Bleacher Report - Articles by Ben Allaire

Someday, It Will Happen: A 16th-Seed Victory

Ben Allaire — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:27:26 -0400

I try not to concern myself with low probability events: winning the lottery, death by shark, Virginia's coach getting fired (nevermind), or being struck by lightning, twice.

Around this time of year, however, I do concern myself with one low-likelihood event: a 16th seed beating a number 1 seed.

There's four games every year and the Goliaths are undefeated against the Davids since the brackets went to 64+ teams. In 1989, the Princeton Tigers almost pulled a fast one on the undefeated Georgetown Hoyas. Pete Carril's back-door offense lulled the Hoyas to sleep, but yet, Georgetown prevailed.

At some point it's going to happen, because the odds aren't zero. It's the one-armed bandit: you keep pulling that lever, sooner or later, it'll come up sevens.

When it does occur, everyone's brackets will be shot to hell and the top seed (and its coach) will be excoriated. The winning coach will be pronounced as a genius and will be heralded. I will be a happy, happy man.

Let's look at the chances for each of the four games this year.

Louisville versus Play-in Winner (Morehead State versus Alabama State)

The play-in game sure seems like a raw deal to me. You're saying that the winner of this game (tonight) has to hang around Dayton, OH for two days in order to be the sacrificial lamb to Louisville? Yuck.

The likely winner is Morehead St., who features 15 ppger Leon Buchanan. The senior has an outstanding true shooting percentage of 61 percent. That's probably because he doesn't shoot any (ok, three this year) threes. However, Alabama State rocks the best name in the country: Chief Kickingstallionisms.

Either way, with the way Louisville's been playing of late, I think they'll probably steamroll the competition.

Chances of upset: Almost nil

North Carolina versus Radford

Do you see that picture up there? That, my friends, is Chris Burgess and Roshown McLeod pulling a Night of the Roxbury on an unnamed Radford player in the 1998 tourney (the movie came out the same year!). So they clearly have experience playing highly ranked ACC opponents in the tournament.

There's also the possibility that Ty Lawson will be out for the game resting his toe injury, which could bode well for the Highlanders. That's their mascot, I'm not making this up.

However, even without Lawson, UNC's secondary break and depth can pose a problem for even the most able-bodied foes. Radford will be lucky to stay with the 'Heels for a half.

Chances of upset: A sequel of Night at the Roxbury is more likely.

UConn versus Chattanooga

Chattanooga is one hot team. After finishing with a losing record in the regular season, the Mocs (again, seriously?) ran through the Southern Conference tournament. They won their three games and will take that auto-bid, thank you very much.

They beat the College of Charleston, who beat Davidson. Therefore, using transitivity, Chattanooga > The Stephen Currys.

But...UConn has Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien and they're fresh off a six-overtime loss. They're hungry and pissed.

Chances of Upset: More likely that the game will go to seven OTS.

Pittsburgh versus East Tennesee State (ETSU)

Now, here's a game I can get behind. ETSU has a senior backcourt of Courtney Pigram and Kevin Tiggs. Junior Mike Smith averages 15 ppg. The Buccaneers arrrrrrrrrrrrrrre (sorry) solid at shooting the ball with an eFG of 51 percent.

They also don't turn the ball over too much, but yet also create a lot of turnovers.

Pitt, meanwhile, is a an offensive juggernaut when DeJuan Blair is on the court. His offensive rebounding is astronomical. Really, it's completely and utterly absurd. The fact that he's not getting more pub for National POY bothers the living crap out of me.

Some experts wizards authorities idiot tried to show that Pitt is actually a rather inconsistent team. They are somewhat susceptible when Blair is out. So, if somehow ETSU can manage that, they might have a chance.

Chances of Upset: Not great, but better than the other three. If you're betting the long shot to win, place your dinero here.

ACC Coaches on Offense: Who's Good, Who Isn't, and One Way To Tell

Ben Allaire — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:03:52 -0500

Successful college basketball coaches need to accomplish two tasks in order to win: recruit talent and win the X's and O's battle. However, in the course of the one NCAA season the former is fixed; the coach is stuck with who he has recruited. At that point it's up to the coach to, uh, "coach 'em up."

But is it possible to tell how well the coach teaches the players? That is to say, how often does the coach put the players in a position to succeed? I came across this topic while reading Mr. Jameson Fleming's fine treatise on the Syracuse defense.

Fleming points out that, while Jim Boeheim's claim to fame is the zone defense, the personnel would be better suited to man-to-man defense.

I'm convinced that the Virginia Cavaliers have a similar inefficiency on the offensive end. I'm just not convinced that the offense that the Wahoos run fits with the roster. The Virginia offense is predicated on the dribble-drive and (recently) a host of back-door cuts.

This is a fine offense for team consisting of quick, interchangeable, wing players.

As far as I can tell, the Virginia roster does not consist of a team of quick, interchangeable, wing players. It has one outstanding scorer (Sylven Landesberg), some fair-to-middling shooters, centers without back-to-the-basket type games, and one solid, underutilized post player (Mike Scott).

His underutilization was the impetus for this post.

With the exception of the Clemson game, Scott's offensive game just doesn't make a blip on the radar. Why? Because he rarely touches the ball on offense. Scott's got decent footwork and a line-drive jump hook over his left shoulder.

However, he uses only 18.8 of Virginia's possessions when he's on the floor, but has a true shooting percentage of 60 percent.

Thus, when he does get the ball, he scores.

Now, I realize that if his teammates passed to him more often, he might not score as efficiently. His touches come primarily in the form of offensive rebounds, which begets high-percentage put-backs.

But we have no idea if he can sustain a high level of production with a higher usage rate, because, again, he rarely touches the ball.

I'm putting the blame for this inefficiency on Virginia coach Dave Leitao. It lead me to think about other ACC coaches and how they utilize their players on offense. Good coaches put the ball in the hands of the most effective scorers and limit the touches on the least effective.

Take a look at the following figure, which plots a player's offensive rating (ORtg) against the percentage of the team's possessions he uses. For this exposition, think of the offensive rating like John Hollinger's PER.

I've plotted all the players from Ken Pomeroy's scouting report which includes those who have played at least 10 percent of the team's minutes. A coach's primary goal should be to keep all his players in the upper-right (offensive stars who need the ball a lot) and lower-left (role players who shouldn't be making decisions).

A number of observations pop out right away:

Notice that the cut-offs aren't exactly at the midpoints of the two axes. This makes sense: there's only a few stars amongst a lot of average joes.
It's clear why UNC is No. 1 in terms of offensive efficiency. Carolina has a lot of players north of the (rather arbitrary) 105 ORtg, but it also has a number of players in the southwest quadrant. In short, Williams gets the ball to Hansbrough. Green, and of course, Ty Lawson.
Speaking of Lawson, perhaps Carolina doesn't get it to him enough. Look at that outlier! He really has torn it up this season. Although, part of me does wonder if that's a function of inflated assist numbers at home, which happens a lot.
It's clear why GT is the worst scoring team in the league. It's not like there's any inefficiencies to be identified for the Yellow Jackets. They're just a terrible, terrible offensive team. You can see Iman Shumpert out there, getting the ball with the shot-clock winding down and throwing up brick after brick. As much as a disaster UVa has been on offense, GT has been significantly worse. A GT game is not fun to watch.
BC does a great job getting the right players the ball. They may not be the best offensive team in the conference, but Al Skinner knows how to use Tyrese Rice and co. to the best of their abilities.
You can see why Jeff Teague now plays and Ish Smith doesn't. Smith's just a disaster on offense.
NC State has an inordinate number of underused players. For a team that's mediocre in the ACC in terms of offensive efficiency, you'd think they'd figure out how to use them better. Courtney Fells and Dennis Horner score, why don't they get the ball more often?

Finally, we come to Mike Scott. I've taken the time to point him out. Virginia could stand to use him more, but there are a lot of players on the list that could be used even more by their coaches as well. I guess in terms of ACC coaches, maybe Leitao's not so bad on offense?

Regardless, I stick to my initial reason for writing this post. I wish the Virginia coaches could figure out a way to get Mike Scott the ball more often.

Ben Allaire writes for dearolduva.com. This article can be found there, as well.

Magic Acquire the Wrong Guy: Why Jeff George Would Be a Much Better Fit

Ben Allaire — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:47:02 -0500

Jason Whitlock is making a guest appearance in this space.

With Jameer Nelson now injured and out for the season, the Orlando Magic need a strong hand to guide them into the playoffs.

On Wednesday, Magic GM Otis Smith acquired playground legend and point guard extraordinaire Rafer Alston to fill the void left by Nelson.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm here to tell you that the Orlando Magic completely blew this trade.

What they really needed was a quarterback to run the show. I'm not talking about your typical Steve Blake veteran-type, who runs the offense and doesn't get in the way.

I'm talking about a real live quarterback: Jeff George.

Never mind that Jeff hasn't thrown an NFL pass in almost a decade or that he can't dribble left handed. The guy has a rocket arm! He can solve all types of offensive problems.

My obsession with Jeff has been well-documented, but that's no reason to stop now. I'm telling you, Jeff can run an offense.

Big Sexy knows that his age (40) wouldn't matter in today's NBA game. Look at Dikembe Mutumbo; That 42 year-old finger-waggin' shot-blockin' crazy is still dominating just like the old days. Besides, Anthony Johnson is already a back-up for the Magic at age 35.

What's five more years? If Sacramento can trade for that ancient alien Sam Cassell, why not Jeff?

Jeff George could easily sit in the back court and throw 60 foot passes with ease. Kevin Love's got nothing on Jeff!

You know if the Orlando Magic doesn't get him, somebody will. Boston just had a roster spot open up.

When Ben Allaire isn't poking fun at Jason Whitlock, he pokes fun at the Virginia Cavaliers at dearolduva.com.

Virginia's Dave Leitao: Will He Stay or Will He Go?

Ben Allaire — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:20:46 -0500

I don't love speculating about coaches losing their jobs. It always bristled the great Dr. Z when a question would come into his mailbag about a coach's future with a team.

It isn't the head coach's future that truly bugs me. Leitao is a coach at an ACC school; he'll find a job elsewhere if Virginia parted ways with him. Plus, he's earning a hefty salary right now. It's tough to feel sorry for him.

The situation regarding the assistants saddens me. When a coach gets fired, the assistants often get scattered and must find jobs quickly. The best jobs aren't always available to a staff of a recently fired coach. Also, the assistants down the line probably weren't making buko-bucks at their job, either. Their families suffer, too.

However, given the state of the basketball program at Virginia, speculating will occur, so let's get on with it. That's the way it is.

Despite all the recent press questioning him (this article for example), I believe that only a catastrophic event will prove to be Leitao's ouster. A 4-12 finish in the ACC is bad, but it's good enough—given the youngishness nature of the roster—for him to keep his job for one more year.

Actually, I think 2-14 will actually even keep him around for one more year. The AD might ask for some changes, akin to this year's firing Mike Groh on the football team, but I think Leitao stays.

So, my belief is that Leitao leaves if (and only if) Virginia loses every single regular season game from here on out. That's right, he's got lose all of them. For this exercise, we won't concern ourselves with the ACC tournament. We can assume that Virginia gets a first day game and loses it.

I took probability of winning each game from Virginia's "Scouting Report" on Kenpom.com (who uses the log5 method to calculate it), took the complement (1 - each probability), and multiplied them together. Assuming independence, that's the probability of losing every game in the regular season.

I got 2.4 percent. Therefore, Leitao has about a 97.6 percent chance of staying.

This estimate assumes a lot of things: that the Virginia freshmen don't start "figuring it out" and playing well or that a loss to BC on Wednesday doesn't diminish the team's spirits for their match up with UNC, etc.

That 97.6 percent, though, seems to jive with what I'm thinking. Leitao is probably going to come back next year. But will that be all? Now, it would be quite a trick if I knew that.

Don't agree with me? Did I need to use Bayes' rule? Want to add additional conditions?

Let me have it in the comments.

This article is available at Dear Old UVa.

Virginia's Offense Isn't the Team's Only Problem

Ben Allaire — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:29:57 -0500

Much has been made of the slide in the Virginia offense since the departure of J.R. Reynolds and Sean Singletary. As the years have ticked by since that rather magical 2007 campaign, it's not just the offense that's tailed off; the defense has fallen significantly as well. It only appears that the offense has gotten worse, simply because Reynolds and Singletary were such outstanding scorers.

The graph below plots Virginia's offensive and defensive efficiency statistics for the Leitao era. The offense is in blue and the defense is in red; in between those lines is the efficiency margin (the difference between the two). Remember, for the defense, lower is better.

A couple of points to note:

That 2007 team was good at both offense and defense. We forget that. I think the tendency is just to think about how great Singletary and Reynolds were on O. Jason Cain was an anchor, maybe even a stalwart, in the middle. It was also a solid, injury-free year for Mamadi Diane, who wasn't counted on to score.
The ACC is ridonkulously competitive. In 2007, one of the best years ever, we're ranked 30th on offense and 59th on defense, but fifth and eighth, respectively, within the ACC. That, my friends, is why coaches in places other than Chapel Hill and Durham get chewed up and spit out. I know Gary Williams is on the hot seat, but this reeks of NC State firing Herb Sendek, which I bet the NC State fans wish they could have a do-over with. Williams is a complete ass sometimes, which doesn't help his cause, but he's a good fit for Maryland. And, of course, he won a national championship. Wake up people.
For all the talk about Leitao's defensive prowess, Virginia's never been in the top half of the ACC in terms of defensive efficiency, finishing dead last in the ACC in 2008. Last year, that was the Achilles' heel and why the Cavs couldn't hold a lead. In fact, you might say that the drop defensively was much worse (59th nationally to 123rd versus 30th to 51st) than the drop offensively.
The 2009 squad has improved slightly on defense but has regressed tremendously on offense. To anyone watching the games, this is not a surprise. The offense isn't working. You look at this graph and think that 7-9 seems about right.

However, I'm sticking with Dave Leitao on this one. There's no reason why he can't fix this in the offseason or with what's left of this one. We're not going make a postseason tournament. Why not scrap the offense now and start over? I would bet a move like that would improve morale.

The best example I can think of is Dino Gaudio. Before this year, Skip Prosser and Gaudio's (by extension) defenses were porous. But last offseason, he changed his ways. He studied what the best coaches in the game were doing and implemented it. Wake Forest is now one of the best (if not the best) defensive teams in the league.

Granted, it helps a lot to have a bunch of freakish athletes and the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, but I refuse to believe it's a question of personnel with the Wahoos. We have guys who can play; they just need to play together. That's the responsibility of the coach.

I know Leitao can get them to play in concert, but he may not have much time left if they don't start improving.

This article is available at Dear Old UVa.

Is Dave Leitao Scaring Players Away from Virginia?

Ben Allaire — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:43:20 -0400

By all accounts, Dave Leitao is a one scary dude.

But is his intensity too much?

At first blush, you’d think so. Leitao has managed to run off a fair number of recruits during his tenure at UVa: Derrick Byars, Gary Forbes, T.J. Bannister, Donte Minter, and Will Harris—to name a few.

The most recent article in the Daily Progress reports that senior center Tunji Soroye is considering a transfer. Soroye just received a medical redshirt from the NCAA to return to his senior season.

The article suggests that Soroye may switch to a Division II school to avoid the NCAA’s requirement that Division I transfers must sit out one year.

I’ve gotten called out in the past by speculating that speculation about Leitao’s tenure would occur if this upcoming season wasn’t a “success” (for examples of said skewering, look here and here).

Which brings us back to the crux of the issue: Is Leitao’s coaching style scaring players away?

I don’t think so. It appears to me that both Leitao and the players were justified in parting ways.

That is to say, each one of these transfers can be rationalized away, and this argument would be forgotten after a solid season.

First, Byars, Forbes, Bannister, and Minter were all Pete Gillen recruits that didn’t want to stick around when Leitao started.

This is understandable: To change the mentality of the program, Leitao had to win his way. Every college coach does—that's his/her job.

This strategy requires a modest amount of shake-up, including the roster. Did all of those players have to leave? Not necessarily, but Leitao's success thus far can justify it.

Second, Harris played for Leitao for two years (one was shortened due to injury). However, Harris was a kid who couldn’t quite make up his mind. He first committed to Nebraska, then UConn, then finally Virginia.

Leitao recruited younger, better players over him. Those players sapped his minutes and his injury derailed his season. It makes sense that he would change his mind and would want to play elsewhere.

Finally, Soroye is a little different than Harris. Soroye was a major part of that ACC regular season championship two years ago. He’s a capable inside presence that contributes rebounds and blocked shots, an element the Wahoos were sorely missing last year.

He could be a big part of ushering in new big men Assane Sene and John Brandenburg.

I don’t have any inside information, but I just don’t think that Soroye has intentions of moving to a D-II school. I also don’t buy Rob Mahini’s account of it being total BS.

Owing to Harris’ departure, Leitao has one scholarship left for this season and can offer it to Soroye or the likely starting point guard, Calvin Baker. So far, Leitao hasn’t made any indications as to whom he was going to offer it to.

By making this threat, Soroye forces Leitao’s hand. It’s a smart move by Soroye, who’s said on many occasions that he can’t afford tuition.

Baker isn’t likely to leave after sitting out a year, so that means Soroye will likely get his wishes. Therefore, we have no idea if Soroye's actually unhappy with Leitao's coaching. He might be a little annoyed that he hasn't gotten the offer yet, but a couple of starts at center would calm him down.

So it’s not that Leitao has been scaring away these players. Decisions have been made, and (at the time, anyway) it’s all made sense.

Virginia is a peculiar place to recruit—Terry Holland once said that it takes a special kind of kid to come to Charlottesville. Therefore, I'm completely comfortable with Leitao's pickiness with his roster.

He's got a plan. It's going to work.

I hope.

Miami Offense Looks to Top Ohio State Defense in ACC-Big Ten Challenge

Ben Allaire — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:08:13 -0400

Ohio State at Miami (Tuesday, Dec. 2, 7 PM)

There’s a lot to prove for Miami this year. Last year’s campaign was a marked success, resulting in an NCAA Tournament berth and a near upset of Texas.

Frank Haith has got to show the world that his squad deserves to be mentioned perennially in the top echelon of the ACC. The Hurricanes can’t just beat the BCs, Virginias, and Florida States of the conference every year and hope to reach that goal.

Jack McClinton, Miami’s gunslinger of a shooting guard (Can we call him McClinton Eastwood? Is that too long of a nickname? Probably), returns after a brief flirtation with the NBA draft.

In any other year, McClinton might be a favorite to win the ACC Player of the Year. The guy puts up 43 percent for both two-pointers and three-pointers and takes more than a quarter of the team’s shots. Mr. McClinton is an offensive force indeed.

Lost in all the din about the offense is how well the Hurricanes played on D. I’m not saying Miami is outstanding on the defensive end (they aren’t), but they play well enough to let their offense do the talking.

Haith employs an unorthodox defensive strategy by preventing teams from shooting a high percentage from two and allowing them to shoot a high percentage from three. Thus, if your team can bang down the threes, you’re golden. Otherwise, forget it.

Ohio State, meanwhile, was one of those teams last year that just wouldn’t get off the flippin’ bubble. It was mid-March and, all I could think was, “We’re still talking about them?”

How did they manage to stick around that much? I would argue that it’s a function of not fouling, of which Ohio State ranked first in the nation. They were second the year before and second the year before that.

It’s sort of a peculiar statistic to quote, not fouling. First, some might think it’s an indication that the defense isn’t being aggressive enough. I don’t believe that, and you shouldn’t either, at least not for Thad Matta’s crew. They were excellent in the area of eFG percentage defense and did not allow an inordinately high amount of PPP.

Second, it’s very, very hard to play good defense and not foul. A lot of defensive effort is expended through physical play. In the post, the goal on defense is to move your man off of his spot. To accomplish this, you must push him out. You will undoubtedly be called for a foul at some point for pushing and shoving. Ohio State didn’t do this.

Finally, if you can pull it off, it’s a smart strategy to employ. It’s simple: Fouling bails out the offense. The less you bail out the offense, the better at defense you’ll be.

My point in telling you all this is that the Buckeyes are coached well and will be next year with a young team. They’re not going to be great, but they will be good enough to make the NCAA discussion, again and again.

Also, it prevents me from saying anything in particular about the team, which is probably why you’re reading this. Oh well.

UPDATE: Two commenters below called me out on my poor job of previewing the Buckeyes. Sometimes, you eat the bar, and well, sometimes he eats you. I'll fix that here.

The Buckeyes return a number of important players, but nobody that made a major impact last season. None of those players possessed an offensive rating over 100. That's alright, though, I think we (ok, me) often forget that these are mostly teenagers and a significant improvement from year to year - if only from a maturation standpoint - can be expected.

However, the Buckeyes did manage to snag uber-frosh BJ Mullens. Mullens apparently scored 108 points, combined, in two high school games. He'll make a huge difference in the pivot.

My one quip, though, is that there aren't that many seasoned players on the roster to show him the ropes. The Buckeye's season may well hinge on how quickly Mullens can pick up the college game.

The Pick: Miami. Jack McClinton doesn’t shoot very many free throws. He usually doesn’t have to.

The pick doesn't change. I still think Miami is older and wiser than these Buckeyes. OSU might (might!) be better come March, but not December.

ACC-Big Ten Preview: Virginia Tech-Wisconsin

Virginia Tech and Wisconsin Set for Defensive Battle in ACC-Big Ten Challenge

Ben Allaire — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:20:36 -0400

During the doldrums of the college basketball offseason, it’s difficult to keep busy. At the present time, everyone appears to be stoked about college football or buzzing about the latest major league baseball trade. The outstanding NCAA Championship game seems oh-so-far off.

That leaves us with a number of arbitrary exercises. We could look at the Prestige rankings or which school outputs the most NBA draft picks.

I’d rather look forward than back, so let’s preview the ACC-Big Ten Challenge!

Why?

It will give everyone a nice lay of the land and also broaden the spectrum of everyone who just looks within their own conference, which is easy to do at this point in the game.

Also, the ACC has won the last/only 10 challenges. Thus, this gives me a chance to tout ACC superiority. Right? Right? Well, we will see.

I’m also planning to employ one of my old buddies, BHall (J-Bug, Cousin Sal, and House were unavailable) to preview a couple of games as well. BHall grew up with me in the rough, ragtag neighborhoods of Charlottesville, VA. He went on star in a Lifetime movie about his life: Where Are My Pants? The BHall Story.

Unfortunately, he blew all the proceeds from that on cheap wine and vintage hookers (maybe it was vintage wine and cheap hookers, whatever).

I’m paying him on a one Yen per word basis. So even if you don’t read my prose, read his—that stuff is expensive.

We’ll take this chronologically and in installments, like a serial novel with hyperlinks.

Wisconsin at Virginia Tech (Monday, Dec. 1, 7 PM, ESPN2)

Virginia Tech comes off a surprisingly successful 2007-2008 campaign. Seth Greenberg’s crew was picked 11th in the ACC last season but finished fourth in the final standings. The Hokies owe their good fortune to a (relatively) light ACC slate and to an excellent defensive effort.

The Hokies play defense without gambling. This is evidenced by their stingy 93 points per 100 possessions (17th in the country), middle-of-the road TO percentage (21 percent, 158th), and a low eFG of 47 percent (34th).

However, the Hokies shan’t be returning all-world super freak Deron Washington. Washington will probably be best remembered for his mad hops and crazy dunks.

All those ridiculous flushes aside, he only had an eFG of 44 percent. He just wasn’t a guy who scared you offensively. As long as you didn’t foul him, the best thing he could contribute to the Hokie offense was his ability to not turn the ball over—something their backcourt managed to have in spades.

Expect that turnover rate to drop, though, as the Hokies are a young team and return most of their starters. Malcolm Delany and A.D. Vassallo can be deadly on offense. They’re capable three point shooters and simply cannot be left alone or fed after midnight.

Jeff Allen occupies the middle. I say “occupies” because he could do a lot more for them if he just wouldn’t take bear claws two at a time.

Don’t expect Tech’s matchup with Wisconsin to be a barnburner (the game could be in the 40s or 50s, and I wouldn’t be surprised), as Wisconsin shares a very similar statistical profile.

The Badgers, though, were a much better defensive team than the Hokies (first in the country in points per 100 possessions). They also don’t cause many turnovers, leading to low shooting percentages for their opponents.

They also lead the nation in coaches named Bo.

Wisconsin has two solid forwards, Joe Krabbenhoft and Michael Landry, coming back next year. Krabbenhoft, in particular, will benefit from shots that Brian Butch (28 percent of shots) and Michael Flowers (18 percent of shots) are no longer taking. Bo Ryan’s swing offense allows him to get to the line in bunches, and he makes three-quarters of his shots there.

I also hear that Ryan’s got a nice recruiting class coming in.

The Pick: Wisconsin. It’s a tight matchup and both are solid defensive teams. Bo Ryan just reloads better.

ACC-Big 10 Preview: Ohio State - Miami

Dave Leitao and the Virginia Cavaliers: A Defining Season

Ben Allaire — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:37:12 -0400

Next season, the training wheels are off.

When Dave Leitao started at Virginia, he knew he had a solid backcourt—Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, both of whom were recruited by his predecessor—to anchor the team.

With their graduations, the team comes completely under Leitao’s direction. These are his players. This upcoming season is a preview of what Leitao’s Virginia program will look like for years to come…if Leitao is around long enough.

Leitao’s hard work gives many reasons to be optimistic.

Last year’s team lacked interior defense. Fans watched as team after team eviscerated the Cavaliers in the post. Virginia’s ineptitude was largely the product of injuries to big men Lars Mikalauskus and Tunji Soroye. Behind those two, the team had paltry few post players, a function of the recruiting gap left by former coach Pete Gillen.

Leitao certainly has been given enough time to fix the problem, but hadn’t until this season. He hit a home run on the recruiting front, enlisting two towers for the post: John Brandenburg and Assane Sene.

Those two excellent recruits, coupled with the return of a healthy Lars Mikalauskas, Jamil Tucker, and Mike Scott, ought to shore up Virginia's porous defense.

Brandenburg and Sene should provide a nice complement to Virginia’s existing group.

Neither Mikalauskas nor Scott, both listed at 6’8”, possesses the length necessary to play significant minutes at the five spot. Tucker, on the other hand, is somewhat of a liability in the post and might be considered a taller three because of his perimeter oriented style, though he does do a solid job on the defensive glass.

This leaves the door open for Brandenburg, listed at 6’10”, and Assane, 7’0”, to step in at the five.

On the perimeter, Virginia returns a cadre of unspectacular players. That’s not meant to be a slight. Next to the highlight reel Singletary put out, most of the perimeter players in the ACC appear unspectacular.

Senior Mamadi Diane, the team’s leading returning scorer, junior Calvin Baker, and sophomore Jeff Jones all suffered through bouts of inconsistency this past season. Diane always appeared to be on the verge of becoming a dominant scorer, only to have committed an inopportune turnover here or an unnecessary over-the-back call there, frustrating both fans and Leitao.

Jones was unable to regain the form that saw him drop five threes in an exciting opening win against Arizona.

Baker showed marked improvement throughout the season and played a key role in Virginia’s late season “surge,” winning four of six to close out the regular season.

Sammy Zeglinski and Mustafa Farrakhan are two up-and-comers that didn’t get much chance to prove themselves last year. Singletary’s loss means that point guard duties will most likely fall to Baker, but if Baker does not improve his turnover rate this season, then Zeglinski might be able to take over his spot.

In this vein, there’s reason to optimistic too; Leitao landed Sylven Landesburg, Virginia’s first McDonald’s All-American since Majestic Mapp. He’s listed as a small forward with a good mid-range game. Hopefully, his addition will round out the roster and leave Virginia with enough scoring options to make it through the season.

Leitao, however, needs some luck for this upcoming season to pan out. The injury bug bit last year’s team hard. This offseason has already seen Diane go in for foot surgery and Mikalauskas has gone under the knife to fix up his shoulder.

More than any other year during his tenure, Leitao will be judged on his success with this very green roster. The Cavaliers right now possess a lot of unknowns and will be hurt by this in the preseason polls. Most media outlets will look at last year’s season, note the loss of Singletary, and bury them.

Don’t be fooled. Watch this team. There are good ingredients here. Bill Simmons might purport that this season has Ewing theory potential. I’m not sure if I’m ready to put that stamp on it yet, but I think the potential for sucess is good.

The season will have its up and downs, but a middle of the pack finish in the ACC has to be considered a success for the Wahoos and Leitao. The strength of North Carolina, Duke, and Wake Forest will make it difficult, if not impossible to contend for any sort of title.

If Virginia can pull out the type of season Virginia Tech did last year, Leitao will have done an excellent job with this bunch and will deserve whatever kudos come with it.

If Virginia wallows at the bottom of the standings and the players don’t display improvement, then speculation about Leitao’s future will surface.

Either way, it ought to be interesting.

Mocking the Draft: NBA Draft Picks As Sitcom Characters, Part II

Ben Allaire — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:17:05 -0400

This is the second part of the Mocking the Draft: NBA Players as Sitcom Characters. Part I is here.

6. New York Knicks, O.J. Mayo, PG/SG—Theo Huxtable (The Cosby Show)

Question: Which Huxtable kid wanted to grow up too quickly?

Theo Huxtable wanted it all and right now. He got his ear pierced. He desperately wanted a $100 Gordon Gartrell shirt (in the '80s!). For goodness sakes, he wanted to become a pilot.

I’m sure O.J. Mayo believes can fly too. I get the sense from his exploits that he’s just a little too much in a hurry to be a super-duper star. He picked USC because he thought it would gain him the most exposure, and if the allegations are true, he went because of the money.

Then he left after a year to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA. Let’s just hope that Rodney Guillory turned his house into a real-world situation to teach him the lessons of life.

7. Clippers, Eric Gordon, SG—Tim Taylor (Home Improvement)

If Eric Gordon were a baseball player, I’d call him a five-tool player and be done with it (ha-HA!).

But he’s not—instead he was recruited by Indiana to fix everything by bringing home an NCAA championship. Let’s just say it turned out like an episode of Tool Time—although I would like to note that many of the problems (like Kelvin Sampson's gazillion phone calls) weren’t the result of Gordon’s actions.

However, Gordon's so-so play towards the end of the season definitely felt like something was broken.

This, of course, clearly makes D.J. White into Al Borlan, the sidekick that does everything well, but garners much less hoopla than his partner. There’s a nice symmetry there. Isn’t it?

Does everyone know what time it is? Yowzah!

8. Milwaukee Bucks, Danilo Gallinari, SF—Balki Bartokomous (Perfect Strangers)

Can it be any more wrong of me to characterize the only player coming from a foreign country on this list as Balki Bartokomous?

Given that I pegged Brook Lopez as Steve Urkel solely because he went to Stanford, I submit that it cannot!

Besides, I personally would love to see Danilo break out the dance of joy after getting drafted.

9. Anthony Randolph, SF/PF—N. Bluth (Arrested Development)

Arrested Development is one of my all-time favorite shows (see my profile). So, why name Anthony Randolph as N. Bluth?

N. Bluth is a mysterious character—who is this N. Bluth that’s supposed to testify at the mock trial? We don’t know—like I, despite my hours upon hours of college basketball watching (“Siena versus Bethune-Cookman? I am so in!”) knew very little (okay, nothing) about Anthony Randolph as he plied his trade for a fairly crappy LSU team.

Later in the episode, we find out that N. Bluth is really Michael Bluth, the main character, just as in real life where Anthony Randolph might be a sleeper in the draft and the main man on his team.

I just hope he isn’t “Mr. F.”

10. Nets, DeAndre Jordan, C—Will Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

When Will Smith came from inner city Philadelphia to Bel-Air, he was rough around the edges for the genteel Banks family. DeAndre Jordan, like Smith, is fairly rough in his basketball skills. In fact, DraftExpress called him a “project with a capital P.”

Besides, take a wild guess as to where his hometown is?

Mocking the Draft: NBA Draft Picks as Sitcom Characters

Ben Allaire — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:49:04 -0400

Did you ever wonder if…

The first five picks of the NBA draft could be characterized by sitcom characters?

Probably not—but when inspiration strikes, you just have to roll with it. Let’s start at the top:

1. Chicago Bulls, Michael Beasley, PF – Bart Simpson (The Simpsons)

The trite thing to say would be, “Which draft pick would be most likely to tell you to eat his shorts while he was throwing down a nasty dunk?” However, the similarities between Beasley and Simpson run even deeper than that cursory comparison.

First, both have a penchant for mischievousness. Like Bart’s calls to Moe’s Tavern for I.P. Freely, Jacque Strap, and Hugh Jass (who’s an extraordinarily nice guy, by the way), Beasley is known for “signing” graffiti all over his high school.

Second, when asked to try out, both Beasley and Bart faced questions about their height. When the Radioactive Man movie came to Springfield, Bart was supposedly perfect for the part…except that he was two inches too short.

Beasley, on the other hand, might be the consummate power forward, but he might be only 6'7", or 6'10", or 7'4". If we did this in meters, I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem.

2. Miami Heat, Derrick Rose, PG – George Costanza (Seinfeld)

What does a stocky, balding liar have to do with a stocky, ankle-breaking point guard?

Both of these two will do anything they can to carry their respective teams to victory.

For Costanza, it’s legging out a home run and pasting Bette Midler. For Derrick Rose, it’s demolishing UCLA in a virtuoso performance in the Final Four.

Rose, as a point guard, and Costanza, as a short white guy, have been considered by many to be “chuckers.”

Co-stan-za. Ro-se. By Men-nen.

3. Timberwolves, Brook Lopez, C – Steve Urkel (Family Matters)

Did IIIIII do that?

Oh snap. I just did.

Urkel was the prototypical eighties' nerd trapped in a nineties' show. That’s where these two share an overlapping background. Brook is a nerd—okay, maybe not—but still he went to Stanford, right? Sounds nerdy to me.

He really likes Disney, and Family Matters was shown on ABC, which owns is owned by Disney. See, I told you these comparisons were going to be deep.

Did I mention that Jaleel White had an NBA.com blog? Who knew?

4. Supersonics, Jerryd Bayless, PG/SG – Al Bundy (Married with Children)

Basically, Jerryd Bayless spent the last year in his own personal hell.

That’s every day for Al Bundy, women’s shoe salesman and husband to Peggy Bundy. With all the drama surrounding Lute Olson—leaving for good, leaving for a short time, coming back, getting rid of Kevin O’Neill—who needs it?

Unlike Bundy, however, Bayless had a ticket out of hell and into the NBA.

But Jerryd never scored four touchdowns for Polk High School in the championship game. Weak.

After all, who can't picture Kevin O’Neill, sitting on the bench, filing his nails: “Jeeerrrrrrryyydd…Let’s play defense...”

5. Grizzles, Kevin Love, PF/C – Lowell Mather (Wings)

Most pundits would have put Uncle Phil here because of the poofiness behind the jersey.

I see beyond those few extra pounds.

As an airplane repairman, Lowell worked for anyone who would hire him: Sandpiper, Aeromass, whoever. Lowell rarely ever carried a full story on Wings, but he always filled the spots with his dry, pithy humor.

Love rebounds, shoots the three, flings chest passes 70 feet, and plays solid defense. He's like a cement sealer, filling every crack. Indeed, you might even describe his game as workmanlike.

Picks 6-10 are located here.

Bill Simmons: Friend or Foe?

Ben Allaire — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:34:31 -0400

The other day I was “promoted” to College Basketball Community Leader. Once the confetti was cleaned up, the groupies had gone home, and the last champagne bottle was pitched into the recycling bin, Mr. Tim Pollock—the other CB Community Leader—and I were left brainstorming suggestions to stoke interest in the CB page.

In passing, I mentioned that we ought to do a column on the NBA draft. Tim’s response was, “NBA draft stuff is a good idea. It's never wise trying to imitate Bill Simmons (just because the guy is too funny and therefore impossible to successfully copy), but we could steal one or two of his ideas—worst dressed family member of player, etc., etc.”

There it was.

I was shaken outside of my little over-stimulated internet media cocoon. I have expressed a few disagreements with Bill Simmons in the past. Although, it should be noted that this disagreement was a thoroughly one-sided affair.

The thing with Simmons, though, is despite the fact that I have ambivalent feelings about him, I find his internet persona utterly fascinating.

What shook me up the most was the fact that I forget, from time to time, that many fans revere the Sports Guy, which is probably why he was going to interview Barack Obama. Bill Simmons is an internet demigod for some people—especially Bostoners.

Needless to say, I don’t count myself in that group any more.

But I used to.

I was initiated into Sports Guy-dom in 2001. To me, it was an entirely new way to consume sports and entertainment information. “You mean he’s comparing Cheers and Seinfeld like Dr. Jack Ramsey on ESPN? Sweet!”

It was like discovering SportsCenter in the mid-90s as a teenager. Like Karl Ravech and Craig Kilborn then, Bill Simmons in 2001 was kind of cool, even a little edgy.

These guys were interested in making sports even more entertaining than it already was, and conveying it through a pop culture feed tube.

The Red Sox first World Series victory was the zenith of my zeal for him. Simmons deserves a tremendous amount of credit for serving as an outstanding conduit through which Red Sox fans may express their joy. I was never a baseball fan, but it still was captivating to read him at that time.

About a year later, I was exposed to Deadspin, a fantastically snarky website that had me laughing from the get-go. Deadspin readers put anything and everything under the microscope in the name of humor, including—and especially—the Sports Guy.

I was shaken to find out that people actually hated, and I mean loathed, Bill Simmons.

How could this be? His CB columns did stink, the jokes were overused, and I was a little tired of hearing about his buddies. All of a sudden, I was joining them, “Yeah! You’re right! He does suck!”

The more I thought about it, the more I tired of his shtick.

Yet, I never stopped reading him in spite of my anathema. Sure, I do get fed up with him from time to time and now read him with a more skeptical eye. But the guy keeps cranking out columns, most of which are quality.

What they say is true: there's nothing like your first.

I'm not the only one either. This Deadspin poll and the comments below concur with me. I thought the vote would be 75-25 against Simmons, but the readers surprisingly voted for him - assuming Jimmy Kimmel, J-Bug, Hench, and the Sports Gal didn't game the system.

There’s a vociferous minority that lays into him, and he deserves it.

There’s also a vocal majority that likes him and he deserves that, too.

Yep, those are my feelings.

So Close: Three Ways Memphis Could Have Won the NCAA Championship

Ben Allaire — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:58:00 -0400

In the aftermath of last night’s delightfully entertaining championship game, some people would prefer to point the most obvious shortcoming on the losing team’s squad and hold that flaw up as the only reason they lost the game.

That would be too easy and wouldn’t be the reason you read these here articles. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that free throws don’t matter in close games (yikes, sorry Ken) or that Memphis shouldn’t have fouled on that last play as instructed by John Calipari.

Instead, why don’t we dig a little deeper into the Memphis meltdown? C'mon everybody, put on your Monday morning quarterbacking helmet!

For starters, let’s eschew any journalistic pretense and pursue this via bullet point format (I’ll number them too!).

Second, how about we assume that even if Memphis missed all of their free throws, they would probably win the game if they avoided the following three plays?

Third, we'll begin with a Kansas timeout with 1:54 to go. Memphis is up 60-53...

1. Derrick Rose doesn’t cough up the ball on the inbounds (1:53 left).

Kansas had just called a timeout, allowing them to set up a full-court trap. Memphis had the same amount of time to set up their press break. It didn't appear that it was run, because Rose ran directly to the corner a press-breaking no-no.

There was a fumbled exchange between the inbounder (Chris Douglas-Roberts) and Rose. It seemed to catch Memphis by surprise when it shouldn’t have. The broken play leads to a wide open Sherrod Collins three.

2. Joey Dorsey doesn’t foul Mario Chalmers 25 feet from the basket (1:23).

Look, I know there was a screen and you’re supposed to switch, but was this foul necessary? Even if Chalmers gets by Dorsey, there’s still a whole host of defenders that he’d have to get by and maybe he does score, which is not necessarily a given with the length of the Memphis players.

This play resulted in (a) Chalmers scoring two freebies with the clock off and (b) Dorsey’s disqualification.

Dorsey probably would have fouled out at some point as Kansas kept going down low, but still, you’d rather have him hack the snot out of a big man (I bet Sasha Kaun blows a mean rocket—sorry, couldn’t help myself) than a bump so far away from the basket.

3. CDR doesn’t drive straight into Darrell Arthur on a two-on-one break (16 seconds).

To me, this was the most egregious of the three plays. Antonio Anderson has just made a huge, HUGE block on Collins jumper. His block could have easily been the play of the game if not for CDR’s boneheaded play, which is a shame because on the whole CDR played brilliantly.

There are 16 ticks left on the clock, no clear lane to the basket, and Memphis is up by two points. Kansas is going to have to foul at some point. Why initiate contact by going to the basket? Why not run an extra three or four seconds off the clock, maybe more, with some additional passes?

Perhaps CDR thought he could put the game away with a nifty layup and avoid the possibility of returning to the heinous charity stripe. I’m not sure.

However, the extra seconds would have forced Kansas to rush just a little more with the final shot. I’m not saying they couldn’t have gotten it off or they couldn’t have made it from further back, but maybe it turns out differently.

In a championship game like this, it’s all too easy for this observer to call attention to the foibles of a game I watched from the comfort of my own home. That is to say, I wasn’t playing, how do I know what could’ve happened?

We ought to celebrate both participants in an outstanding game, but when your favorite hobby is nitpicking, what can I say?

The Final Four: Efficiency Rules

Ben Allaire — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:04:38 -0400

With the Final Four fast approaching, it’s important to get the lowdown to know exactly what to watch for in the games.

So in depth, we’ll examine offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, and, later today or tomorrow, I’ll visit the all important who-has-the-best-player metric.

Offensive Efficiency

It might surprise you to find out that North Carolina, despite averaging the most points per game, is not head of the class when it comes to efficiency.

Although, UNC ought to be congratulated for being the head of the class in terms of graduation rates. Indeed, Roy Williams’ current crew comes in second to Roy Williams’ former crew (Kansas) in terms of points per 100 possessions (ppp), but not by much (117.9 ppp versus 117.8).

The way in which they score points is fundamentally different: Kansas scores chiefly in half court sets, while UNC crams the ball down your throat.

Kansas’ tempo is much slower than Carolina, 68 possessions per game (popg) to 75 popg. They shoot a remarkably high percentage—56 percent—from the field in terms of effective field goal percentage (eFG).

In contrast, UNC’s primary and secondary breaks are designed to get shots on the rim quickly when the defense is most scattered. So while their eFG is lower than Kansas, this allows for a host of offensive rebounding opportunities, of which Carolina ranks first in the country in terms of offensive rebounding percentage (ORp).

UCLA and Memphis do not put up points at the rate of the other half of the Final Four.

Memphis, though, isn’t far behind at 115 ppp. Memphis excels at taking care of the ball, giving them a turnover percentage (TOp) of 17 percent and getting open shots from their Dribble-Drive motion offense.

UCLA is the least efficient offense of the bunch, possessing a middling eFG and TOp, but they do get a solid amount of offensive rebounds for a 40 ORp.

Defensive Efficiency

On the defensive side of the ball, Memphis is the best of the four allowing a meager 87 ppp. The Tigers play very fundamentally sound defense, and do not allow opponents to shoot well from the field.

Though, it can’t hurt to have Joey Dorsey, Shawn Taggart, and Robert Dozier on the back line swatting away 21 percent of their opponents’ possessions.

Kansas (90 ppp) plays a similar style of D—lockdown, half-court defense. Both teams do not force very many turnovers, which probably helps their eFG percentage allowed.

UCLA is third, allowing 91 ppp, but does so in a very different manner. UCLA clears the defensive glass with alacrity—28 ORp allowed (seventh in the nation).

The other thing that UCLA does that never, ever gets mentioned is they don’t foul often.

UCLA defensive free throw rate was much lower than their counterparts. Finally, UNC’s defense bears mentioning.

Out of both offensive and defensive efficiency measures, UNC’s defense—95 ppp—is the only one that is out of the top 10. In fact, it’s 31st in the country. However, during the tournament, the Heels have been much more solid.

Outcome

The differences between these teams are so slight, making it difficult to judge who will win the tournament, making each team’s chances of winning about 25 percent—which makes for an outstanding Final Four. But what fun would it be if we just left it at that?

So who’s the pick? All tournament, I’ve been convinced that UNC’s lack of defense would catch up to them. It’s hard to argue with the results thus far, but I will anyway.

I say Kansas pulls it out in a gem and meets UCLA in the final. Tune back in for a pick on the finals…

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com)

NCAA Tournament Sleeper: The Portland State Vikings

Ben Allaire — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:40:48 -0400

A professor of mine once said, “Be bold with your predictions—that way people will listen.”

Thus, it would be easy to pick St. Joseph’s or Kansas State as my sleeper. If you do your homework, you’ll notice that outstanding teams like those have almost a coin-flip’s chance of reaching the second round and a fighting chance at a Sweet 16 berth.

No, see, it takes real moxie to side with my sleeper: the 16th-seeded Portland State Vikings. The Vikes (can I call you that? We hardly know each other) won the Big Sky conference tournament and face the No. 1-seeded Kansas Jayhawks.

According to Basketball Prospectus, PSU has a scant 1.5 percent chance of upsetting the Jayhawks and a less than thrilling 0.32 percent chance of making the Sweet 16.

I even had to post a picture of the Minnesota Vikings at the top there, because there were no pictures of Portland State Vikings.

Wait, there was one?

OK—it’s fixed now.

The Vikings are making their first trip to the big dance, after their victory over the always bridesmaids Northern Arizona Lumberjacks. Who knew there was so much forestry in northern Arizona?

I should tell you the Big Sky has produced a few Cinderellas previously, so they're not new to this whole upset business. The best example of which was Weber State’s shocker over UNC in 1999.

The Vikes feature Jeremiah Dominguez, a 5-and-a-half foot scoring machine. This way, we can all cheer “for the little guy.” Seriously, though, Dominguez drops about 14 ppg and shoots a redonkulous 44 percent from beyond the 3-point line. For a guy hoisting up 173 of those puppies this season, that’s some major damage.

As much as this post has possessed a quasi-facetious tone, opponents, especially Kansas, ought not take these Vikes too lightly. PSU can be coldly efficient on the offensive end, where they net 110 points per 100 possessions.

They shoot 40 percent from three (good for 10th in the nation) and 52 percent from two.

If Kansas comes out sleepwalking, they could find themselves in a hole quickly. Mid-major teams that shoot well from three can be dangerous in the first round. One hot shooting performance can doom a major conference foe quickly.

Now, aren’t you ready to root for the little guy?

Gooooooooo Vikes!

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com.)

Virginia Basketball: Thank You Sean Singletary

Ben Allaire — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:27:11 -0400

Dear Sean Singletary,

Thank you.

Thank you for playing hard all the time, even when the season was crumbling around you.

Thank you for lifting this team on your shoulders and making all the games that we lost in January and February so much closer than they should have been—with little inside presence, I might add.

Thank you for all the unbelievable circus shots that you’ve made seem routine, even when the score’s tied, in overtime, versus Duke, in front of a raucous crowd.

Thank you for making the best of a lame duck coach and ACC green-behind-the-ears one.

Thank you for improving your game, silencing any criticism I could have voiced.

Thank you for the exciting, no-look, behind-the-back, how-did-he-see-that assist executed at least once a game. (Thank you to Lars for catching last night’s version.)

Thank you for not complaining when it would have been so easy to after returning for your senior season.

Thank you for being a role model, showing how college basketball players should handle themselves and interact with a school that doesn’t possess the lineage that other major schools do.

Thank you for rebounding; even though you’re under six feet tall, everyone saw you jump up like a pogo stick to grab many defensive rebounds.

Thank you for barreling down the lane like a one-man wrecking crew, then lifting a tear drop over some 6’9” power forward with outstretched arms.

Thank you for continuing to play, even when your body broke down a little bit during the middle of the ACC season, when it might have been easy to shut it down for the NBA draft.

Thank you for making it so easy to cheer for you, always, no matter the score.

Sincerely,

Ben Allaire and others of UVa fandom

Virginia’s Two Game Win Streak: Tempered Enthusiasm

Ben Allaire — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:34:12 -0500

I can’t even begin to tell you how pleased I was about Virginia’s win versus NC State. I have the inside track on winning $1. I just recently got DVR and could watch the game as much as I wanted. It was a perfect pipe-dream Sunday.

Then, I looked at the box score.

At first blush, the results appear positive. Virginia scored 104 points per 100 possessions, while holding State to 80 points per 100 possessions. The Wahoos pulled off a tremendous feat there, but…shouldn’t the game have been won by more than 18 points?

To the casual observer, I’m nitpicking at a great Virginia win.

However, Virginia forced an unbelievable 27 turnovers, leading to a number of easy Virginia baskets. Yet, the game was clearly not decided until Calvin Baker drained two threes with about seven minutes to go. How were they not up more at that point?

Virginia also earned the two victories against Boston College and NC State, fellow ACC catfish like Virginia—not exactly Duke and Carolina. Perhaps these types of wins should be expected from the Wahoos.

Lars Mikalauskas really has made a huge difference in the middle for the Cavs. By playing the five when Ryan Pettinella needs a rest, he’s allowed Mike Scott (or Jamil Tucker) to maintain his position the four spot and Adrian Joseph at the three.

This lineup gives Virginia some height at the small forward and power forward spots. I also commend the switch-outs Virginia has made with Mamadi Diane and Joseph—never keeping them on the floor at the same time. Shame it’s taken so long to figure this out, but Virginia’s had it tough this season.

Virginia currently faces an excellent Miami team in Coral Gables. Miami has been on a roll recently, winning their last four games.

I’m torn in this game about who to root for—I’d love to see Miami get in the NCAA tournament to represent the ACC, but at the same time, it’s time for Virginia to relish the role of spoiler going into the ACC tournament.

UVA Basketball: ‘Hoos Manning the Middle

Ben Allaire — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:32:18 -0500

Mike Scott: not a natural center. Mike Scott's facial hair: all natural. (picture by virginiasports.com)

There’s guards, there’s forwards, then there’s centers.

For whatever reason, it just seems like the center position ought to be more important than the others.

For the Virginia Cavaliers, the pivot has been a revolving door all season.

In fact, of the triumvirate of players staffing the center position for the ‘Hoos—Mike Scott, Ryan Petinella, and Lars Mikalauskas—none play more than half of game, and none are taller than 6-9. Each of these gentlemen occupies the center in their own inimitable way.

At 6-8, Mike Scott is not, I repeat not, a natural center. He started a number of games for the Wahoos at “center”, but always seems out of place. On defense, he only blocks 0.3 shots per game and on 1.7 percent of the defensive possessions, worse than Mamadi Diane, a shooting guard. Blocking shots, without getting in foul trouble, is a skill that takes time to master and Scott has three more years to learn.

Scott makes up for his defensive deficiencies by clearing the glass at a prodigious rate. This guys eats missed shots for breakfast. He currently ranks second in the ACC in defensive rebounding percentage and first in offensive rebounding percentage. Somebody, anybody, explain to me how he only manages 40% of UVa’s minutes. Hopefully, pulling down a solid double-double against Boston College will convince Dave Leitao that he deserves more minutes.

Senior Ryan Pettinella must sleep in the weight room. The guy has more beef than a Gusburger. Pettinella always manages to surprise me with his nimbleness around the basket. Whether it’s a scoop here or a goofy looking rebound there, he does a serviceable job in the middle. I was impressed with his defense on Tyler Hansbrough. Even though Psycho T torched the Cavs, Petinella forced him into taking a myriad of difficult shots, which Hansbrough made, the jerk.

Then, of course, teh Cavs hold the pride of Lithuania, Mikalauskas. When Lars isn’t “livin’ large” (livin' Lars?), he moonlights in the middle for the Wahoos. Mikalauskas has sidelined with a shoulder injury for a pretty significant stretch of the season and not surprisingly Virginia’s season has seen a resurgence with his return. Lars owns a host of nifty post up moves that make him a solid low post threat.

The pride's ride. (photo by Barney Breen-Portnoy).

He brings an enthusiasm to the court that the ‘Hoos have been sorely missing. If I could write that North Carolina State $1 bet column again, I would mention his return as one of the reasons why I picked Virginia would win more games than State.

One name not mentioned here is Tunji Soroye. The senior has been injured all season. Virginia has sorely missed Soroye – try saying that 10 times fast – especially on defense. There has been rumors of a possible medical redshirt for him, creating a possible logjam at the position next year when two bigs come in. 7-footer Assane Sene and 6-11 John Brandenburg are two highly regarded recruits that will create more balance for the UVa offense. Presumably, then Mike Scott will then switch to his natural position and blossom even further.

This year, though, I’m hoping that the “big three” can take care of business and let UVa make a run in the ACC tournament.

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com and virginiasports.com)

Will Virginia Best NC State Down the Stretch? $1 Says They Will

Ben Allaire — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:50:11 -0500

I live in Raleigh and claim Virginia as my team of choice. This makes for a difficult college basketball life. I am the subject of much ridicule and mockery among the Tobacco road fandom in the area, especially with this disastrous season. Sometimes, however, you just need to draw a line in the sand. Today is that day.

I have bet a coworker one dollar—I’m not a gambling man—that Virginia will win more games to finish out the regular season than North Carolina State. Virginia currently possesses one ACC win, while NC State has four. On the face of it, this appears to be a pretty stupid bet on my part. A look at the numbers reveals that it might be more even than on first blush.

Let’s break it down.

1. Schedule

The two teams have similarly tough schedules left. Below is what they look like.

UVa	NC State
@ BC	CLEM
@ GT	UNC
NCST	@ UVA
@ MIA	FSU
DUKE	DUKE
MARY	@ WFU

Virginia opens this six-game stretch with two road games against two teams below .500 in ACC play. UVa beat Boston College pretty handily the first time around and took Georgia Tech to overtime, but both of those contests were at home. NC State has two homers against rough competition—Clemson and North Carolina. UNC might even have Ty Lawson back at that point, making a win against the Heels an even tougher proposition.

The two teams play each other in the third game of the set. They match up well, as will be evident in the next section, entitled “why UVa and NC State match up well.”

NC State has the clear advantage versus the Florida schools. Virginia must take on Miami away from JPJ, while State has Florida State at home. In internet parlance, Miami > FSU.

Maryland at home versus Wake Forest on the road is sort of a wash. Wake Forest plays extraordinarily at home, brandishing a solid 13-1 home record. Maryland is a good road team, downing the likes of UNC, Georgia Tech, and BC on the road—no easy feat.

The schedules are somewhat even, but the nod goes to NC State.

2. Why UVa and NC State match up well

A quick peek at Kenpom.com’s Pythagorean Winning Percentage (PWP) reveals that Virginia is actually ranked slightly higher than NC State despite only having one ACC win. The PWP is essentially a weighted average of offensive and defensive efficiency measure (an explanation can be found here).

Actually, the teams only differ in the thousandths place of the PWP calculation, pitting them 94th and 95th in the country. Virginia is a little bit better on offense and NC State is a little better on defense, but in general these teams are very, very close.

This battle is even.

3. Luck

I have mentioned this statistic previously and Virginia’s luck has only gotten worse since I wrote about it then. Virginia’s luck is now at -1.7 wins, 317th best in the nation.

NC State, on the other hand, has had great luck allowing NC State to win an additional 2.6 games, tenth best in the nation. Luck has to even out eventually, right? Doesn’t it?

The fine gentleman who took the other end of this bet definitely mentioned a “regression to the mean” worry and rightly so. Big advantage on Virginia’s side here.

In summary, I feel like I made a solid bet here. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Virginia's Sean Singletary: ACC MVP

Ben Allaire — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:15:29 -0500

Revisit the title of this article just for a moment. Notice I did not say Sean Singletary for ACC Player of the Year. That award goes to a very deserving Tyler Hansbrough. Hansbrough's play in past couple of weeks removed any debate that might have possibly occurred.

Hansbrough had a magnificent game (23 points on 15 shots). He was hacked, pushed, even tackled at one point by Virginia’s two musclemen, Ryan Pettinella and Lars Mikalauskas. (Quick note: solid comeback from shoulder injury Lars!) Yet, Hansbrough was coolly efficient, knocking down baby hooks and jumpers to seal the win.

However, was he more valuable than Sean Singletary? The answer is clearly no.

Singletary’s final season has been marred by Virginia’s inability to close out ball games, but Singletary has carried this team. Last night, he put up 27 points (on 20 shots, but still), grabbed six boards, and dished out seven assists. Singletary’s gaudy assist rate (37 percent, good for 20th in the country) is most amazing, considering the team shoots a low percentage from the field.

When Virginia scores, Singletary draws two defenders, takes it himself or leads his teammates to open shots. Earlier in the season, I took this offensive production as somewhat selfish and inefficient. Now, in the midst of the worst ACC season in my lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that it’s Virginia’s only option on offense, however inefficient it may be.

Virginia scoring droughts are often a function of his teammates not using him as an offensive conduit enough, either because of Singletary’s exhaustion or his defender’s face-guarding. The always ornery, sometimes observant Billy Packer noted this in the local broadcast in the matchup between the two teams.

In contrast, Hansbrough is surrounded by an oasis of excellent players (when healthy). Wayne Ellington and Danny Green handle a sufficient amount of possessions and shots to create their own offense. Deon Thompson possesses a solid inside game to complement Hansbrough. UNC obviously misses Ty Lawson and Bobby Frasor, but still has managed two tough wins over ACC opponents in the last week.

Certainly, this team would be significantly worse for the wear without Hansbrough on the floor, but would they be worse than Virginia without Singletary?

I doubt it.

(Statistics courtesy of kenpom.com)

Virginia-Clemson: Cavaliers DOA Against Tigers

Ben Allaire — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:35:51 -0500

The way these columns usually work is, I say: “If Virginia does 'x' better, they’ll be able to win more basketball games.”

I mix in some research on statistics and a few less-than-clever witticisms and voila, an article is produced.

After last night’s blowout loss to Clemson, "x" consists of both offense and defense. The AP described the game thusly, “K.C. Rivers hit eight three-pointers and scored a career-high 32 points Thursday night as Clemson embarassed[sic] reeling, inept Virginia 82-51.” (Yes, they spelled embarrassed incorrectly, pretty unbelievable.)

Other words that might describe the loss:

- beat-down

- thumping

- pounding

- whipping

- thrashing

- demolition

- annihilation

Pick your favorite noun relating to destruction and embarrassment.

Coach Leitao must feel like an ER doctor at this point: he’s been hitting the team with the defibrillator paddles, but there are simply too many parts of the system failing to save the body.

As Mamadi Diane said, "I get the feeling that we're dead. I don't think it's a problem I can put my finger on, but I really get the feeling that just everything's dead."

As much as I hate to say it, the players quit on him last night, which is shocking.

In general, I thought they had the utmost confidence in him, but now it’s definitely starting to waiver. When even Mike Patrick picks up on the drop off in effort, it must be bad. How did the train derail from the season so quickly?

A buddy of mine asked me today if I thought Virginia could right the ship and get to the NIT. My reaction was, “Before last night, absolutely. After last night, I doubt it.” That’s how bad the loss was.

I have no recommendations for the team. I’m just glad that Rob Mahini from the Good Ol’ Blog finally posted today. He usually posts at the end of the game. I was beginning to worry about him.

Barbs of Cville: Local Reporter Takes Cuts at Virginia's Dave Leitao

Ben Allaire — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:06:37 -0500

It’s been a week since I posted—the tough season makes it difficult to dredge up the trauma of Virginia’s performances.

For example, see the Good Ol’ Blog for what looks like an emotional train wreck in hypertext.

But a couple of L's never prevented me from yakking on incessantly before, so I shall trod on.

With the losses piling up, local media is getting a little chippy—if you read between the lines—with coach Dave Leitao.

The Daily Progress contains two articles detailing some calls that the writer found questionable. One questions his decision-making, while the other rehashes a story where his players are criticizing him.

Presumably neither would make Leitao happy (if he reads the paper, which he says he doesn't). I have diverging opinions about Leitao's decisions mentioned in the articles.

In the the first article, Whitelaw Reid reported/opined about Jamil Tucker’s removal from the Virginia Tech game after Reid felt Tucker was playing well.

The article begins, “When Jamil Tucker gets the playing time, he usually puts up the points.” Reid noted in the article that Leitao became testy when asked about Tucker's removal.

Later, Reid says, “[Tucker] has managed to shoot a team-leading 51 percent from three-point range (23 of 45).”

Tucker is a fine player—a big guy who can shoot from beyond the three point line. His stroke from the outside no doubt propelled Virginia to a win against Arizona. Seth Davis even named him one of his “Ten Sophomores to Watch.”

However—and this cannot be emphasized enough—Virginia does not need anyone else shooting more threes. Virginia already scores 36 percent of its points from three-point field goals. Easily tops in the ACC. More diversity on offense would benefit Virginia.

Finally, Reid’s last statement is blatantly false. A check of Tucker’s three-point field goal percentage reveals that it is 38 percent, not 51 percent.

Not surprisingly, I agree with Leitao in his decision. Tucker’s rebounding is lacking. He grabs about 18 percent of the possible defensive rebounds and four percent of the possible offensive rebounds.

Adrian Joseph, his primary “replacement,” is much better on the boards; netting 20 percent and eight percent. With Virginia hemorrhaging points on defense, every defensive rebound is key, and Joseph is currently pulling them down better.

In the second article Reid pulls up Mike Scott’s comments to the Washington Post detailing his frustration with the coach’s decision to pull him in and out of the game. In this regard, I think Scott (and Reid) have a legitimate beef.

Scott plays hard on defense, inhales offense rebounds (17 percent to be exact), and goes to the line (his free throw rate is 62 percent), despite playing out of position the entire time. He does make some freshman mistakes, but even his turnover rate is a relatively paltry 13 percent.

Yet he only plays about 39 percent of the minutes.

At this point, it’s obvious that Mike Scott is the best post player Virginia has. Why not let him play more? Next year, with two freshmen seven-footers (well, almost) on the way, he’ll be the back to his proper position and will be significantly more seasoned.

It’s worth the investment.

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com.)

Memo to the Virginia Cavaliers: Get to the Line More

Ben Allaire — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:35:36 -0500

Virginia runs into scoring droughts—one might venture to call them deserts even—rather frequently.

They usually occur at the worst times, like when it appears that they ought to be extending a 10-15 point advantage into 20-30 point “break out your favorite Andy Burns cheer” demolishing.

Many people, especially those perceptive ones at the Charlottesville’s own Daily Progress, can tell you that Virginia has blown leads in three out of the last four games.

But you’re not reading this—both of you—because you’re into the typical analysis. I’m not here to provide the usual hum drum about “live by the three, die by the three” which, for this team, does hold true.

I won’t point out Virginia lacks any inside presence (done and done). Indeed, I’ll leave those hackneyed colloquialisms at the door, fodder for Mike Gminski and Dan Bonner to chime in with at the feet of a second half Cavalier collapse.

Nay, my point is more subtle than that: If Virginia shot fewer threes, they would go to the free throw line more, reducing the likelihood that scoring droughts would occur.

Only 19 percent of Virginia’s points come from the line, pitting them just ahead of Wake Forest (18 percent) and Clemson (15 percent) in the ACC. However, Wake Forest and Clemson both score more than half (56 percent and 54 percent respectively) of their points on twos, where they shoot 46 percent and 48 percent from the field in those tries.

Thus, Deacons and Tigers have a steady stream of twos to combat any scoring slowdown they might experience from beyond the three-point line.

Virginia, on the other hand, has a compunction for jacking up the three, as only 44 percent of the Cavs field goals are from two point range. Consider the following, year over year comparison of the team,

Year	Team	FT %	Rank	2 PT %	Rank	3 PT %	Rank
2006-2007	Virginia	24.0	(27)	44.6	(305)	31.4	(97)
2007-2008	Virginia	19.1	(217)	44.8	(303)	36.1	(38)

Last year’s team was simply more aggressive—27th in the country—in getting to the line, while this year’s team prefers to stay out by the three-point line. I like to call it the AJing of the team—named for the 2006-2007 version of Adrian Joseph (the current version is much better) who went to the line only four times the whole season.

It’s that simple, if Virginia were a bit more aggressive on offense, their leads wouldn’t evaporate.

Furthermore, free throws allow for better defense too. Getting to the free throw line disrupts the opponent’s offensive rhythm, allowing the defense a chance to set, as opposed to the long rebounds that often occur when the Cavs launch up yet another three.

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com)

Virginia's Dave Leitao: Master Builder

Ben Allaire — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:55:05 -0500

Yesterday’s column, as awful as it was, alluded to Virginia’s identity crisis. More reflection gave way to a new thought about Dave Leitao and his Cavalier crew. In many ways, Leitao’s current collection of players has good reason for struggling with the team composition and identity.

Leitao can be an intense, even scary, coach. His personality contrasts starkly with Virginia’s previous coach, Pete Gillen.

Gillen is a quick-witted, entertaining banterer. He gives a loquacious, funny interview. On the court, his teams played like an upbeat, improvisational jazz quintet. Gillen imposed very little structure on their offensive and defensive sets, allowing his players the freedom to dribble, penetrate or rotate on defense when the player felt the time was right. When it worked, it was an exciting brand of basketball. When it didn’t, leads were next to impossible to keep and losses could be ugly.

Leitao (and his teams) lack that geniality and improvisation. From all accounts, Leitao is a taciturn, ornery individual, who never seems satisfied with his team’s effort. That’s why it’s so odd when he appears in advertisements. He never exhibits such delight on the court, why does he do so when enjoying a Pepsi?

In this way, he reminds me a lot of former Virginia football coach George Welsh, whom Jerry Ratcliffe, the local sports columnist for the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, once described as looking as though his shoes were perpetually tied too tight.

These attributes are why I admire him so much as coach. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I played for a similar type of coach in high school. Basketball coaches should be exacting and precise. They ought to expect perfection from their team. It makes the team capable of playing beyond expectations. In this sense, watching a Dave Leitao team play is more akin to a symphony, with each part working in concert (pun intended).

Leitao has finally been able to bring in “his” type of players following Gillen’s contract buyout, albeit with a gap in-between talented classes. The contrast in coaching styles exacerbated the gap by directly or indirectly running off some gifted individuals. Derrick Byars, Dontae Minter, TJ Bannister, and Gary Forbes have all done reasonably well at their respective schools.

This is the first year that Leitao's troops are taking the bulk of the team's minutes, with the seniors on the team representing the last of the Gillen era. While they have certainly bought into Leitao’s system at this point, they were not necessarily part of Leitao's long term plan as coach. No one would argue that Sean Singletary is a Leitao disciple and not a Gillen disciple, but he was not recruited by Leitao and his staff. Adrian Joseph is not the type of wing player Leitao would probably prefer (but Leitao and Joseph have done a fine job together). After this year, however, the program will be entirely a function of Leitao’s vision, which will eliminate any of the identity problems that the team is currently facing.

UVA Hoops - Bad Luck Haunts Cavs

Ben Allaire — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:37:48 -0500

I’ve come to the conclusion that a couple of bounces one way or the other and two close losses turn the University of Virginia's 1-3 start in the Atlantic Coast Conference into 3-1. On average, these strokes of luck even out, so they’ll turn it around. Right? Presently, it just feels like we cashed in our karmic piggy bank with last year’s ACC regular season co-championship.

That would be a nice story, if it were true …

Kenpom.com includes a statistical component of “luck.” It’s complicated, but essentially it measures the difference between the team’s winning percentage and what you predict the team’s winning percentage to be (using another complicated formula). Regardless, I fully expected Virginia’s luck to be a lot worse this year than last.

Wrong.

Actually Virginia’s luck last year measured out at -0.003 which means they were unlucky. This measurement was good for 161st in the nation. This year, their luck is -0.006, good for 179th in the country. Not much change there.

The present team just appears to be in search of an identity, nightly switching from “Sean Singletary can carry us to win” (against Virginia Tech) to “everyone needs to help out for us to win” (against Florida State) to “what’s that orange thing with the white cloth hanging down?” (Jeff Jones) In some sense, this is the reason they have significant offensive droughts. Who’s running the show here?

I’ve written before that Virginia is best off when Singletary shares the load, then I recanted, now I’m back to wondering about him again.

Maybe I have an identity crisis.

So, what can we conclude? Is Virginia that much worse-off this season than last?

After four ACC games last year, Virginia was 2-2. The Cavaliers started off 1-2, but gutted out two tough home wins versus Maryland and Wake Forest, which started them on a tear. I absolutely hate it when people label games “must-win”, but let’s just call Sunday’s game against Georgia Tech a “life-will-be-much-easier-for-everyone-if-you-win” game.

Boston College-Virginia: Cavaliers Right the Ship...Maybe

Ben Allaire — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:37:42 -0500

I was unable to view this game, so I'm going to keep the post short. The main reasons for Virginia winning this game:

- Mamadi Diane scored

- Calvin Baker scored

- Adrian Joseph scored

- Sean Singletary scored (less this game)

Also, it should be duly noted that I appreciate Dave Leitao's reading of the column here at the Bleacher Report. But please, Dave, if you're going to crib from the column at least give me credit.

Me (on Thursday): "Finally, like players, coaches have bad games too and this was not one of Leitao’s best. He’s a disciple of the 'man-to-man is the only defense' type mentality, which provides for a certain amount of toughness, a positive quality for teams to possess. Playing a zone defense every so often disrupts the other team’s offensive rhythm. Also, zone defense might mask Virginia’s shortcomings (emphasis on short) by clustering bodies in the lane."

Dave Leitao (on Saturday night after the win):

"Leitao and staff did a good job of mixing up their defenses. 'We tried some zone to kind of go fastball-curveball, fastball-curveball, so that they couldn’t just try and continue to beat us down in man-to-man,” Leitao said. 'We played defense well enough to get out and run.'" - Daily Progress Sunday Edition (01/20/08)

Big win on Saturday, bigger game on Wednesday at Florida State. Can they put it together on the road?

(P.S. Many thanks to the Betz family who allowed me to view portions of this game while at their house for dinner and did not throw me out the front door.)

Virginia-Virginia Tech Recap: Women and Children First

Ben Allaire — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:55:38 -0500

Ladies and gentlemen…the ship is sinking fast.

The Virginia-Virginia Tech game made me want to stab my eyes out with a spoon. Why a spoon?

BECAUSE IT’S DULL, IT’LL HURT MORE!

My first thought after Deron Washington’s up-and-under layup to seal the win for the Hokies was, “What a waste of Sean Singletary’s best game.”

Singletary has been criticized for shooting too much in this space previously. This “scribe” will whole-heartedly be eating a plate heavy on crow tetrazzini from now until the end of the season. Singletary was simply brilliant (34 points on 21 shots, 5-7 from 3), carrying his team back from a 9-0 hole to start. He was the leading rebounder on the team with 10 rebounds, an amazing feat for a guy who’s less than six feet tall.

If he doesn’t get mentioned as an ACC player of the year candidate, it will be a crime against humanity (hyperbole notwithstanding).

So, how could they possibly lose?

Three reasons: defense, defense, and defense. This team needs Tunji Soroye to return. I know it sounds weird to say that a team might require the presence of a player who is basically superfluous on offense, but let’s look at the facts.

Virginia is next to last in the ACC in defensive efficiency and 91st in the country. They’re 119th in the country in two-point field goal defense, whereas they were 32nd last year. They do not force turnovers (272nd in the nation) or block shots (225th). Winning becomes more of a Herculean task when the other team can catch up so quickly.

In short, the team is too small to defend (pun intended—probably won't be the only one). Mike Scott will be an excellent power forward someday (although Mike, please grab the rebound, don’t slap—it’s unsightly), but he's only listed at 6-8. He’s not a shot-blocker, nor is Ryan Pettinella (6-9). Pettinella does provide muscle and did a fair job against Jeff Allen of Virginia Tech, but hurts himself with a lot of the fouls he commits.

Adrian Joseph...where do I begin?

He let Washington go right by him on that last play. Furthermore, he’s a very poor help defender, often running full speed at dribble penetration only to swat at air upon arrival. That being said (sorry Springs), Joseph does rebound laudably, but he plays out of position at the four spot. None of the reserves who came off the bench, save for Petinella, provided any spark.

Soroye provided an intimidating inside presence. He blocked a lot of shots, but also deterred countless smaller players gunning for the basket. Soroye's presence is hard to quantify because there are more likely to be kick-outs leading to long jumpers as opposed to high-percentage shots in the lane. It's obvious, though, that Virginia misses him dearly.

Finally, like players, coaches have bad games too and this was not one of Leitao’s best. He’s a disciple of the “man-to-man is the only defense” type mentality, which provides for a certain amount of toughness, a positive quality for teams to possess. Playing a zone defense every so often disrupts the other team’s offensive rhythm. Also, zone defense might mask Virginia’s shortcomings (emphasis on short) by clustering bodies in the lane.

Despite Virgina’s deficiencies, Virginia Tech needs to be given due credit. At the opening tip, Greenberg caught Virginia totally off guard by upping the tempo of the game. Virginia Tech was averaging 66 possessions per 40 minutes, good for 231st in the country. However, Greenberg pushed the ball after every Virginia basket, often beating the ESPNU cameraman down court. This strategy allowed the Hokies to jump out to the early lead and gave the freshmen confidence that they could hang with Virginia.

In general, AD Vassallo and Jeff Allen were outstanding, Washington too. This is a very well coached team. I am worried for the future.

Is it time to throw in the towel? HELL NO! I refuse to give the ACC the satisfaction of packing it in.

Virginia might not be off to a good start, but the best thing about rock bottom? There's nowhere to go but up.

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com.)

Duke-Virginia: More of the Same for Cavs at Cameron

Ben Allaire — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:25:30 -0500

When I read Good Ol Blogs’ “more of the same” recap of the Virginia-Duke game, a certain French soldier came to mind.

“I will taunt you a second time…”

Virginia’s trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium had all the familiarity of having farm animals heaved at you from the castle walls—twice.

However you cut it, the loss had a similar taste and feel to prior ones. Check out the box scores from the previous four meetings at Duke (no game at Cameron Indoor in 2006-2007):

2003-2004

  Virginia 38 37 -  75

  #1 Duke  47 46 -  93

2004-2005

  Virginia 28 38 -  66

  #5 Duke  34 46 -  80

2005-2006

  Virginia 24 39 -  63

  #2 Duke  35 47 -  82

2007-2008

  Virginia 31 34 -  65

  #7 Duke  43 44 -  87

A little eerie isn’t it? Each time Virginia walked in against a top-10 Duke team, kept it moderately close (12 points and under) for one half, and let it slip a little more in the second half, ultimately losing by 14-19 points.

It seems the Cavaliers lack the gusto to stick with Duke for two full halves at Cameron. I would have thought that Dave Leitao would have fixed this, but alas...still no results.

In this game, Virginia looked tired. There’s no other way to put it. Perhaps Leitao pushed them too hard in practice?

Both Calvin Baker and Mamadi Diane came up limping with cramps, limiting their second-half contributions. Adrian Joseph, for his part, looked disinterested—how can your No. 2 scorer only attempt four shots?

Aye caramba.

I’ll spend a little time later this week delving into the defense, which appears to be the main culprit in these losses. After all, UVA did let Duke shoot an unbelievable 50 percent from the floor.

But for now, let’s focus on the offense.

Many (too many?) of Virginia’s sets started with a high screen for Sean Singletary. That’s a fine beginning to the offense, and Singletary usually handles it well by dribble-penetrating or shooting a relatively open three-pointer. Duke, though, jumped on Singletary at this high screen to force him to take bad shots or let his teammates handle the scoring.

It was clear that his teammates were not up to the challenge.

The Duke pressure appeared to bother Singletary, forcing him into seven turnovers in the first half. The Cavs responded to the pressure by beginning their offense farther and farther away from the basket, which is precisely what Duke wanted.

Despite all of these shortcomings, Singletary actually played pretty well—but his shot selection remains a question. One fast break in particular saw him choose to pull two defenders towards him before fading to the corner instead of hitting the open man.

It made for a spectacular shot that had both Tim Brando and Mike Gminski cooing...but it merely reinforced the onus on Singletary to do all the scoring.

Virginia only had nine assists, compared to Duke’s 21. The dearth of passing and motion is a symptom of the "Let's all watch Singletary on offense" syndrome.

It’s tough to lay the bulk of the the blame on Singletary, as his teammates were cover-your-eyes bad. Diane (11 points on 12 shots) and Joseph (three points) were abysmal. And while Calvin Baker (13 points on 14 shots) and Ryan Pettinella (nine points on five shots) had decent games, their production couldn't make up for the lackluster effort by the rest of the team.

Tunji Soroye did not play—again.

Virginia can only hope that a trip home to face instate rival Virginia Tech is just what the doctor ordered.

And listen—next time they go Cameron, we could build this big wooden badger...

Ah, never mind.

(Box scores courtesy of virginiasports.com)

Preview: Duke vs. Virginia: Nothing's Gotta Give

Ben Allaire — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:02:29 -0500

Duke is a team that likes to spread the floor and drive and kick.

They’re an uptempo club that is more comfortable shooting an open three than a close, contested two.

They lack a major big man up front, who can take over when the three fails to fall—and, of course, their coach does an excellent job preparing his troops.

Now, return to the first paragraph and replace Duke with Virginia.

These teams are mirror images of one another, except Duke’s better. (Think about THAT for a second.) Nationally, Duke is ranked higher in defensive efficiency—a top-ten placement for the Blue Devils here, and in offensive efficiency, and three-point shooting percentage, and two-point shooting percentage, and...I could go on.

Virginia is tops in defensive boards—second in the nation, actually. But hey, you can’t be good at everything.

It’s a little bit like Joey Chestnut challenging Mark Mangino to a grilled cheese eating competition. One’s a proven winner with a track record, the other one just looks like he should be good at it.

Although on paper it appears Virginia lacks a chance to win, that’s just not the case with these Cavaliers. First of all, the games aren’t played on paper. That would create a huge mess, increase the risk of injury to the players, and generally would not be very eco-friendly.

Second, Virginia shoots a plethora of threes—a full 40 percent of their field goal attempts come from downtown.* Shooting a lot of threes and knocking down a fair bit of them gives Virginia the opportunity to beat anyone at any time. They're certainly good enough from beyond the arc to beat this Duke crew (not to be confused with Duke Crews).

Furthermore, the Cavs have had 10 full days of rest and practice to prepare for this contest—which is always good for the legs of a jump-shooting team.

However, they must—simply must—play better defense. As noted on this here cyber-space previously, giving up a 62 percent clip from three is a death sentence, especially in your ACC opener.

If Virginia fails to shoot well from three and plays shoddy D, then the Virginia-Duke tilt might get as messy as the aforementioned grilled-cheese eating contest. (And it sure won't help them that Mike Krzyzewski never forgets.)

(All stats courtesy of kenpom.com.)

* Note: Why is the three-point field goal area nicknamed downtown? Shouldn’t downtown be the area closest to the basket? This has never made any sense to me.

Adrian Joseph: Who Woke up the Monster at Virginia?

Ben Allaire — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:01:35 -0500

Try to guess the top three rebounders (in rebounds per game) in the ACC…

Alright, here they are:

1) Tyler Hansborough, North Carolina: No surprise here. The guy’s a beast on the boards.

2) Trevor Booker, Clemson: A 6-7, 240 lb behemoth. Let's just say Booker is a little intimidating.

3) ???

That’s right! #3 is James Johnson from Wake Forest!

Fooled you—it’s not Adrian Joseph. Joseph is actually tied for sixth in terms of rebounds per game. Still, sixth is not too shabby.

Joseph was not always this deft at protecting the glass. In previous years, Joseph, also known by the moniker “Springs” on his myspace page, looked more like he was rebounding from a Tempurpedic than from the hardwood. Joseph’s rebounding stats for the past three years are listed below (excluding his freshman year, when he only played 22 percent of his team's minutes).

Season	Player	Yr	% Min	OR %	DR %	RPGs
2007-08	Adrian Joseph	Sr.	67.7	9.00	22.20	7.7
2006-07	Adrian Joseph	Jr.	53.4	5.40	19.50	3.5
2005-06	Adrian Joseph	So.	70.8	4.40	13.20	4.5

It’s an astounding increase for a gentleman widely seen as softer than Charmin. College basketball pundits questioned his aggressiveness—and rightly so, as he often settled for jumpers and went to the line all of eight times last year. Eight times!

His free throw rate was one-quarter that of Will Harris! Will Harris! Loud Noises!

This year, Joseph has been markedly more aggressive, and his efforts have paid off. His offensive rating—a statistic used to measure offensive efficiency—has remained roughly the same as it was a year ago (115). However, his usage increased considerably—Joseph uses about 20 percent of Virginia's possessions compared to last year’s 15 percent.

Joseph's rebounding is even more impressive when you consider his weight, currently listed at 205 lbs. Joseph currently ranks fifth in the ACC in defensive rebounding percentage, behind a couple of serious musclemen. Joseph and the aforementioned Johnson are the only two rebounders in the top 10 of rebounding percentage under 220 lbs.

I'm not willing to attribute Joseph's rebounding renaissance solely as a function of the genius that is David Leitao. Some of his newfound "prowess" is due the holes where Tunji Soroye’s knee (surgery) and Jason Cain’s mustache (graduated) used to be. Joseph could be expected to pick up some slack without those two on the court—just not necessarily this much.

(Stats courtesy of kenpom.com and theacc.com)