackets? Both in terms of expectations, and the likely makeup of next year's team after this year's draft?
Yes, Tech's goal is definitely Omaha. We are tired of losing in super regional play especially when we host the super regional every other year. We have the sticks to score with any team in the country and finally have the depth at pitching required to win four or five games straight in the post season. Currently, Tech is on pace to best our last CWS team's season ERA and batting average. As long as the bats keep swinging against weekend ACC pitching rotations and the midweek pitchers continue to win, Tech fans are incredibly optimistic about our chances to make it into Rosenblatt's final season.
4. What's Hall's substitution philosophy? Will he ride the starters as long as he can? Platoon much? Big on lefty-righty matchups or just let your hitters hit and pitchers pitch and make the other team beat your best?
Offensively, we don't think he's real big on the right-lefty matchups, especially this year. He's said several times this season that he feels comfortable with any one of our hitters against a righty or lefty. As pitchers go, he's not going to keep anyone to a pitch count. He does tend to go for the favorable right-lefty matchup if he respects the other team's hitters. Concerning innings pitched, our starters usually go 5-6 innings and then middle relievers take over from there. Deck McGuire, however, has pitched about 2 more innings per game than typical Tech weekend starters just because he's performed so admirably. He's already thrown two complete games and is pitching about 7.6 innings/game.
5. I bet our fan favorite is tinier than your fan favorite. Who is the fan favorite? Not necessarily the baddest hitter or smoothest fielder - who on the Tech roster is the guy that you just call a ballplayer?
We don't want to denigrate any of our players or talk out of our asses on this question as Ted is currently in Kansas and has not made a game. Bird is in South Carolina and has not made a game yet either. Winfield has made it to several games but is completely out of touch with the Georgia Tech baseball fan base. So, if we were to pick a single player as a fan favorite, it would have to be Georgia Tech football's A-back, Roddy Jones. He was a highly heralded football and baseball recruit so the transition hasn't been too bad for him. He's still working on his batting technique but he's got the speed to steal bases and has been called upon to pinch run several times this season. Besides Deck McGuire, he's probably the most recognizable player on Tech's baseball squad despite the fact that he's struck out 6 times in 8 at bats. (Editor's note: I was thinking of Keith Werman here, and FTRS actually selected someone who Werman can almost see eye to eye with. Almost. But Jones has at least 40 pounds on the Werm.)
Don't forget to check out FTRS for my answers to their inquiries. And as always muchas mercis to the premier GT blog in the land.
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.
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