For some reason, I can't quite put my finger on it, I'm not ready to stop talking basketball just yet. I think it rhymes with "flampionships." At the very least it's only fair if I do a postmortem kinda deal on the season, and I think I'll take and review every player the same as they were previewed in the beginning. It should also be interesting to take a look at the ACC once the draft deadline passes later this month.
For now, it's officially the spring season and only the spring season, and spring sports are springing. Lacrosse is trying to, anyway. The 9-6 loss this weekend would not be terribly upsetting if you pretend it wasn't Maryland. Maryland's defense is one of the best in the country, and Niko Amato is a top-flight goalie, so, you'd like to do better when the national title is an every-year goal, but the way things are set up this year it's not a huge surprise what happened. Actually, it wasn't even Maryland's defense that did UVA in; it was their ability to hold onto possession for really long stretches, and UVA's inability to win a faceoff once Maryland figured out the gimmick.
Some bulletized points in brief(ish):
-- I'd just been thinking we hadn't really seen the full Shocker effect this year when LaPierre absolutely leveled a dude while carrying the ball, which went totally unappreciated by the crowd because they might not have been rooting for us. They don't call him the Human Clear for nothing.
-- Despite taking the loss, Matt Barrett played another reasonably solid game. That makes two in a row. Progress. He saved 11 of 20, which is a .550 save percentage, and at least once I remember thinking, "he doesn't make that save a month ago." For the season, he stands at .470. That's still bad, but remember Adam Ghitelman's freshman year saw him land at .497. No, that's not good either, but still.
-- I know I wasn't the only one cheesed off by the announcers blatantly shilling for a shot clock, except doing it in the most passive-aggressive manner possible. What really bugged me was this: UVA spent too long for their tastes passing the ball around, and they practically begged the refs to put the timer on. The refs didn't, UVA shot, Amato saved, and Maryland cleared - and the first thing Eamon Mc-Inane-y said was, "I didn't like that shot. It was too rushed." Now you know why there isn't a shot clock in lacrosse, Eamon.
******************************************************
-- One thing I promise to start doing this week is giving a damn about baseball. Not that I haven't before, but for it being one of my favorite UVA sports, I've written damn near nothing about it. Well, there will be a series preview of Pittsburgh this week. And this past week, they swept up VT as is only fitting. I was about to say customary, but that really hasn't been the way things have gone lately. Despite the huge gap between our two programs, we'd only swept VT twice since 2008.
Joe McCarthy was the ACC player of the week, too; the third such honor for the third different Wahoo this year. Nick Howard won it the week before and Derek Fisher took one home before breaking his hand.
-- Here is an excellent rundown of the various UVA players populating the minor leagues. I used to do this myself at times but why duplicate the effort? And of course, don't forget the five Hoos wearing major league uniforms as of Opening Day: Ryan Zimmerman (Nats), Sean Doolittle (A's), Mark Reynolds (Brewers), Javier Lopez (Giants), and Brandon Guyer (Rays).
-- I was hoping that DeLoss Dodds's retirement at Texas would significantly decrease the douche quotient of the UT administration, but no such luck. Glad to know shipping the players off to Mexico City or Dubai to "grow the Texas brand" is a priority, more so than playing Texas A&M. I want to defend the NCAA in certain things they do but it is really friggin' hard to do when you claim that your purpose is educational, not business, but you won't play a hundred-year-old rivalry because it doesn't make "business sense." And you assholes wonder why the players are trying to unionize.
-- Marquette lost their coach to the ACC, so they went to the ACC for his replacement, luring Steve Wojcie-whatsit away from Duke. You know, Wojo. Let me be neither the first nor the last to make the joke about oh no who will do Coach K's sideline interviews for him now.
-- Boston College is not exactly aiming high in their own coaching search. The two names mentioned in that article coach the Atlantic Sun runner-up (FGCU) and MAC 5th seed (Ohio.) Yeah, both those schools won conference championships lately - and the coaches who did so are now at USC and Illinois. Would it be too much to ask of an ACC school to think a little bigger than a guy whose only foray out of MAC coaching peaked in one CBI bid in four years at TCU? I like Boston College, honestly I do, I've never known anything but good people out of Chestnut Hill, but if the Big Ten cares so much about media markets, maybe we can swap them for Penn State. Step it up, Eagles.
Showing posts with label lapierre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lapierre. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
whats the matter?
For weeks now I've been making all sorts of promises about writing a lacrosse season review, so here's the time to make good on that. We'll see if we can't unearth the secrets behind a losing, NCAA-tournament-less lacrosse season, the first in nearly ten years.
OFFENSE
-- Stick skills. This was about the second or third thing that jumped out at me, but in retrospect, probably the actual most important. When I can, I watch Michigan games too - the Michigan team that's gone 2-26 in its first two years of existence - and the thing that always strikes me hardest in the contrast between Michigan and UVA (and the teams of a caliber that UVA's accustomed to playing) is their stick skills. Michigan's just aren't that good; they're often throwing balls off-target or failing to catch the good ones. It's amazing how much harder it is to play lacrosse when passes are that much less automatic.
This year the contrast was a lot less, and Michigan's didn't get better (much). Simply put, the offense turned the ball over far too much, without any help from the defense. Consider the stats: UVA had 62 fewer turnovers than its opposition, but 55 more caused turnovers - which if you juggle the numbers the right way, means UVA had almost as many unforced turnovers as their opponents. That would be fine if every opponent were a Cornell or a UNC, but there are cupcakes on the schedule too. If UVA played its top opponents even in the unforced turnover department, the cupcakes should create the margin. There was no margin - which means far too many unforced turnovers against teams equipped to take advantage.
Two games stick out: both OSU and UNC (the first game) committed just 1 unforced turnover apiece. Even in games where the opponent had more than we did, we never looked quite that good. And even against VMI we had 8. This was part of the reason the offense sputtered.
-- Lack of midfield athleticism. This was reason number two. It was a rare sight this year to see anyone beat his defender off the dribble, as it were. Shamel Bratton used to do this all the time. In retrospect, guys like Colin Briggs and Brian Carroll could do it too. Ryan Tucker and Rob Emery disappointed in this regard. It limited goal-scoring chances mostly to playmaking from the X or fast breaks; generally, a midfielder was only ever able to create when he could catch his defender running at him.
Owen Van Arsdale tends to be sort of a duly appointed scapegoat for the athleticism thing, and it's true he's not the world's most athletic guy, but he's only one of several. And OVA had the second-most assists on the team after Nick O'Reilly, so it might be said that Dom knows what he's doing by having OVA out there. Offense came from the attack feeding the mids, but rarely the other way round, and the lack of balance hurt.
-- Poor shooting decisions. I got awfully frustrated at times when an opposing goalie would prove he could consistently stop a particular type of shot and we just kept on lobbing the same ones in there. Games that stand out in my memory in this regard: Drexel, Vermont, Ohio State, Bellarmine. Others, too, I'm sure, but that's what comes to mind. Typically it was stick-side high - goalies like it when they don't have to move their stick much, and high-to-high stick side is going to get saved eight times out of ten - but in the case of Bellarmine, our attackers often found themselves on the doorstep and tried to toss it lazily into the net as if there wasn't anything in between, and the Bellarmine goalie kept saving them. Duh. It bugged me because our radio guys were gushing about the guy's skills (in fairness, he had a damn .662 save percentage this year, which is nasty good) but I wanted to go YES I KNOW IT'S EASY TO LOOK LIKE AN ALL-STAR WHEN THE SHOTS ARE THREE MILES AN HOUR.
I don't know whether the following is a symptom or a cause of the poor season, but UVA's opponents had both a better shooting percentage and SOG percentage than we did. If you guessed that 2004 was the last time that happened, give yourself a Fig Newton. Those numbers ended up at .264 and .565, respectively, both of which are the lowest since, yes, 2004, except for the .565, which is the lowest in God only knows how long.
Part of this admittedly may be attributed to the new stall rules, which have encouraged teams to avoid stalling, but I noticed our opponents got more accurate, not less, between last year and this.
DEFENSE
-- Goaltending. I mean, it's hard to leave this out when the stats look so bad. Dan Marino gave way to Rhody Heller midyear; Marino had a .455 save percentage on the season, Heller .482. Both are awful numbers. Marino's injury troubles in the fall might've carried over in his play to the spring. Austin Geisler, who transferred to High Point and played there this spring, had a .512 save percentage for the Panthers; given the somewhat (not hugely, but somewhat) easier schedule they play, it's hard to tell whether he would've made a difference, but it would've been cool to find out. You can bet the competition will be reopened in the fall, with incoming freshman Matt Barrett being given as good a shot as any.
The silver lining: Adam Ghitelman had a .497 percentage his freshman year, so Heller - though a redshirt freshman rather than a true one - isn't that far behind that number.
-- End of quarters. Oh gawd. Talk about frustrating. UVA played 15 games - therefore 60 quarters - and in 15 of those quarters, the opponent scored with fewer than 20 seconds left. So on average of once a game, UVA allowed an end-of-quarter goal.
Then, if we make the safe assumption that it's a coin flip as to whether the good guys or the bad guys have the ball at the end of the quarter, that means were 30 quarters when we were defending, which in turn means the defense allowed a goal half the time. More than half, if we take into account that nine games were basically out of reach one way or the other by the 30-second mark of the fourth (thus, nine of 60 quarters don't count since killing clock was the concern rather than feverishly trying to score.)
Not to mention that six of these end-of-quarter goals came after UVA had already scored a goal with less than a minute to go.
The Ohio State game was especially egregious. In the first three quarters, OSU scored with one second left, twelve seconds left, and three seconds left. This, one week after Cornell had scored the game-winner with 13 seconds to go in the fourth - 26 seconds after UVA had tied it up. Lesson: not learned. And Drexel forced overtime (in which UVA fortunately won) with a ten-seconds-left goal in regulation after an eight-seconds-left one before halftime.
Goaltending is partly to blame. In theory, you ought to be playing it pretty safe at the end of a quarter, so any shots are long ones and should be stoppable. That happened sometimes. In reality, the defense did an awful job of playing patient and tended to break down as the attackers got frenetic in trying to score.
********************************************
You'll notice two things that aren't on this list: faceoffs and injuries. I'm not sure that .527 is a real accurate assessment of how actually good our faceoff men were, but them's the stats, and I don't think that's where the season's problems really were. Also, not having Chris LaPierre wasn't the issue. Shocker might've helped in the midfield-athleticism department, but he's awfully unpolished on offense and probably wouldn't be a major playmaker except to maybe set up some of his own stuff.
Anyway, LaPierre's main strength is as an X-factor when two teams are equal. He can tilt the balance in your direction, but he's probably not going to solve your problems if you're facing a talent deficit. Neither can we say that not having top freshman Will McNamara would've helped, because we just don't know. Ask again next year.
Obviously, not everything was a disaster. I think Nick O'Reilly could have 50-some assists if he could rely more on his midfielders to be open for shots. Mark Cockerton isn't notably big, but he plays strong. Very strong. Wasn't uncommon to see him bull his way around a defender to score the goal. And Tanner Scales won the ACC Freshman of the Year award; Scales looked really good on defense and combined with Scott McWilliams to be a turnover-causing terror on the back end. It's a fitting award, since he inherited Steele Stanwick's #6 - who was the last UVA player to win the award. The last UVA non-offensive player to win was goalie Tillman Johnson. Having no way of remembering what number Johnson wore, I looked it up, hoping against hope it was 6. It was, but upside-down. Close enough.
So I think there's every reason to believe UVA gets back to the tournament next year; most of these problems aren't chronic. I'd like to think, for example, that the end-of-quarter issues are the sort of thing that will regress to the mean next year. This is just one of those things, and at least we have company from Baltimore in the "blue bloods missing the tournament" category.
OFFENSE
-- Stick skills. This was about the second or third thing that jumped out at me, but in retrospect, probably the actual most important. When I can, I watch Michigan games too - the Michigan team that's gone 2-26 in its first two years of existence - and the thing that always strikes me hardest in the contrast between Michigan and UVA (and the teams of a caliber that UVA's accustomed to playing) is their stick skills. Michigan's just aren't that good; they're often throwing balls off-target or failing to catch the good ones. It's amazing how much harder it is to play lacrosse when passes are that much less automatic.
This year the contrast was a lot less, and Michigan's didn't get better (much). Simply put, the offense turned the ball over far too much, without any help from the defense. Consider the stats: UVA had 62 fewer turnovers than its opposition, but 55 more caused turnovers - which if you juggle the numbers the right way, means UVA had almost as many unforced turnovers as their opponents. That would be fine if every opponent were a Cornell or a UNC, but there are cupcakes on the schedule too. If UVA played its top opponents even in the unforced turnover department, the cupcakes should create the margin. There was no margin - which means far too many unforced turnovers against teams equipped to take advantage.
Two games stick out: both OSU and UNC (the first game) committed just 1 unforced turnover apiece. Even in games where the opponent had more than we did, we never looked quite that good. And even against VMI we had 8. This was part of the reason the offense sputtered.
-- Lack of midfield athleticism. This was reason number two. It was a rare sight this year to see anyone beat his defender off the dribble, as it were. Shamel Bratton used to do this all the time. In retrospect, guys like Colin Briggs and Brian Carroll could do it too. Ryan Tucker and Rob Emery disappointed in this regard. It limited goal-scoring chances mostly to playmaking from the X or fast breaks; generally, a midfielder was only ever able to create when he could catch his defender running at him.
Owen Van Arsdale tends to be sort of a duly appointed scapegoat for the athleticism thing, and it's true he's not the world's most athletic guy, but he's only one of several. And OVA had the second-most assists on the team after Nick O'Reilly, so it might be said that Dom knows what he's doing by having OVA out there. Offense came from the attack feeding the mids, but rarely the other way round, and the lack of balance hurt.
-- Poor shooting decisions. I got awfully frustrated at times when an opposing goalie would prove he could consistently stop a particular type of shot and we just kept on lobbing the same ones in there. Games that stand out in my memory in this regard: Drexel, Vermont, Ohio State, Bellarmine. Others, too, I'm sure, but that's what comes to mind. Typically it was stick-side high - goalies like it when they don't have to move their stick much, and high-to-high stick side is going to get saved eight times out of ten - but in the case of Bellarmine, our attackers often found themselves on the doorstep and tried to toss it lazily into the net as if there wasn't anything in between, and the Bellarmine goalie kept saving them. Duh. It bugged me because our radio guys were gushing about the guy's skills (in fairness, he had a damn .662 save percentage this year, which is nasty good) but I wanted to go YES I KNOW IT'S EASY TO LOOK LIKE AN ALL-STAR WHEN THE SHOTS ARE THREE MILES AN HOUR.
I don't know whether the following is a symptom or a cause of the poor season, but UVA's opponents had both a better shooting percentage and SOG percentage than we did. If you guessed that 2004 was the last time that happened, give yourself a Fig Newton. Those numbers ended up at .264 and .565, respectively, both of which are the lowest since, yes, 2004, except for the .565, which is the lowest in God only knows how long.
Part of this admittedly may be attributed to the new stall rules, which have encouraged teams to avoid stalling, but I noticed our opponents got more accurate, not less, between last year and this.
DEFENSE
-- Goaltending. I mean, it's hard to leave this out when the stats look so bad. Dan Marino gave way to Rhody Heller midyear; Marino had a .455 save percentage on the season, Heller .482. Both are awful numbers. Marino's injury troubles in the fall might've carried over in his play to the spring. Austin Geisler, who transferred to High Point and played there this spring, had a .512 save percentage for the Panthers; given the somewhat (not hugely, but somewhat) easier schedule they play, it's hard to tell whether he would've made a difference, but it would've been cool to find out. You can bet the competition will be reopened in the fall, with incoming freshman Matt Barrett being given as good a shot as any.
The silver lining: Adam Ghitelman had a .497 percentage his freshman year, so Heller - though a redshirt freshman rather than a true one - isn't that far behind that number.
-- End of quarters. Oh gawd. Talk about frustrating. UVA played 15 games - therefore 60 quarters - and in 15 of those quarters, the opponent scored with fewer than 20 seconds left. So on average of once a game, UVA allowed an end-of-quarter goal.
Then, if we make the safe assumption that it's a coin flip as to whether the good guys or the bad guys have the ball at the end of the quarter, that means were 30 quarters when we were defending, which in turn means the defense allowed a goal half the time. More than half, if we take into account that nine games were basically out of reach one way or the other by the 30-second mark of the fourth (thus, nine of 60 quarters don't count since killing clock was the concern rather than feverishly trying to score.)
Not to mention that six of these end-of-quarter goals came after UVA had already scored a goal with less than a minute to go.
The Ohio State game was especially egregious. In the first three quarters, OSU scored with one second left, twelve seconds left, and three seconds left. This, one week after Cornell had scored the game-winner with 13 seconds to go in the fourth - 26 seconds after UVA had tied it up. Lesson: not learned. And Drexel forced overtime (in which UVA fortunately won) with a ten-seconds-left goal in regulation after an eight-seconds-left one before halftime.
Goaltending is partly to blame. In theory, you ought to be playing it pretty safe at the end of a quarter, so any shots are long ones and should be stoppable. That happened sometimes. In reality, the defense did an awful job of playing patient and tended to break down as the attackers got frenetic in trying to score.
********************************************
You'll notice two things that aren't on this list: faceoffs and injuries. I'm not sure that .527 is a real accurate assessment of how actually good our faceoff men were, but them's the stats, and I don't think that's where the season's problems really were. Also, not having Chris LaPierre wasn't the issue. Shocker might've helped in the midfield-athleticism department, but he's awfully unpolished on offense and probably wouldn't be a major playmaker except to maybe set up some of his own stuff.
Anyway, LaPierre's main strength is as an X-factor when two teams are equal. He can tilt the balance in your direction, but he's probably not going to solve your problems if you're facing a talent deficit. Neither can we say that not having top freshman Will McNamara would've helped, because we just don't know. Ask again next year.
Obviously, not everything was a disaster. I think Nick O'Reilly could have 50-some assists if he could rely more on his midfielders to be open for shots. Mark Cockerton isn't notably big, but he plays strong. Very strong. Wasn't uncommon to see him bull his way around a defender to score the goal. And Tanner Scales won the ACC Freshman of the Year award; Scales looked really good on defense and combined with Scott McWilliams to be a turnover-causing terror on the back end. It's a fitting award, since he inherited Steele Stanwick's #6 - who was the last UVA player to win the award. The last UVA non-offensive player to win was goalie Tillman Johnson. Having no way of remembering what number Johnson wore, I looked it up, hoping against hope it was 6. It was, but upside-down. Close enough.
So I think there's every reason to believe UVA gets back to the tournament next year; most of these problems aren't chronic. I'd like to think, for example, that the end-of-quarter issues are the sort of thing that will regress to the mean next year. This is just one of those things, and at least we have company from Baltimore in the "blue bloods missing the tournament" category.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
game preview: Johns Hopkins
Date/Time: Saturday, March 23; 4:30
TV: ESPNUVA
Record against the Blue Jays: 28-56
Last meeting: JHU 11, UVA 10; 3/24/12, Charlottesville
Last game: OSU 11, UVA 10 (3/16); Cuse 13, JHU 8 (3/16)
Rankings: UVA #13/#14. JHU #11/#10
Efficiency stats:
Faceoffs:
UVA: 54.1% (#16)
JHU: 68.8 (#1)
Clearing (offense):
UVA: 93.9% (#1)
JHU: 84.9% (#42)
Clearing (defense):
UVA: 80.5% (#9)
JHU: 79.7% (#7)
Scoring % (offense):
UVA: 34.3 (#22)
JHU: 34.5 (#20)
Scoring % (defense):
UVA: 31.1% (#25)
JHU: 31.1% (#24)
O-rating:
UVA: 16.28 (#23)
JHU: 16.23 (#24)
D-rating:
UVA: 12.70 (#11)
JHU: 11.88 (#7)
(Ratings are my KenPom-esque measures of efficiency for lacrosse. Numbers are schedule-adjusted. National average is about 15.1.)
And those ratings would seem to augur a pretty even rivalry game. The stakes are even too: both UVA and Hopkins find themselves in need of a win to help build a tourney resume, as neither has beaten anyone likely to be in the tourney themselves. It's technically a neutral-site game, but you're gonna have a hard time convincing me of that when the game's about five miles from the opposing campus. It's not any great injustice, really, since the game was at Klockner last year, but the large stage and obvious prestige of the opponents will draw plenty of attention to both the winner and the loser.
-- UVA on offense
Frankly, it's likely only a matter of time before Hopkins gets the win(s) they need to climb into the tourney, and their defense will be the reason. Expected to have a strong one before the season, they haven't disappointed, and goalie Pierce Bassett has more or less rebounded from a 2012 sophomore slump.
It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that Hopkins has the best set of defensemen in the country. Tucker Durkin was last year's top defender nationwide. Chris Lightner and Jack Reilly also have a ton of experience. Even so, UVA has proven capable of scoring against man-to-man defenses. Hopkins doesn't play cautious, but they're not extra-aggressive either. They put a lot of faith in Bassett and their defensemen to keep the ball in front of them.
Even so, sooner or later Hopkins will almost certainly break out a zone. Dave Pietramala would be stupid not to, after the way the latest few games have gone. UVA has not properly solved a zone defense all year. We're really not that far from the same territory we were in with basketball a few years ago when the shooters couldn't buy a bucket in a million years. There was no point in analyzing things because nothing was going to matter unless a few shots started falling. It's getting there now with this offense and the zone defense.
Also, someone's percentages are getting semi-ruined here, because UVA is the best clearing team in the country and Hopkins's ride is resulting in better than 20% failed clears. I forget which broadcast I was watching, but the announcer pointed out that no team in NCAA stats-keeping history had ever been better than 90% on clears for three years in a row until UVA did it from 2010-2012. The general idea was, hmmm, three years of 90% clearing, three years of Chris LaPierre - coincidence? But UVA is at nearly 94% even with Shocker having missed five of eight games and now being shut down for the season. This is going to be a no-margin-for-error game, so the clearing game will be vital.
-- UVA on defense
Even more vital: clamping down on defense. UVA hasn't been bad at all, but this is a game that will demand near-perfection. Hopkins is absolutely dominant on faceoffs this year, with primary FOGO Mike Poppleton winning at a ridiculous 71% clip. Put that up against UVA's struggles this year - I don't care what the stats say, we've been bad - and it's gonna be make-it-take-it out there. For Hopkins only.
Steele Stanwick used to terrorize Johns Hopkins - he had more than one 7-point game against them in his career. I guess it's our turn to be on the receiving end of that stuff, as Steele's brother Wells Stanwick is the ringleader of the Hopkins offense. He's got the Stanwick deadeye shot, too; a shooting percentage of .577 and a SOG percentage of .769 are on the books for him. He leads his team in assists with 12 and is second in goals with 15.
Brandon Benn is the recipient of his generosity, scoring 19 goals for Hopkins this year, with a shot that's not much less accurate than Stanwick's. Both are attackmen, and Zach Palmer rounds out the attack with 8 goals and 11 assists. Hopkins also gives plenty of time at attack to Ryan Brown, so out of their top five scorers, four are attackmen. That could help UVA a little bit, as easily the strongest defensive play this year has come from the long-stick guys, and yes that's accounting for the fact that they're supposed to. The biggest weakness on defense has been when midfielders break down our short-stick defenders, which happens a little more frequently than it should.
The biggest advantage UVA will have in this game, mathematically anyway, is on the ride, where Hopkins's clear is surprisingly poor at 85%. It's not horrible, but it's clearly in the bottom half of the country, and it's not a function of playing a bunch of great teams because they were fine against Princeton and not that bad against Syracuse, the only two contenders they've played.
-- Outlook
Is not so good. Start with the faceoffs, where I've got very little doubt we'll get crushed. Mick Parks will have his hands full. Even though he's 2-for-8, I'd like to see Tanner Ottenbreit get a few more shots with his long stick, just to throw Poppleton off his game a little. I never get my way with the Matt White thing, though, so I'm not getting my hopes up.
Hopkins's defense is a problem too. Especially if we let things get too settled. I think UVA's best chance in this game is turn it into a raggedy transition affair. So much the better if UVA can make Hopkins's clearing attempts miserable; I like our chances better in a protracted ground ball fight than a long possession - regardless of whose possession it is. If the Hoos can force turnovers, either on the ride or on settled defense, and turn those into quick-strike points, they'll at least keep it close. If not, Hopkins's faceoff dominance is going to settle this one. Unfortunately, I think the latter is more likely.
Final score: JHU 14, UVA 7
*******************************************
I haven't had the time nor the wherewithal to make the time to create a baseball preview for the weekend series against NC State, but you're reminded that it's a doubleheader on Saturday followed by a Monday night TV game on ESPNU. A rare opportunity to see them on your big lightning box.
Friday, March 15, 2013
game preview: Ohio State
Date/Time: Saturday, March 16; 3:00
TV: Cavaliers Live
Record against the Buckeyes: 6-0
Last meeting: UVA 11, OSU 9; 3/17/12, Columbus
Last game: Cornell 12, UVA 11 (3/9); DU 10, OSU 9 (3/9)
Rankings: UVA #11/#9, OSU #12/#12
Efficiency stats:
Faceoffs:
UVA: 54.7% (#11)
OSU: 58.3% (#17)
Clearing (offense):
UVA: 93.2% (#3)
OSU: 91.8% (#7)
Clearing (defense):
UVA: 79.5% (#8)
OSU: 90.5% (#57)
Scoring % (offense):
UVA: 34.8% (#23)
OSU: 35.5% (#19)
Scoring % (defense):
UVA: 30.1% (#21)
OSU: 28.5% (#12)
O-rating:
UVA: 16.20 (#20)
OSU: 15.97 (#21)
D-rating:
UVA: 12.84 (#14)
OSU: 13.01 (#15)
(Ratings are my KenPom-esque measures of efficiency for lacrosse. Numbers are schedule-adjusted. National average is about 15.1.)
With one bubble team now having fallen very ingloriously off the bubble for good (I think a close loss to NC State would've at least kept us on the horse, but losing by twenty is the likely coup de grace), it's time to turn our attention to another bubble team: the lacrosse one.
This blog's yearly lacrosse bracketology will make its 2013 debut this Sunday, and already I fully expect the Hoos to be starting from a lower position than we're used to. With very narrow losses to Syracuse and Cornell, each week now brings more or less a must-win game in order to stake a tourney claim. Remember, the autobids expanded by one, which leaves even less margin for error for UVA in the weeks ahead. The Hoos must find a feather for their cap somewhere. Ohio State isn't it, but without one, we really can't afford a loss, either.
-- UVA on offense
If truth be told, I would point to the offense as the reason the Hoos couldn't quite get past Syracuse or Cornell, and had trouble with Vermont besides. UVA is scoring at a slightly lower rate than they did in 2011 and 2012, and that's with the schedule still mostly composed of cupcakes and lacking Hopkins and the ACC. And, come to think of it, Ohio State's not-shabby defense.
Actually, the Buckeyes are a little less of a wall than they've been in the past. They're playing faster, too; in the past, they've had the reputation of being the UVA of the lacrosse world, but they're more or less mid-pack in terms of possessions per game now. Both should help UVA. Goalie Greg Dutton hasn't been on top of his game, with a save percentage south of .500 after posting a .575 last season.
OSU also brings a revamped defense, with only Dominic Imbordino returning from last year. Partly as a result (I would imagine) OSU is way near the bottom of the NCAA charts in caused turnovers. Their results this year have been a mixed bag. Allowing only 10 goals to Denver, even in a loss, is pretty good - that's a season-low for the Pioneers. Allowing 8 goals to Detroit, one of the worst offensive teams in the country, is bad. That would be Detroit's second-highest total of the year, and Dutton was frankly outplayed by Detroit's goalie in that game.
On the good-guy side, Dom is slowly settling down the lineups, but not completely. Nick O'Reilly has become a fixture, and oftentimes the offense lives or dies with his quarterbacking, which he's doing a nice job of with 15 assists already this year. I still want to see Matt White play closer to the net and end this midfield experiment, but I've resigned myself to not getting my way. Otherwise, there isn't so much a first and second line of midfielders as there is a first and second group that gets shuffled up at times. We're getting there, though.
Faceoffs continue to scare me, even with Mick Parks winning at a .567 clip. The reason is that our wing play, if I may be so blunt, stinks. Chris LaPierre has been missing a ton of time and it shows. Our wings are always last to the play, it seems. I'd like to maybe solve that by putting the speedy Pat Harbeson on the wing, but Harbeson's no defender at all and only marginally skilled on offense. Besides, there's no guarantee he'd take any better an angle to the ball or be any better anticipating its motion than anyone else. Can't be much worse, though.
Still, as long as we can get some possession I'd like to think we can score on Ohio State. Maybe not, like, VMI-style, but UVA was doing well against a very stingy Cornell defense for a while. Continuing to gel should help, and the game is at home.
-- UVA on defense
It was probably fair to say that OSU was a one-man show last year. Attackman Logan Schuss had twice as many points as the next guy. It's much more diversified this year. Freshman Carter Brown has joined Schuss at the attack and played well. Along with top midfielder Jesse King, OSU finds itself with a much more efficient offense than they had last year. King and Brown are both scoring on 40% or more of their shots.
The battle between Schuss and Scott McWilliams should be a good one. McWilliams already has 20 caused turnovers, and while he's a little bit of a risk-taker and prone to getting beat, Schuss is one notch below the country's elite. Which McWilliams has now had his crack it in guarding Rob Pannell.
If there's an X-factor it might be midget midfielder Turner Evans, who missed the Buckeyes' first couple games. Evans is judicious with his shots, but he's been a sniper when he gets open for one, scoring six times on nine shots. As he's not very big, he has a tough time getting open on his own, but he'll probably have a short stick on him more often than not and that defender can't be caught out of place.
-- Outlook
A tough matchup awaits. Ohio State has tourney aspirations and this is one of their best chances to play their way in. And this is a year in which UVA is going to struggle to play at the level we're accustomed to seeing. Last year OSU jumped out to like a 6-1 lead before UVA got back into the game and eventually won. So don't be exactly blown away if we lose. That said, I'll be damned if I predict a loss to these bastards.
Final score: UVA 10, OSU 8
Monday, May 14, 2012
weekend review
Confession: I didn't actually watch one single pitch of the baseball this weekend. Kind of stupid really, since I shelled out the money for the live video I ought to be taking advantage of it, but other stuff got in the way. I will say this: the most encouraging development of the weekend is Scott Silverstein getting back on track by throwing four innings and allowing zero free trips to first base. And against a good lineup, too. Without Whit Mayberry I have no idea who'll be our fourth pitcher in the postseason - Shane Halley, maybe, or Johnny Wholestaff - but we're certainly going nowhere with just two.
So one of those things that got in the way was obviously the lacrosse game, which I wasn't gonna miss for the world. I'd say it lived up to expectations. I don't care if the two teams combined for only 11 goals, it was one of the better games I've seen this year because both defenses were at the very tops of their games. Everyone loves watching offensive explosions, but a really good defensive battle is also to be appreciated, and that's what we saw.
First you have to tip your hat to Princeton's goalie, Tyler Fiorito, without whom the game wouldn't have been close. I wasn't disappointed in the offensive effort despite only producing six goals - Fiorito probably robbed us of three on his own. Also deserving a tip of the hat is their top defenseman Chad Wiedmaier, who basically shut down Steele Stanwick for large stretches of the game. And no, that wasn't Wiedmaier who leapt futilely into the air trying to stop Chris LaPierre's end-of-half pass to Stanwick for the miracle goal. I don't know who that was, but Wiedmaier was the guy conspicuously slamming his stick to the ground in anger. I like making the other team do that.
Speaking of LaPierre, is there any other choice for player of the game? Besides that unbelievable pass, which was nine-tenths hork-and-pray but still, you've got to appreciate the shot block. Yeah, you know what I mean. The only time this year I've seen someone hit that hard by a lacrosse ball was the time an Ohio State attacker got beaned by his own teammate's shot against Michigan. (It was funny later because he was OK, but he went down like a bag of bricks. At least Shocker meant to do that.) I wonder how many different colors LaPierre's chest is today.
I'd be remiss also if I didn't mention Matt Lovejoy, who played maybe the best game of his career. Not even kidding, and not even just because he got the first point of his college life. The whole defense was simply excellent - best game of the season - and Lovejoy clearly led the way.
That game was a great experience for getting ready for our next opponent: Notre Dame. The best defense in the country, but not an explosive offense. If you're gonna play the Irish it's a good idea to get used to the idea that five or six goals might be enough, but you'll have a hell of a time just getting to that point. And I'll tell you what else that game was good for: ammo against anyone who wants a shot clock in lacrosse, which I absolutely don't. Look at me like I'm crazy all you want, because I'm well aware that both teams earned stall warnings on their first possession. But the rest of the game, the stalling was not excessive, and the defense was of the tough, physical, and very entertaining sort that would largely disappear if all the defense had to do was wait 45 or 60 seconds to get the ball back. That kind of tight, well-played matchup isn't going to show its face if we have ourselves a shot clock era next season.
One final thumbs-up: the jerseys. I like orange numbers and lettering better than blue, but I never did like the stripe across the front of the shoulders. If this is the look for the next couple years (the way the shoulder-stripes were also introduced in the tournament) then I'm a fan. We'll be the lower-seeded team next-weekend (and thus in colored jerseys) and I hope and expect to see an equally sharp-looking blue or orange version.
****************************************************
-- So the other big news of the weekend was Florida State's temper tantrum about media money, third-tier rights, and leaving the ACC for the Big 12 and so on.
My first thought is, what the hell is your damn problem? We footballized the conference to try and help boost your profile. We extended a middle finger to traditionalists in order to do so. We bent over backwards to accommodate your wishes during our first round of expansion, put Miami in the other division so you could play them in the ACC CG (which you've never done), put the ACC CG in the state of Florida so it'd be nice and convenient for your fans to get there, and embarrassed ourselves by playing the game in front of a totally empty stadium as a result. You repaid us with academic cheating scandals and mediocre-ass football, and now by whining like Texas about third-tier media rights. You want to be treated like kings in football, start by beating Wake Forest and Virginia.
Naturally, the Big 12 is where they'd want to go if they want to control their third-tier rights. Texas made a giant stink about them, drove off the desirable parts of their conference, and turned to the rest of the Big 12 and said "now gimme my Longhorn Network." The remainder of the conference said, "that would be fine, and would you like us to suck your dick too?" Now Florida State apparently wants the same treatment.
Fortunately, there are calming voices in the wilderness. Because despite a few harsh words I might have just said about Florida State, the ACC is not better off if they leave. Frank the Tank is a guy who's always had a level head about realignment issues, and here's his take on the situation. An excerpt:
This next is even better. It's a very, very enlightening look at the reality of the situation and highly recommended. The money shot:
The rest of the article comes highly recommended at least by this intrepid blogger.
So my semi-educated guess is that FSU, or at least their board of trustees, is all bluster. I don't think they'll go anywhere. I could be wrong, of course. I could be overestimating the intelligence of their brain trust. But if they're really serious about the Big 12, someone should set them up a meeting with the presidents and ADs at Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Texas A&M, so as to get a few pointers on working with Texas.
-- Schedule news today: the football "future schedules" page on the official site now lists a home-and-home in 2017 and 2018 with Stanford. Damn if that ain't a long way off. I'd still rather put some Big Ten or SEC teams on the schedule - we seem to be going Pac-wacky with USC, and now future dates with UCLA and Stanford - but I'm not gonna complain about a home-and-home with quality opponents regardless of where they're located.
Also, next year's Big Ten basketball opponent for the Challenge is out, and it's Wisconsin. Cue up the jokes about the score being 38-35. Add that to our gig in the preseason NIT and the picture of our hoops schedule is starting to come together.
-- When it comes to baseball recruiting, every time you get a good one you have to sweat it out until the MLB signing deadline in August to see if you'll actually get to keep your new toys. Sometimes they stay (Branden Kline, Danny Hultzen, Derek Fisher), sometimes they go (Justin Nicolino.) So we greatly appreciate the gem of this year's class saving us the heart attacks; top pitcher Nathan Kirby, who could've been a first-rounder, decided to not even go through the medical requirements. It would've been a little better if he'd phrased it in a way that didn't sound like he was purposely failing a drug test, but we know what he means. Kirby could very well be the best player entering college ball in the whole country next year. So if this year is our reloading year, next year is the one where we just grab a bigger gun.
So one of those things that got in the way was obviously the lacrosse game, which I wasn't gonna miss for the world. I'd say it lived up to expectations. I don't care if the two teams combined for only 11 goals, it was one of the better games I've seen this year because both defenses were at the very tops of their games. Everyone loves watching offensive explosions, but a really good defensive battle is also to be appreciated, and that's what we saw.
First you have to tip your hat to Princeton's goalie, Tyler Fiorito, without whom the game wouldn't have been close. I wasn't disappointed in the offensive effort despite only producing six goals - Fiorito probably robbed us of three on his own. Also deserving a tip of the hat is their top defenseman Chad Wiedmaier, who basically shut down Steele Stanwick for large stretches of the game. And no, that wasn't Wiedmaier who leapt futilely into the air trying to stop Chris LaPierre's end-of-half pass to Stanwick for the miracle goal. I don't know who that was, but Wiedmaier was the guy conspicuously slamming his stick to the ground in anger. I like making the other team do that.
Speaking of LaPierre, is there any other choice for player of the game? Besides that unbelievable pass, which was nine-tenths hork-and-pray but still, you've got to appreciate the shot block. Yeah, you know what I mean. The only time this year I've seen someone hit that hard by a lacrosse ball was the time an Ohio State attacker got beaned by his own teammate's shot against Michigan. (It was funny later because he was OK, but he went down like a bag of bricks. At least Shocker meant to do that.) I wonder how many different colors LaPierre's chest is today.
I'd be remiss also if I didn't mention Matt Lovejoy, who played maybe the best game of his career. Not even kidding, and not even just because he got the first point of his college life. The whole defense was simply excellent - best game of the season - and Lovejoy clearly led the way.
That game was a great experience for getting ready for our next opponent: Notre Dame. The best defense in the country, but not an explosive offense. If you're gonna play the Irish it's a good idea to get used to the idea that five or six goals might be enough, but you'll have a hell of a time just getting to that point. And I'll tell you what else that game was good for: ammo against anyone who wants a shot clock in lacrosse, which I absolutely don't. Look at me like I'm crazy all you want, because I'm well aware that both teams earned stall warnings on their first possession. But the rest of the game, the stalling was not excessive, and the defense was of the tough, physical, and very entertaining sort that would largely disappear if all the defense had to do was wait 45 or 60 seconds to get the ball back. That kind of tight, well-played matchup isn't going to show its face if we have ourselves a shot clock era next season.
One final thumbs-up: the jerseys. I like orange numbers and lettering better than blue, but I never did like the stripe across the front of the shoulders. If this is the look for the next couple years (the way the shoulder-stripes were also introduced in the tournament) then I'm a fan. We'll be the lower-seeded team next-weekend (and thus in colored jerseys) and I hope and expect to see an equally sharp-looking blue or orange version.
****************************************************
-- So the other big news of the weekend was Florida State's temper tantrum about media money, third-tier rights, and leaving the ACC for the Big 12 and so on.
My first thought is, what the hell is your damn problem? We footballized the conference to try and help boost your profile. We extended a middle finger to traditionalists in order to do so. We bent over backwards to accommodate your wishes during our first round of expansion, put Miami in the other division so you could play them in the ACC CG (which you've never done), put the ACC CG in the state of Florida so it'd be nice and convenient for your fans to get there, and embarrassed ourselves by playing the game in front of a totally empty stadium as a result. You repaid us with academic cheating scandals and mediocre-ass football, and now by whining like Texas about third-tier media rights. You want to be treated like kings in football, start by beating Wake Forest and Virginia.
Naturally, the Big 12 is where they'd want to go if they want to control their third-tier rights. Texas made a giant stink about them, drove off the desirable parts of their conference, and turned to the rest of the Big 12 and said "now gimme my Longhorn Network." The remainder of the conference said, "that would be fine, and would you like us to suck your dick too?" Now Florida State apparently wants the same treatment.
Fortunately, there are calming voices in the wilderness. Because despite a few harsh words I might have just said about Florida State, the ACC is not better off if they leave. Frank the Tank is a guy who's always had a level head about realignment issues, and here's his take on the situation. An excerpt:
ESPN has zero incentive to see the ACC get raided. None. Nada. Unlike its contracts with every other power conference, ESPN has complete top-to-bottom control of all ACC TV rights. This means that ESPN has more of a vested interest in the survival of the ACC specifically over every other conference – it’s the one league that the people in Bristol aren’t sharing with Fox, CBS or the Big Ten Network. In fact, think of it in these terms:Emphasis his. Remember who writes the checks, now.
The ACC is the single largest content provider to all of the ESPN networks, whether college or pro.
This next is even better. It's a very, very enlightening look at the reality of the situation and highly recommended. The money shot:
I’ll bottom line this for those of you who think FSU should dump the ACC for the Big 12 because the Big 12 would allow the Noles to reap huge profits from their third-tier rights. If FSU left the ACC for the Big 12 the only additional athletic inventory it would have to offer a TV network is its worst football game and three or four additional men’s basketball games. How much money do you think the Seminoles stand to gain from the ability to sell their football game vs. Savannah State and men’s basketball games against Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Georgia Southwestern, Jacksonville, and UNC-Greensboro? How many of those games would FSU have to sell before unburying itself from the ACC’s $20 million exit fee?
The rest of the article comes highly recommended at least by this intrepid blogger.
So my semi-educated guess is that FSU, or at least their board of trustees, is all bluster. I don't think they'll go anywhere. I could be wrong, of course. I could be overestimating the intelligence of their brain trust. But if they're really serious about the Big 12, someone should set them up a meeting with the presidents and ADs at Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Texas A&M, so as to get a few pointers on working with Texas.
-- Schedule news today: the football "future schedules" page on the official site now lists a home-and-home in 2017 and 2018 with Stanford. Damn if that ain't a long way off. I'd still rather put some Big Ten or SEC teams on the schedule - we seem to be going Pac-wacky with USC, and now future dates with UCLA and Stanford - but I'm not gonna complain about a home-and-home with quality opponents regardless of where they're located.
Also, next year's Big Ten basketball opponent for the Challenge is out, and it's Wisconsin. Cue up the jokes about the score being 38-35. Add that to our gig in the preseason NIT and the picture of our hoops schedule is starting to come together.
-- When it comes to baseball recruiting, every time you get a good one you have to sweat it out until the MLB signing deadline in August to see if you'll actually get to keep your new toys. Sometimes they stay (Branden Kline, Danny Hultzen, Derek Fisher), sometimes they go (Justin Nicolino.) So we greatly appreciate the gem of this year's class saving us the heart attacks; top pitcher Nathan Kirby, who could've been a first-rounder, decided to not even go through the medical requirements. It would've been a little better if he'd phrased it in a way that didn't sound like he was purposely failing a drug test, but we know what he means. Kirby could very well be the best player entering college ball in the whole country next year. So if this year is our reloading year, next year is the one where we just grab a bigger gun.
Monday, April 30, 2012
weekend review
Talk about your eventful weekends. In fact, that's what I plan to do.
Starting with lacrosse, where the Hoos played a game that's Exhibit A in the case of "why UVA will be considered the bottom of the ACC barrel next year until they prove otherwise." The good guys looked sloppy, and were bailed out by the mighty power of Steele Stanwick. Stanwick scored six goals and added an assist to push his PPG average over five. This dude is something else, and could do no wrong on Friday. Even his "post up a guy then fake-flip the ball to a teammate" trick, which never works, finally worked.
The rest of the team? Well, I'll exempt Chris Clements for now, who did a very admirable job. Clements picked up a short stick again (which is how he started off his career) and filled in at SSDM for Chris LaPierre, who sat the game with a shoulder injury. I don't think LaPierre was desperately missed (though he will be against better teams) except in the the realm of ground balls. Ayyy. There was no sense of urgency in picking up ground balls, not until the fourth quarter. One Penn goal came about four seconds after a defenseman - Scott McWilliams, I believe - just left a ball sitting on the turf and chased a Penn attackman instead. Pretty sure he thought that guy had the ball himself. No excuse for not knowing where the ball is, though.
Even when we had the ball in our possession, we didn't seem too interested in keeping it that way. Shot selection was lame. Chris Bocklet is the main culprit that I remember, but he wasn't the only one. Made some poor decisions that sent harmless beach balls at Penn's goalie Brian Feeney. And it went both ways: Penn did everything but put up bright neon signs daring Mark Cockerton to shoot with his right hand, and he refused. Obviously he's not too keen on that side, but this summer would be a very good time to work on that. Heck, Friday would've been a very good time to work on that. Even as uncomfortable right-handed as he clearly is, I can't believe a D-I athlete's shot is that bad that he couldn't have potted a goal that way, as open as they left his right side.
Then you had about three or four clean interceptions, way too many. Rob Fortunato slinged a pass at a Penn rider that was so perfectly executed my only explanation is he brainfarted and forgot we were wearing blue uniforms. Of course the ball ended up behind him three seconds later.
So the break is coming at a good time - mentally, and because of LaPierre's shoulder bangup. And it seems clear that Stanwick isn't quite healthy either. Unless he just gets up slowly every time he's knocked to the ground because he wants to. All that's left is to take final exams and wait for the rest of the conference tourneys to play themselves out, and find out our first-round opponent this Sunday.
*****************************************************
However, while I was gnawing my fingernails over the lax team, the diamond nine was restoring my faith. Two very nice wins Saturday and Sunday have put the Hoos in position to potentially sweep Miami - at Miami.
On Saturday, Branden Kline had one of his effectively wild outings, walking five and striking out eight. A 40-some minute rain delay messed with both pitchers; Kline was pulled after 120 pitches in only five innings, and Miami starter Eric Erickson pitched one inning too long; the UVA bats opened up on him in the sixth.
On Sunday, for the second week in a row Shane Halley pitched six innings in relief of Scott Silverstein, leading to the obvious question of why don't we just start Halley if that's how the game is gonna turn out. Such a decision may be on the horizon, but I don't think Silverstein's time as a starter is quite done yet. At any rate, he gave up four runs in the second - half of which got on base via walk in the first place - and Halley took it from there, shutting down the Miami bats and giving ours a chance to pull back in the game. Which they did, in a big way. Our bats have struggled against good pitching and bombed everything else, so it's nice to see them tee off on good pitching now, too.
Let's not forget Miami's role in all this. I told you they were crummy fielders and they've upheld that statement beyond my wildest dreams, committing four errors on Saturday and five more on Sunday. UVA scored seven runs in each of the first two games and of that total of 14, only three are earned runs. That's amazing. Not to say we haven't been hitting, but we have been timing our hits well. Gotta put them together. (And let's not forget that baseball has nutty rules about what's an earned run; one error can taint the whole thing. If there are two outs and you commit an error and then give up a billion runs afterwards, they're all unearned on the theory that the inning would otherwise have been over.)
Still: nine errors in two games. That's a lot of help. Ain't complaining, though: win tonight and I'll revive my 18-wins goal. Even better: our RPI is 15th in the country. That puts us in the back end of the regional-hosting discussion. Do I think we will? Still nope. But the chance is there. And even if we don't we got a great shot at being that pain-in-the-ass two seed that nobody wants in their regional. I would not be surprised, for example, to see us trucked to Columbia, South Carolina. (Unless Tim Weiser is still calling the shots, in which case, Fullerton here we come.)
*****************************************************
-- Phillip Sims is coming to UVA. Doug Doubt-y says it ain't so, at least not yet, but I don't know why I even mention that because there's no reason to pay attention to it. We're past the point of no return with this one. This went from bullshit rumor to actual rumor to actual happening so fast that I barely had time to process it. People have different ideas of what a "done deal" actually is, anyway. This is what I call a done deal.
I'm the last Hoo blogger to mention this, but I've always said I'm in the business of commentary, not breaking news. (And not even "business", really, since that would imply I've ever made a cent off doing this.) I did write a significant chunk of commentary. It got to be too significant. It's now a separate post all its own - tomorrow's. I'm afraid you'll have to wait til then to read it. That's what we call a teaser.
-- Virginia Tech has a new basketball coach: James Johnson, the assistant who left for Clemson less than a month ago and who probably, in doing so, helped get Seth Greenberg fired in the first place. I spent a ton of time on VT basketball last week and I don't want to bother doing so again, so Streaking the Lawn's piece on Johnson is good enough for me. No sense in me rehashing it, which is all I'd have done anyway. Go read that.
-- Man, the WAC is completely falling apart. UTSA hasn't even played a down of I-A football in their lives and C-USA has already poached them. It's funny how there used to be this 16-team WAC, then it branched out into the MWC and the WAC, and then all the good teams left the MWC and now the MWC is basically the WAC again.
-- Playoff talk abounds. I'm gonna hold off most of my opinions til they actually settle on something and then I can poke holes in it. Half of me thinks its funny that we used to have basically a two-team playoffs and now they're adding to two teams to that and saying "look everyone, a playoff!" and everyone's going "yay! (or boo!) a playoff!" as if it's really all that different. The other half of me says it really is that different, because four teams leads to six and six leads to eight and eight leads to twelve and twelve leads to sixteen and this is the same organization that floated the idea of a 96-team basketball tournament so don't you dare doubt me.
I'll leave you with this thought: I've told you for a long time that most of the playoff advocates are gonna be awfully disappointed with the result, because the same people who bring you the BCS that you hate are the ones who'll bring you your playoff. So don't expect anything brilliant. In fact, expect stupidity. The proof is in the pudding, summed up here and in this one quote:
Starting with lacrosse, where the Hoos played a game that's Exhibit A in the case of "why UVA will be considered the bottom of the ACC barrel next year until they prove otherwise." The good guys looked sloppy, and were bailed out by the mighty power of Steele Stanwick. Stanwick scored six goals and added an assist to push his PPG average over five. This dude is something else, and could do no wrong on Friday. Even his "post up a guy then fake-flip the ball to a teammate" trick, which never works, finally worked.
The rest of the team? Well, I'll exempt Chris Clements for now, who did a very admirable job. Clements picked up a short stick again (which is how he started off his career) and filled in at SSDM for Chris LaPierre, who sat the game with a shoulder injury. I don't think LaPierre was desperately missed (though he will be against better teams) except in the the realm of ground balls. Ayyy. There was no sense of urgency in picking up ground balls, not until the fourth quarter. One Penn goal came about four seconds after a defenseman - Scott McWilliams, I believe - just left a ball sitting on the turf and chased a Penn attackman instead. Pretty sure he thought that guy had the ball himself. No excuse for not knowing where the ball is, though.
Even when we had the ball in our possession, we didn't seem too interested in keeping it that way. Shot selection was lame. Chris Bocklet is the main culprit that I remember, but he wasn't the only one. Made some poor decisions that sent harmless beach balls at Penn's goalie Brian Feeney. And it went both ways: Penn did everything but put up bright neon signs daring Mark Cockerton to shoot with his right hand, and he refused. Obviously he's not too keen on that side, but this summer would be a very good time to work on that. Heck, Friday would've been a very good time to work on that. Even as uncomfortable right-handed as he clearly is, I can't believe a D-I athlete's shot is that bad that he couldn't have potted a goal that way, as open as they left his right side.
Then you had about three or four clean interceptions, way too many. Rob Fortunato slinged a pass at a Penn rider that was so perfectly executed my only explanation is he brainfarted and forgot we were wearing blue uniforms. Of course the ball ended up behind him three seconds later.
So the break is coming at a good time - mentally, and because of LaPierre's shoulder bangup. And it seems clear that Stanwick isn't quite healthy either. Unless he just gets up slowly every time he's knocked to the ground because he wants to. All that's left is to take final exams and wait for the rest of the conference tourneys to play themselves out, and find out our first-round opponent this Sunday.
*****************************************************
However, while I was gnawing my fingernails over the lax team, the diamond nine was restoring my faith. Two very nice wins Saturday and Sunday have put the Hoos in position to potentially sweep Miami - at Miami.
On Saturday, Branden Kline had one of his effectively wild outings, walking five and striking out eight. A 40-some minute rain delay messed with both pitchers; Kline was pulled after 120 pitches in only five innings, and Miami starter Eric Erickson pitched one inning too long; the UVA bats opened up on him in the sixth.
On Sunday, for the second week in a row Shane Halley pitched six innings in relief of Scott Silverstein, leading to the obvious question of why don't we just start Halley if that's how the game is gonna turn out. Such a decision may be on the horizon, but I don't think Silverstein's time as a starter is quite done yet. At any rate, he gave up four runs in the second - half of which got on base via walk in the first place - and Halley took it from there, shutting down the Miami bats and giving ours a chance to pull back in the game. Which they did, in a big way. Our bats have struggled against good pitching and bombed everything else, so it's nice to see them tee off on good pitching now, too.
Let's not forget Miami's role in all this. I told you they were crummy fielders and they've upheld that statement beyond my wildest dreams, committing four errors on Saturday and five more on Sunday. UVA scored seven runs in each of the first two games and of that total of 14, only three are earned runs. That's amazing. Not to say we haven't been hitting, but we have been timing our hits well. Gotta put them together. (And let's not forget that baseball has nutty rules about what's an earned run; one error can taint the whole thing. If there are two outs and you commit an error and then give up a billion runs afterwards, they're all unearned on the theory that the inning would otherwise have been over.)
Still: nine errors in two games. That's a lot of help. Ain't complaining, though: win tonight and I'll revive my 18-wins goal. Even better: our RPI is 15th in the country. That puts us in the back end of the regional-hosting discussion. Do I think we will? Still nope. But the chance is there. And even if we don't we got a great shot at being that pain-in-the-ass two seed that nobody wants in their regional. I would not be surprised, for example, to see us trucked to Columbia, South Carolina. (Unless Tim Weiser is still calling the shots, in which case, Fullerton here we come.)
*****************************************************
-- Phillip Sims is coming to UVA. Doug Doubt-y says it ain't so, at least not yet, but I don't know why I even mention that because there's no reason to pay attention to it. We're past the point of no return with this one. This went from bullshit rumor to actual rumor to actual happening so fast that I barely had time to process it. People have different ideas of what a "done deal" actually is, anyway. This is what I call a done deal.
I'm the last Hoo blogger to mention this, but I've always said I'm in the business of commentary, not breaking news. (And not even "business", really, since that would imply I've ever made a cent off doing this.) I did write a significant chunk of commentary. It got to be too significant. It's now a separate post all its own - tomorrow's. I'm afraid you'll have to wait til then to read it. That's what we call a teaser.
-- Virginia Tech has a new basketball coach: James Johnson, the assistant who left for Clemson less than a month ago and who probably, in doing so, helped get Seth Greenberg fired in the first place. I spent a ton of time on VT basketball last week and I don't want to bother doing so again, so Streaking the Lawn's piece on Johnson is good enough for me. No sense in me rehashing it, which is all I'd have done anyway. Go read that.
-- Man, the WAC is completely falling apart. UTSA hasn't even played a down of I-A football in their lives and C-USA has already poached them. It's funny how there used to be this 16-team WAC, then it branched out into the MWC and the WAC, and then all the good teams left the MWC and now the MWC is basically the WAC again.
-- Playoff talk abounds. I'm gonna hold off most of my opinions til they actually settle on something and then I can poke holes in it. Half of me thinks its funny that we used to have basically a two-team playoffs and now they're adding to two teams to that and saying "look everyone, a playoff!" and everyone's going "yay! (or boo!) a playoff!" as if it's really all that different. The other half of me says it really is that different, because four teams leads to six and six leads to eight and eight leads to twelve and twelve leads to sixteen and this is the same organization that floated the idea of a 96-team basketball tournament so don't you dare doubt me.
I'll leave you with this thought: I've told you for a long time that most of the playoff advocates are gonna be awfully disappointed with the result, because the same people who bring you the BCS that you hate are the ones who'll bring you your playoff. So don't expect anything brilliant. In fact, expect stupidity. The proof is in the pudding, summed up here and in this one quote:
[BCS director] Bill Hancock wonders if college football stadiums have the infrastructure to host college football games.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
recruiting board update
Hello and welcome once again to the weekly recruiting board update. We've got a great show for you today in which we do the same shit we always do: update the recruiting board. So, the changes:
-- Moved CB Tim Harris from blue to orange. Huzzah. Harris is one of the top pickups of the class and will remain so regardless of who else signs. The hope is that more guys like Harris, I'm thinking of ohhhh let's just toss a name out there, Taquan Mizzell, who are "strongly leaning" UVA, will make it official relatively soonish and create some momentum, in order to make someone like Micah Kiser, who likes UVA but has a lot of suitors, take notice.
-- Moved OLs Parker Osterloh and Braxton Pfaff, and DE Wyatt Teller, from green to blue. In the case of the two OL, it's becoming clear that it's UVA or VT. 50/50 is good enough for blue. I see both as guys who'll slowly and methodically work their way up the food chain, rather than leapfrog anyone on the depth chart. But, they are the top two linemen in the state. We're not in any state of major need there, except for my rule that you should take at least three every year - but VT is. They've been swinging and missing on linemen for a couple years now. Just keeping either or both of these guys away from Tech so as to make the future Hokie front five look like a paper fence would be worth it.
As for Teller, I have read nothing, either outside or behind a paywall, that makes me think he should definitely be in the blue section vice the green one. It's just a spidey-sense thing, I guess. I think Teller will eventually choose UVA. Now go light some candles and offer some goat sacrifices to make it happen.
-- Added WR DaeSean Hamilton and CB Kirk Garner to green.
-- Added DT Maurice Hurst to yellow. I hope we get him so I can call him Maurice Hurts.
-- Moved LB Alex Anzalone from yellow to red.
-- Removed LB Dorian O'Daniel from yellow - committed to Clemson. Bummer, because O'Daniel was the best Good Counsel player that we had even half a legit shot at, but we're after a lot of good linebackers and I gotta feeling it's going to be a very solid linebacker class.
-- Removed CBs Kendall Fuller and Desmond Lawrence from red. Lawrence committed to UNC. Fuller, yes, we're giving up on him, or I am; he listed a top six that didn't have UVA in it (fifth bullet from the top) and was full of schools that would be almighty tough to overcome. Given his obviously well-known connections to VT, it's time to put this one aside.
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Piece of news: the all-ACC lacrosse team came out, and has on it Steele Stanwick (obviously), Chris LaPierre (good to see his work be recognized), and Colin Briggs. Excellent choices, all. And that's all well and good, too, but - somehow, the ACC's leading goal-scorer (whether you want to use total goals or goals per game) didn't make it, and I refer to one Chris Bocklet. I would put Bocklet on before Briggs, for starters, but what in the blue Hell is Maryland's John Haus doing on that team?? 10 goals and 8 assists in 10 games is Haus's stat line. He's a sub-.300 shooter. There are like 10-12 midfielders in the league, at least, who can do what Haus does - he's a solid player but not, like, all-ACC caliber. Off the top of my head I can think of several players in the league, and not just on Virginia, who'd be more deserving than Haus. Think UNC's Jimmy Bitter or Joey Sankey, or Duke's Josh Dionne, or a defender like Maryland's LSM Goran Murray or even their second-best scorer, Owen Blye. Anyone but a guy with 1.8 points a game (and just 12 in 8 games since the first two), and 2 goals and 0 assists in three ACC games.
Bocklet has managed eight assists of his own despite being known as a finisher, which he does spectacularly well - he is the Marvin Harrison to Stanwick's Peyton Manning. Haus isn't even the second-leading scorer on Maryland let alone the conference. Stupid vote. Bocklet got jobbed.
Oh, but speaking of voting, you still have to do so for Steele Stanwick. Don't let the Dookie win.
-- Moved CB Tim Harris from blue to orange. Huzzah. Harris is one of the top pickups of the class and will remain so regardless of who else signs. The hope is that more guys like Harris, I'm thinking of ohhhh let's just toss a name out there, Taquan Mizzell, who are "strongly leaning" UVA, will make it official relatively soonish and create some momentum, in order to make someone like Micah Kiser, who likes UVA but has a lot of suitors, take notice.
-- Moved OLs Parker Osterloh and Braxton Pfaff, and DE Wyatt Teller, from green to blue. In the case of the two OL, it's becoming clear that it's UVA or VT. 50/50 is good enough for blue. I see both as guys who'll slowly and methodically work their way up the food chain, rather than leapfrog anyone on the depth chart. But, they are the top two linemen in the state. We're not in any state of major need there, except for my rule that you should take at least three every year - but VT is. They've been swinging and missing on linemen for a couple years now. Just keeping either or both of these guys away from Tech so as to make the future Hokie front five look like a paper fence would be worth it.
As for Teller, I have read nothing, either outside or behind a paywall, that makes me think he should definitely be in the blue section vice the green one. It's just a spidey-sense thing, I guess. I think Teller will eventually choose UVA. Now go light some candles and offer some goat sacrifices to make it happen.
-- Added WR DaeSean Hamilton and CB Kirk Garner to green.
-- Added DT Maurice Hurst to yellow. I hope we get him so I can call him Maurice Hurts.
-- Moved LB Alex Anzalone from yellow to red.
-- Removed LB Dorian O'Daniel from yellow - committed to Clemson. Bummer, because O'Daniel was the best Good Counsel player that we had even half a legit shot at, but we're after a lot of good linebackers and I gotta feeling it's going to be a very solid linebacker class.
-- Removed CBs Kendall Fuller and Desmond Lawrence from red. Lawrence committed to UNC. Fuller, yes, we're giving up on him, or I am; he listed a top six that didn't have UVA in it (fifth bullet from the top) and was full of schools that would be almighty tough to overcome. Given his obviously well-known connections to VT, it's time to put this one aside.
**********************************************
Piece of news: the all-ACC lacrosse team came out, and has on it Steele Stanwick (obviously), Chris LaPierre (good to see his work be recognized), and Colin Briggs. Excellent choices, all. And that's all well and good, too, but - somehow, the ACC's leading goal-scorer (whether you want to use total goals or goals per game) didn't make it, and I refer to one Chris Bocklet. I would put Bocklet on before Briggs, for starters, but what in the blue Hell is Maryland's John Haus doing on that team?? 10 goals and 8 assists in 10 games is Haus's stat line. He's a sub-.300 shooter. There are like 10-12 midfielders in the league, at least, who can do what Haus does - he's a solid player but not, like, all-ACC caliber. Off the top of my head I can think of several players in the league, and not just on Virginia, who'd be more deserving than Haus. Think UNC's Jimmy Bitter or Joey Sankey, or Duke's Josh Dionne, or a defender like Maryland's LSM Goran Murray or even their second-best scorer, Owen Blye. Anyone but a guy with 1.8 points a game (and just 12 in 8 games since the first two), and 2 goals and 0 assists in three ACC games.
Bocklet has managed eight assists of his own despite being known as a finisher, which he does spectacularly well - he is the Marvin Harrison to Stanwick's Peyton Manning. Haus isn't even the second-leading scorer on Maryland let alone the conference. Stupid vote. Bocklet got jobbed.
Oh, but speaking of voting, you still have to do so for Steele Stanwick. Don't let the Dookie win.
Monday, April 9, 2012
weekend review
I've been afraid to start writing this because the biggest news of the weekend might break AT ANY MOMENT. (AAAAAAAAA) I'm sure what'll happen is, I'll have this nice big writeup about how we're still waiting on pins and needles for point guard T.J. McConnell's imminent decision between UVA and Arizona, and by the time I get done writing it I'll have to erase it and start over.
Yes, we're still waiting, despite some Arizona site (Point Guard U, they're called) jumping the gun and reporting a McConnell commitment to the Wildcats late last night. No such commitment has yet occurred, of course. These people at Point Guard U have been more or less "reporting" McConnell will be a Cat for a couple weeks now, so there's no good reason to consider them the definitive source.
So we wait. Arizona is full enough on scholarship guys that they've stopped recruiting a late 2012 guy by the name of Amadeo Della Valle, but not so full that there's no longer any room for McConnell. (Sean Miller isn't that dumb.) If this didn't happen to be a guy whose family knew Miller from way back, it might already be over by now and we'd have us a point guard. But for now....we wait.
***************************************************
And we talk lacrosse. The Hoos opened one up on North Carolina this week, in what I think was the best three quarters of defense they've played all season. (Not so much the fourth - they looked a little complacent and it's fair to also mention that the offense plays differently when it's desperate. And being down by 7 qualifies as desperate.) I wasn't kidding when I said UNC's offense was dangerous, and the Hoos held them to five goals in the first three quarters.
That means a yeoman effort by the defense, of course, and also by Rob Fortunato. (Let's just come out and say right now what we've all been thinking but not wanting to say: Fortunato has been better than Adam Ghitelman at stopping shots. Unlike with Ghitelman, I'm still a little nervous when Fortunato makes a pass longer than about fifteen yards, but Fortunato has been damn impressive in net. He's making saves that I don't think Ghitelman would've.) But the guys I want to single out this time are the SSDMs: Chris LaPierre and Bobby Hill. An excellent game by both, and Rob Emery has been playing a little two-way ball as well and showed us why when he went coast-to-coast for an early transition goal.
The offense hummed like the proverbial well-oiled machine. Steele Stanwick racked up the numbers as usual, but nevertheless the game wasn't all Stanwick all the time; in fact it was Matt White who made a Stanwickesque pass to Bocklet for the first man-up goal. Offense came from everywhere, and it broke down the UNC resistance; their goalie Rastivo often made the first save but couldn't make the second one.
I think - I am not 100% sure but I think - that we have locked in another date with Carolina in the ACC tournament. If I'm right, it works like this:
-- If we [redacted to appease the fickle lacrosse gods] on Friday, we would be the #1 seed with a 3-0 record, and they'd have to apply a three-way tiebreaker to deal with the 1-2 teams down below. I think the applicable tiebreaker will be goal differential in games between the tied teams, in which Maryland is +2 and the other two are -1. That would give Maryland the two seed, and Duke beat UNC so they're the three, and UNC the four.
-- If we lose to Duke on Friday, then we'd be the two seed, with us and Duke at 2-1 and UNC and Maryland at 1-2. And UNC beat Maryland.
I could be wrong about this, but I'll let you quote me anyway.
***************************************************
In the baseball world, we watched a thrilling sweep, particularly on Sunday. Saturday was a thing of beauty, with Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera each going yard (and then going yard again), but Sunday was the real happy time, as the good guys twice came back from a multiple-run deficit in crunch time to broom away the hated.....oops. You want Virginia baseball. I'm kind of puffed-up and happy about the Tigers, too.
Well, it's still going on, as I type this, because of the TV schedule, but it started off just fine. A much-needed series win against Wake Forest is already in the bag, and the Hoos are up 3-2 in the not-rubber game as I write. We'll either be 9-6 or 8-7 in an hour or so, and 9-6 would be interesting because that's the same record as UNC, who happens to be the next opponent. A huge series.
For all the angst over losing three games in Tallahassee, it's worth it to remember that a break or two the other way might've sent us home with a series win - and FSU is now 14-1. They're, uh, good.
But they're also in the other division. Now I don't want to get expectations too high, but finishing off the win tonight and then a good result against UNC could put the Hoos in an outside position to steal the division title from current leader Miami. But a lot would have to go right and I'm not getting my hopes up. Yet.
The bottom line is that a regional 2 seed is still the minimum expectation. The main question remains the bullpen. Artie Lewicki was pulled in the fourth inning tonight, and he's never going to be a guy who goes eight innings anyway, which means they'll be in for plenty of innings in the upcoming weeks. They were excellent yesterday, limiting Wake to 1 run all day after Silverstein was pulled in the fifth. In the end I don't think this team has the pitching to pull off an extended tournament run (meaning: make it to Omaha) but that's a concern for a month from now, not right now.
A final interesting note: this week's Wednesday opponent is George Washington. Perhaps this year one of their players will get to experience Davenport Field from the perspective of a baserunner.
Look at that, I made it all the way to the end of the post and T.J. McConnell hasn't made (or at least announced) his decision. All my worrying for nothing. The conventional wisdom is that the longer it takes after the Arizona visit is a good thing for UVA. I see no reason to question the conventional wisdom. It means the Charlottesville visit stuck. We shall see.
Yes, we're still waiting, despite some Arizona site (Point Guard U, they're called) jumping the gun and reporting a McConnell commitment to the Wildcats late last night. No such commitment has yet occurred, of course. These people at Point Guard U have been more or less "reporting" McConnell will be a Cat for a couple weeks now, so there's no good reason to consider them the definitive source.
So we wait. Arizona is full enough on scholarship guys that they've stopped recruiting a late 2012 guy by the name of Amadeo Della Valle, but not so full that there's no longer any room for McConnell. (Sean Miller isn't that dumb.) If this didn't happen to be a guy whose family knew Miller from way back, it might already be over by now and we'd have us a point guard. But for now....we wait.
***************************************************
And we talk lacrosse. The Hoos opened one up on North Carolina this week, in what I think was the best three quarters of defense they've played all season. (Not so much the fourth - they looked a little complacent and it's fair to also mention that the offense plays differently when it's desperate. And being down by 7 qualifies as desperate.) I wasn't kidding when I said UNC's offense was dangerous, and the Hoos held them to five goals in the first three quarters.
That means a yeoman effort by the defense, of course, and also by Rob Fortunato. (Let's just come out and say right now what we've all been thinking but not wanting to say: Fortunato has been better than Adam Ghitelman at stopping shots. Unlike with Ghitelman, I'm still a little nervous when Fortunato makes a pass longer than about fifteen yards, but Fortunato has been damn impressive in net. He's making saves that I don't think Ghitelman would've.) But the guys I want to single out this time are the SSDMs: Chris LaPierre and Bobby Hill. An excellent game by both, and Rob Emery has been playing a little two-way ball as well and showed us why when he went coast-to-coast for an early transition goal.
The offense hummed like the proverbial well-oiled machine. Steele Stanwick racked up the numbers as usual, but nevertheless the game wasn't all Stanwick all the time; in fact it was Matt White who made a Stanwickesque pass to Bocklet for the first man-up goal. Offense came from everywhere, and it broke down the UNC resistance; their goalie Rastivo often made the first save but couldn't make the second one.
I think - I am not 100% sure but I think - that we have locked in another date with Carolina in the ACC tournament. If I'm right, it works like this:
-- If we [redacted to appease the fickle lacrosse gods] on Friday, we would be the #1 seed with a 3-0 record, and they'd have to apply a three-way tiebreaker to deal with the 1-2 teams down below. I think the applicable tiebreaker will be goal differential in games between the tied teams, in which Maryland is +2 and the other two are -1. That would give Maryland the two seed, and Duke beat UNC so they're the three, and UNC the four.
-- If we lose to Duke on Friday, then we'd be the two seed, with us and Duke at 2-1 and UNC and Maryland at 1-2. And UNC beat Maryland.
I could be wrong about this, but I'll let you quote me anyway.
***************************************************
In the baseball world, we watched a thrilling sweep, particularly on Sunday. Saturday was a thing of beauty, with Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera each going yard (and then going yard again), but Sunday was the real happy time, as the good guys twice came back from a multiple-run deficit in crunch time to broom away the hated.....oops. You want Virginia baseball. I'm kind of puffed-up and happy about the Tigers, too.
Well, it's still going on, as I type this, because of the TV schedule, but it started off just fine. A much-needed series win against Wake Forest is already in the bag, and the Hoos are up 3-2 in the not-rubber game as I write. We'll either be 9-6 or 8-7 in an hour or so, and 9-6 would be interesting because that's the same record as UNC, who happens to be the next opponent. A huge series.
For all the angst over losing three games in Tallahassee, it's worth it to remember that a break or two the other way might've sent us home with a series win - and FSU is now 14-1. They're, uh, good.
But they're also in the other division. Now I don't want to get expectations too high, but finishing off the win tonight and then a good result against UNC could put the Hoos in an outside position to steal the division title from current leader Miami. But a lot would have to go right and I'm not getting my hopes up. Yet.
The bottom line is that a regional 2 seed is still the minimum expectation. The main question remains the bullpen. Artie Lewicki was pulled in the fourth inning tonight, and he's never going to be a guy who goes eight innings anyway, which means they'll be in for plenty of innings in the upcoming weeks. They were excellent yesterday, limiting Wake to 1 run all day after Silverstein was pulled in the fifth. In the end I don't think this team has the pitching to pull off an extended tournament run (meaning: make it to Omaha) but that's a concern for a month from now, not right now.
A final interesting note: this week's Wednesday opponent is George Washington. Perhaps this year one of their players will get to experience Davenport Field from the perspective of a baserunner.
Look at that, I made it all the way to the end of the post and T.J. McConnell hasn't made (or at least announced) his decision. All my worrying for nothing. The conventional wisdom is that the longer it takes after the Arizona visit is a good thing for UVA. I see no reason to question the conventional wisdom. It means the Charlottesville visit stuck. We shall see.
Friday, March 23, 2012
game preview: Johns Hopkins
Date/Time: Saturday, March 24; 2:00
TV: ESPNUVA
Record against the Blue Jays: 28-53-1
Last matchup: JHU 12, UVA 11; 3/26/11; Baltimore
Last game: UVA 11, OSU 9 (3/17); JHU 11, Cuse 7 (3/17)
Opposing blogs: none
Efficiency breakdown:
Faceoff %:
UVA: 57.8%
JHU: 59.3%
Clearing %:
UVA: 88.6% off., 83.2% def.
JHU: 89.9% off., 72.8% def.
Scoring %:
UVA: 40.7% off., 28.0% def.
JHU: 28.7% off., 22.2% def.
O-rating:
UVA: 19.27 (#4 nat'l)
JHU: 15.21 (#22 nat'l)
D-rating:
UVA: 12.70 (#14 nat'l)
JHU: 9.17 (#2 nat'l)
(Stats explanation: Faceoff and clearing percentage: self-explanatory. Scoring %: percentage of offensive possessions (faceoff wins + successful clears + opp. failed clears) that result in goals. O-rating and D-rating are my own special sauce based on the above numbers. D-I average for each is currently about 14.60. Unlike last time you saw this, ratings ARE adjusted for strength of competition.)
Syracuse is in an obvious rebuilding year. Duke and North Carolina have three losses each. Maryland lost to UMBC. Of the four undefeated teams remaining, two are midmajors. Fortunately, for the sake of sanity in lacrosse, there's Virginia and Johns Hopkins.
We're used to this kind of thing by now, but yes: it's #1 vs. #2, and in a game which I think will determine the tournament's #1 seed. (Yes, season's only half-over, anything can happen, blah blah blah whatever - these teams are both good enough that neither one is even remotely likely to collapse outright in the second half of the season, and therefore whoever wins is going to have the prettiest feather around in their cap.)
Not only is it #1 vs. #2, but it's a unanimous #1 (in the coaches' poll, anyway) vs. a near-unanimous #2 - there is one voter who put Hopkins #3. You could hardly find a more ringing endorsement that these are the two best teams in lacrosse. Time to make things happen.
-- UVA on offense
If you can score on Hopkins this year, you can score on anyone. Goalie Pierce Bassett has an outstanding .606 save percentage, and Hopkins boasts a starting three on defense - Gavin Crisafulli, Tucker Durkin, and Chris Lightner - that's nothing but veteran upperclassmen. Durkin is the star; as a sophomore last year, he was a second-team all-American. This is a big, tall defense - one that will probably give 5'8" Owen Van Arsdale fits. The only exception is LSM Michael Pellegrino at 5'9"; even so, expect more of a regular role for Matt White (who is big enough to not let the size of Hopkins's defense bother him) than we've seen so far this year.
Part of Hopkins's resume includes a rare shutout of Manhattan. Manhattan has actually been shut out twice this year, which is probably unprecedented, but regardless of how bad a team is offensively, a shutout is a notable accomplishment. Nobody has scored more than eight goals on them. Hopkins's raw, unadjusted D-rating is the best in the country, better even than the vaunted Notre Dame defense, and it starts as soon as you get the ball. The Blue Jay ride is the best in the country, with a successful ride on 40 of 147 chances (27.8%.) And then once opponents do get the ball in the zone, they score on just 22.2% of those chances, the second-best rate in the country. The national average is slightly over 32%, and UVA scores at a clip better than 40%, so something's got to give.
So it's one of the deepest, most powerful offenses in the country against one of - maybe the - toughest defenses. UVA has not failed to score in double digits since shaking off the offseason rust against Drexel, and nobody has even come close to scoring in double digits against Hopkins.
-- UVA on defense
The above might be the glamor matchup, but this is where the game needs to be won. Of the four offense/defense units in this game, the least impressive is Hopkins's O. Midfielder John Ranagan was the only sophomore first-team AA in the country last year, but his play has dramatically fallen off; his shooting percentage is a paltry .156 and he's missing the net more often than not.
In the absence of Chris Boland (shoulder injury) and of Ranagan's shot, Zach Palmer has stepped up as Hopkins's most dangerous player. He and fellow attackman Brandon Benn (both Canaijins) are the go-to combo this year for the Jays. Palmer and Benn are the two stalwarts at attack; rotating around them are John Kaestner and Steele Stanwick's baby brother Wells. Neither are primary pieces of the offense, but they'll hurt you if you forget about them. Kaestner only has six shots this season, but four goals.
The starting midfield of Ranagan, Rob Guida, and John Greeley has been productive this season only by volume. Ranagan and Guida are 1-2 on the team in shots taken, and both have miserable sub-.200 shooting percentages. You wonder if Hopkins would be better off with the much more efficient Lee Coppersmith in the starting lineup; Coppersmith is known mainly for his speed but is Hopkins's third-leading goal scorer despite being on the second midfield unit.
Hopkins is an excellent clearing team with only 14 failed clears all season, and FOGO man Mike Poppleton is winning 65% of his faceoffs; these stats are two of the three that go into the O-rating, and they're both outstanding numbers. Why then is Hopkins so relatively pedestrian in that department? Scoring percentage; they're well below average at 28.7%. As noted, their weakness is at midfield; UVA's strength on defense is their defensive midfield with Chris LaPierre leading the way, and also Dom Starsia's increasing fascination with the zone defense and willingness to mix up the look, especially in the second half with a lead. These factors play right into our hands. As long as Hopkins isn't given a disproportionate number of chances by dominating faceoffs, the Hoos should be able to at least control the JHU offense.
-- Outlook
Both sides are extremely confident. Hopkins has done enough this season so far to earn the #1 seed in last week's inaugural bracketology and has a suffocating, physical defense. But their offense hasn't played at a championship level, and UVA's is one of the best in the business. A fast-paced, high-scoring game would be right in our favor, but I don't see the Hop allowing us to do that. Nevertheless, I like our chances. A lot.
-- Final score: UVA 8, JHU 6
Friday, May 13, 2011
game preview: Bucknell
TV: ESPNUVA
History against the Bison: 2-0
Last matchup: UVA 27, Bucknell 5; 4/25/98; Charlottesville
Last game: UVA 11, Penn 2 (4/30); Bucknell 10, Colgate 3 (5/1)
Finally the second season. Tournament time is a fresh start, though it's certainly nice to be entering the tourney coming off of a big feelgood victory instead of a loss or an ugly win. Despite that, the Hoos are a popular upset pick. It hasn't been the greatest of seasons and Bucknell's captured the attention of a lot of pundits and people who think they're pundits by having an outstanding season. Their best ever, in fact. This will be their second tournament game in their history, having last attended 10 years ago.
The huge concern for the Hoos, as always, is defense. Even a two-goal effort in the last game, against Penn, isn't going to quell that concern. UVA continues to be the second-worst team in the country - again, among company like VMI, Presbyterian, Mercer, and St. Joseph's - at getting turnovers on the defensive end. I mean, just pitiful. The national average is about 44% - that is, 44% of post-clear defensive possessions end in turnovers - and for UVA it's just 36.1%. Not only that but Bucknell does a good job of holding on to the ball. So Adam Ghitelman will need to stand tall. Bucknell's offense operates with middling efficiency but they do get good, well-rounded scoring, led by Ryan Klipstein with 30 goals.
Where Bucknell truly shines is on defense. Post-clear, they allow goals on just 25.1% of possessions - that makes them third-best in the coutnry - and they've allowed double-digit goals in only two games this year, both times allowing 11. Caveats about quality of opposition apply since we're talking about the Patriot League, but only to a point. Their four best wins are Villanova, Penn State, and two over Colgate. They're also good at getting turnovers, but that department matches strength against strength - UVA is also outstanding at not losing the ball to turnovers and since we'll be playing sans the Bratton brothers, that's bound to be a place where our performance will be even stronger.
Overall, this is an opponent with a solid, solid game and no major weaknesses. That's what you earn when you drop to the 7 seed. They're good between the pipes - goaltender Kyle Feeney has a .561 save percentage - and good at both ends of the field, especially defense. The fact that their opponents don't score much, and 70% of their opponents' goals have been assisted, suggests that their biggest strength is one-on-one defense on the ball, so it's probably in our best interest to continue the kind of offensive approach we had against Penn. Much (MUCH) better ball movement and motion without the ball, and crisper passing. The way we've played most of the season would probably play right into Bucknell's hands.
On the other hand, if there's one hallmark of UVA lacrosse we should be going back to, it's out-athleting the opposition in the middle of the field. Bucknell's faceoffs, ride, and clearing ability are OK, not great. The best way to win this game will be to unleash Chris LaPierre and some of our better athletes in the middle and try for some goals in unsettled situations - or at the very least, earn more possessions. Both teams can win this one, but UVA's chances will be best if they can get a few lightning strikes.
As a side note, Dom Starsia will be going for the all-time win record on Sunday; he has a chance to tie the record of Jack Emmer who probably-not-coincidentally will be calling the game. A run to the Final Four will give Starsia the record outright.
Monday, April 18, 2011
weekend review
I like to get the bad stuff out of the way early, which means lacrosse goes first today. Want to know what's so thoroughly frustrating about this team? Besides the brainfartitude, there are two huge, gaping flaws in the makeup of this team that prevent it from reaching its potential, which is frankly enormous.
Flaw #1: the obvious inability to win a faceoff. This frustrates me to no end, not least because I'm about to harp on the problems at the faceoff X after a game in which UVA's faceoff men won 15 of 26 for 57%. That's not half bad. It's pretty good. But you know what makes my head explode? I've been thinking for a while that Ryan Benincasa should take the majority of the faceoffs, Garrett Ince and Brian McDermott should come in only rarely, if ever, and Chris LaPierre should be the second guy for a change of pace every so often And then Benincasa wins zero of five against Duke and Ince and McDermott combine for 71%. I've mentioned before that I think the faceoff problems are basically coaching problems because of the inordinate amount of faceoff violations called on our team, and I think the total lack of consistency also points to coaching.
Flaw #2 is that there is but one player on the offensive side of the field - Steele Stanwick - who can make his teammates better. And he sat out to rest his foot on Saturday. For my own sanity I'll just assume that Coach Starsia did that because this game didn't matter half of what the next one did and he wanted that ace in the hole he could throw in next week to change the game around....and not because Stanwick's injury got worse somehow. I hope to hell not.
This is partly why I have that nagging feeling that the end-of-career fade is beginning for Starsia. For the last decade UVA has had a star attackman that gathers assists nearly as fast as he gathers goals. Right now that's Stanwick. In the past it's been Danny Glading, or Ben Rubeor, or Matt Ward, or whatever. They score and they help their teammates score. When Stanwick leaves after next season, who'll that be? Stanwick's talent was immediately evident as a freshman. You can always tell who the heir apparent is. Not this time. It's not Matt White or Rob Emery; the former has disappointed this year and the latter looks like a nice complementary player along the lines of Colin Briggs. I dunno, maybe I'm overreacting and the reason nobody's really emerged is because of so many upperclassmen in the lineup, but I doubt it; Stanwick and even Chris Bocklet, not to mention the players of the past, played their way in and made themselves indispensible.
But I digress. Two major flaws in this team and we still only lose to Duke and Syracuse by two goals. The talent is there to blow the competition out of the water. But there are some missing elements. It's like a Corvette with four-cylinder engine.
It doesn't help that we drive it with the parking brake on and the gas cap hanging off. The silly mistakes are still there. They weren't as obvious as against UNC, but there they were. Example: Shamel Bratton jogging down the field after receiving a nice outlet pass following a turnover and setting up the offense. Fine, except....you're Shamel Bratton and nobody's covering you! Jog? Shamel should've been sprinting downfield and ripping a shot at a corner of the net. If it misses, fine....then go set up the offense. Instead, Shamel jogged across midfield and the team proceeded to huck the ball around the box for thirty seconds before lobbing a beach ball at Duke's net, which of course was saved. I'm not questioning Shamel's effort here, I'm questioning the recognition. The Brattons are the kings of "argh don't do th.....YES!" Would've been the time for it.
So as a punishment for losing to Duke like we always do, we get to play Duke again on Friday. Let's hope Steele Stanwick is the difference. I'm not brimming with optimism here.
***************************************************
Fortunately, there's a cure for that: the baseball team. As punishment for beating our lacrosse team on Saturday, the baseball team beat Duke twice on Sunday - first by ripping their hearts out when they thought they had a real chance to steal a win, and then by stomping on it to the tune of 18-4 in the second game.
Friday was easy, of course, at least after the first three innings. Danny Hultzen served up seven innings of Danny freakin' Hultzen, although the early going was a little rocky while the UVA hitters tried to figure out how to get to Duke's soft-tossing lefty Dillon Haviland. Eventually they figured that out and before you knew it, it was 10-0, which is how the game ended. Shutout woo.
Sunday's game 1 was quite the pitchers' duel. UVA scratched out two runs against Dennis O'Grady and Duke did the same on a two-run double off of closer Kline, in relief of Tyler Wilson and his disgustingly efficient outing. Wilson took the blame for the runs but it wasn't fair the way he was pitching. Duke then brought scheduled third game starter Marcus Stroman in to finish it up.
Not a bad move, by the way. A few observers criticized the move but I liked it. For Duke, I mean. With Duke's miserable pitching staff you don't look for two of three against UVA. You look to steal one where you can get it, and so they went all-in and brought Stroman in, figuring that because he's a starter and the best pitcher they have, he could work some long innings in what you had to assumed would be an extra-inning game, and outlast UVA's bullpen while Duke worked on manufacturing a run. Stroman throws 95 and has the control of a kamikaze pilot. He plunked the first two batters he faced, which appeared to draw a warning from the home-plate ump - "one more of those and you're gone" is my bet, because UVA's third batter walked on four straight pitches that were so far outside they'd have been behind a hitter in the other batter's box. Bases loaded, none out, and UVA managed to score not even once. Then they did the same thing in the 10th. And then because baseball is a screwed-up game, two straight two-out base hits plated the winning run in the 11th.
Having run out of pitchers who can get hitters out, and having forgotten how to field fly balls, Duke fell apart in the third game and UVA won by 14. I can't decide which pop-up I enjoyed more: the one that landed about five yards behind second base because three Duke fielders collided on their way to it, or the one that landed about five feet in front of home plate because the Duke pitcher lost it in the wind. In the nine-run third, two of the three outs Duke recorded were sacrifice bunts. After that inning UVA had just as many hits as Duke and nine more runs.
If you paid attention to the starting rotation, you noticed Will Roberts got his ACC shot on Sunday, and you probably also noticed it didn't go too great. Roberts settled down some, but all in all gave up eight hits in five innings. But he walked nobody, which is the kind of thing that makes pitching coaches happy. For the same reason Cody Winiarski didn't get yanked after a couple tough outings here and there (that being: Brian O'Connor doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction to things) Roberts will almost certainly start next Sunday as well, and Cody will be the weekday guy for now. Both will be absolutely critical come the postseason.
***************************************************
Newsy bits:
- Ausar Walcott is back on the football team, about a week after his charges were dropped. Because I trust London on matters of discipline, it seems to be a good indication that Walcott in fact was less involved than his teammates in the Great Harrisonburg Party Invasion. But he's now buried at defensive end. I don't even want to guess at why, but playing time there is in far shorter supply than it is at linebacker. The defense is still very much a work in progress and keeping track of the shuffles is sufficient to drive a man crazy, so I'm not going to read much past that into the move for now.
- Speaking of legal matters, the George Huguely murder trial will begin next February. Surprised at the length of time? Don't be. It is the way of the court system.
- When Mike Tobey committed to UVA in January, I thought he looked like a player who'd start attracting a lot more attention as time went on. Remember, he was supposed to reclassify to 2013 and then changed his mind, and I really think Tony Bennett is a big part of the reason why he changed his mind. Bennett didn't want another two years to go by for people to get a look at what Tobey could do. This is why. Besides Tobey, the other interesting name on that list is 2013 recruit Anthony Barber, who UVA is recruiting pretty hard. Remember that name because he's a possible answer to the point guard question. I want him at UVA just because his nickname is Big Cat, which is the kind of old-old-school Harlem Globetrotter nickname they don't even make any more.
- Speaking of bright futures in basketball, Joe Lunardi's way too early bracketology for 2012 has UVA sliding into the ill-conceived at-large play-in round. (Look, I don't care what the NCAA calls those Dayton games: UAB and USC didn't actually make the tourney this year.) Lunardi's probably about right in what our expectations should be for the season. The ACC will be much better, especially if Jordan Williams and Reggie Jackson and Harrison Barnes and whoever else stay in college, and our highly-improved team might not beat it's 7-9 mark from this season but 7-9 will look a hell of a lot better. Especially if having Mike Scott back with all these freshmen turned sophomores and a functional Assane Sene and a redshirted James Johnson and everything else means we don't screw the pooch against the Seattles and Iowa States of the world.
- Lastly, you remember how there used to be highlight videos around these parts? There haven't been this year because of a change in my living, and therefore TV, status. But I think I've got that covered now. The solution to AT&T's fascist unwillingness to let you download your recordings from DVR to computer arrived on a big brown truck today. It's hopefully only a matter of time before videos are firing again.
Flaw #1: the obvious inability to win a faceoff. This frustrates me to no end, not least because I'm about to harp on the problems at the faceoff X after a game in which UVA's faceoff men won 15 of 26 for 57%. That's not half bad. It's pretty good. But you know what makes my head explode? I've been thinking for a while that Ryan Benincasa should take the majority of the faceoffs, Garrett Ince and Brian McDermott should come in only rarely, if ever, and Chris LaPierre should be the second guy for a change of pace every so often And then Benincasa wins zero of five against Duke and Ince and McDermott combine for 71%. I've mentioned before that I think the faceoff problems are basically coaching problems because of the inordinate amount of faceoff violations called on our team, and I think the total lack of consistency also points to coaching.
Flaw #2 is that there is but one player on the offensive side of the field - Steele Stanwick - who can make his teammates better. And he sat out to rest his foot on Saturday. For my own sanity I'll just assume that Coach Starsia did that because this game didn't matter half of what the next one did and he wanted that ace in the hole he could throw in next week to change the game around....and not because Stanwick's injury got worse somehow. I hope to hell not.
This is partly why I have that nagging feeling that the end-of-career fade is beginning for Starsia. For the last decade UVA has had a star attackman that gathers assists nearly as fast as he gathers goals. Right now that's Stanwick. In the past it's been Danny Glading, or Ben Rubeor, or Matt Ward, or whatever. They score and they help their teammates score. When Stanwick leaves after next season, who'll that be? Stanwick's talent was immediately evident as a freshman. You can always tell who the heir apparent is. Not this time. It's not Matt White or Rob Emery; the former has disappointed this year and the latter looks like a nice complementary player along the lines of Colin Briggs. I dunno, maybe I'm overreacting and the reason nobody's really emerged is because of so many upperclassmen in the lineup, but I doubt it; Stanwick and even Chris Bocklet, not to mention the players of the past, played their way in and made themselves indispensible.
But I digress. Two major flaws in this team and we still only lose to Duke and Syracuse by two goals. The talent is there to blow the competition out of the water. But there are some missing elements. It's like a Corvette with four-cylinder engine.
It doesn't help that we drive it with the parking brake on and the gas cap hanging off. The silly mistakes are still there. They weren't as obvious as against UNC, but there they were. Example: Shamel Bratton jogging down the field after receiving a nice outlet pass following a turnover and setting up the offense. Fine, except....you're Shamel Bratton and nobody's covering you! Jog? Shamel should've been sprinting downfield and ripping a shot at a corner of the net. If it misses, fine....then go set up the offense. Instead, Shamel jogged across midfield and the team proceeded to huck the ball around the box for thirty seconds before lobbing a beach ball at Duke's net, which of course was saved. I'm not questioning Shamel's effort here, I'm questioning the recognition. The Brattons are the kings of "argh don't do th.....YES!" Would've been the time for it.
So as a punishment for losing to Duke like we always do, we get to play Duke again on Friday. Let's hope Steele Stanwick is the difference. I'm not brimming with optimism here.
***************************************************
Fortunately, there's a cure for that: the baseball team. As punishment for beating our lacrosse team on Saturday, the baseball team beat Duke twice on Sunday - first by ripping their hearts out when they thought they had a real chance to steal a win, and then by stomping on it to the tune of 18-4 in the second game.
Friday was easy, of course, at least after the first three innings. Danny Hultzen served up seven innings of Danny freakin' Hultzen, although the early going was a little rocky while the UVA hitters tried to figure out how to get to Duke's soft-tossing lefty Dillon Haviland. Eventually they figured that out and before you knew it, it was 10-0, which is how the game ended. Shutout woo.
Sunday's game 1 was quite the pitchers' duel. UVA scratched out two runs against Dennis O'Grady and Duke did the same on a two-run double off of closer Kline, in relief of Tyler Wilson and his disgustingly efficient outing. Wilson took the blame for the runs but it wasn't fair the way he was pitching. Duke then brought scheduled third game starter Marcus Stroman in to finish it up.
Not a bad move, by the way. A few observers criticized the move but I liked it. For Duke, I mean. With Duke's miserable pitching staff you don't look for two of three against UVA. You look to steal one where you can get it, and so they went all-in and brought Stroman in, figuring that because he's a starter and the best pitcher they have, he could work some long innings in what you had to assumed would be an extra-inning game, and outlast UVA's bullpen while Duke worked on manufacturing a run. Stroman throws 95 and has the control of a kamikaze pilot. He plunked the first two batters he faced, which appeared to draw a warning from the home-plate ump - "one more of those and you're gone" is my bet, because UVA's third batter walked on four straight pitches that were so far outside they'd have been behind a hitter in the other batter's box. Bases loaded, none out, and UVA managed to score not even once. Then they did the same thing in the 10th. And then because baseball is a screwed-up game, two straight two-out base hits plated the winning run in the 11th.
Having run out of pitchers who can get hitters out, and having forgotten how to field fly balls, Duke fell apart in the third game and UVA won by 14. I can't decide which pop-up I enjoyed more: the one that landed about five yards behind second base because three Duke fielders collided on their way to it, or the one that landed about five feet in front of home plate because the Duke pitcher lost it in the wind. In the nine-run third, two of the three outs Duke recorded were sacrifice bunts. After that inning UVA had just as many hits as Duke and nine more runs.
If you paid attention to the starting rotation, you noticed Will Roberts got his ACC shot on Sunday, and you probably also noticed it didn't go too great. Roberts settled down some, but all in all gave up eight hits in five innings. But he walked nobody, which is the kind of thing that makes pitching coaches happy. For the same reason Cody Winiarski didn't get yanked after a couple tough outings here and there (that being: Brian O'Connor doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction to things) Roberts will almost certainly start next Sunday as well, and Cody will be the weekday guy for now. Both will be absolutely critical come the postseason.
***************************************************
Newsy bits:
- Ausar Walcott is back on the football team, about a week after his charges were dropped. Because I trust London on matters of discipline, it seems to be a good indication that Walcott in fact was less involved than his teammates in the Great Harrisonburg Party Invasion. But he's now buried at defensive end. I don't even want to guess at why, but playing time there is in far shorter supply than it is at linebacker. The defense is still very much a work in progress and keeping track of the shuffles is sufficient to drive a man crazy, so I'm not going to read much past that into the move for now.
- Speaking of legal matters, the George Huguely murder trial will begin next February. Surprised at the length of time? Don't be. It is the way of the court system.
- When Mike Tobey committed to UVA in January, I thought he looked like a player who'd start attracting a lot more attention as time went on. Remember, he was supposed to reclassify to 2013 and then changed his mind, and I really think Tony Bennett is a big part of the reason why he changed his mind. Bennett didn't want another two years to go by for people to get a look at what Tobey could do. This is why. Besides Tobey, the other interesting name on that list is 2013 recruit Anthony Barber, who UVA is recruiting pretty hard. Remember that name because he's a possible answer to the point guard question. I want him at UVA just because his nickname is Big Cat, which is the kind of old-old-school Harlem Globetrotter nickname they don't even make any more.
- Speaking of bright futures in basketball, Joe Lunardi's way too early bracketology for 2012 has UVA sliding into the ill-conceived at-large play-in round. (Look, I don't care what the NCAA calls those Dayton games: UAB and USC didn't actually make the tourney this year.) Lunardi's probably about right in what our expectations should be for the season. The ACC will be much better, especially if Jordan Williams and Reggie Jackson and Harrison Barnes and whoever else stay in college, and our highly-improved team might not beat it's 7-9 mark from this season but 7-9 will look a hell of a lot better. Especially if having Mike Scott back with all these freshmen turned sophomores and a functional Assane Sene and a redshirted James Johnson and everything else means we don't screw the pooch against the Seattles and Iowa States of the world.
- Lastly, you remember how there used to be highlight videos around these parts? There haven't been this year because of a change in my living, and therefore TV, status. But I think I've got that covered now. The solution to AT&T's fascist unwillingness to let you download your recordings from DVR to computer arrived on a big brown truck today. It's hopefully only a matter of time before videos are firing again.
Monday, March 21, 2011
weekend review
Unemployment is funemployment. CBS's partnership with the Turnerplex of cable channels to broadcast the Dance couldn't have come at a better time for me. I've always wanted a job that would allow me to watch the first round of the tournament from noon to midnight; failing that, the next best thing is not having a job while waiting for grad school. So if you thought I was a little content-light these four days, blame the best basketball weekend of the year.
We might not have had a dog in the fight, but that doesn't mean there's no hoops news to be had:
- With Sidney Lowe and Paul Hewitt fired from their respective employers, ACC coaching figures to improve next season. One expects NC State won't be stupid enough this time around to hire a guy who went 79-228 in the League just because he's an alum. Naturally, Richmond's Chris Mooney and VCU's Shaka Smart have only not been hired somewhere else yet because they happen to still be technically eligible for the national title. Because it's how things go for UVA, expect both instate coaching hotshots to be ACC rivals about 24 hours after their eventual elimination. Maybe we can get Utah to hire one of them instead.
- How incredibly fitting that Jeff Allen fouled out of his final collegiate game. I will truly miss this guy. Comedic gold, every time. Gimme one more salute, for old times' sake.
There ya go.
- Speaking of comedic gold, I wish just once I could hear Charles Barkley and Bobby Knight call a UVA game. Barkley's not for everyone; there are a lot of people who think he's too much of a marblemouth. Well, he is a marblemouth, but how many analysts do we need telling us very seriously that such-and-such a team needs to defend better or else they might lose? Barkley doesn't act like Mr. Serious Man all the time.
- You're aware that the administration passed on the CBI; here, it sounds like confirmation that they could have had a spot if they'd wanted it. If they didn't go this year, when the freshmen could have used any game experience they got and the seniors had to go out with the memory of Miami in their minds, I'm guessing they never ever will. Dunno about you but in the future I'm going to just assume the CBI is never an option.
***********************************************
In sports we play good, the lax team beat Ohio State, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy. OSU is something of a threat this year to make the tournament - more so than I had them figured for before the season anyway - so the win should be a strong one when it comes time to seed teams in the tournament. See below for current bracketology, which has the Buckeyes seeded 7th.
Even more encouraging was Ryan Benincasa's 14-for-19 faceoff performance. I think this is evolving into a situation where there still might not be a truly 100% reliable performer at the X (Chris LaPierre looked like he might provide a spark there but then went 1-for-5 against OSU) but there might be a hot hand for the day. I guess we just hope we find that hot hand early in the game. It should be noted that OSU isn't an especially good or bad faceoff team themselves - they're just enh.
There still aren't as many assists as I'd like to see, though. Again just 50%. This isn't a problem against the OSUs of the world, and probably won't be one against Hopkins either, but the ACC schedule will test the offense's ability to score against coherent defenses.
***********************************************
The standings don't show it, but they will: UVA is now the ACC's baseball team to beat. A 2-1 series win over FSU puts them at 5-1. Miami and Georgia Tech are 6-0 but they've both been feasting on the dregs. It's UVA's turn, with Miserable Maryland coming to town and then a road series against VT. Poly was a hot team last year to make some noise, but everyone who could swing a stick or throw a ball graduated and they're back to where they're thoroughly unlikely to make the ACC tournament.
Of course, play that FSU series again and any number of outcomes could result. Three extra-inning games and three one-run margins. You probably won't see a series that close anywhere in the country for the rest of the year. FSU had better keep playing that well all season because I expect a 1 or a 2 seed in the ACC tournament and they'd better not be on our side of the pool. This should make for a pretty excellent championship rematch. GT is a threat to mess that up, but I think it's been well-established for now who the top teams are. FSU barely even dropped in the rankings, but the consensus now in all five polls is that Florida-Vanderbilt-Virginia is the 1-2-3 combo.
It shouldn't be glossed over that Danny Hultzen is now UVA's all-time strikeouts leader. 12 on Friday (and no walks) gives him 62 for the season and 292 for his career, two more than Seth Greisinger. Danny's got a great chance to top the single-season record of 146 before the regular season even ends.
***********************************************
Been a long time since I took a whack at the recruiting board, so here goes. Also, don't forget the map.
- Removed ATH Germone Hopper, LB Timothy Cole, and LB Devon Johnson from red, who don't seem too interested. At some point the red section becomes full of names who are there just for the sake of having a red section, but for now even that section has realistic names in it. Actually, Johnson may return at some point, but he's committed to Marshall, and there ain't room for everyone in this town. There's adding to be done and someone's gotta go and it might as well be the guy who's given a verbal elsewhere.
- Added CB Terrell Burt, ATH Der'Woun Greene, WR Desmond Frye, and TE Joshua Parris to green.
- Added DT Roderick Chungong, LB Noor Davis, and LB Kaiwan Lewis to yellow.
- Moved LB Trey Edmunds from yellow to green.
- Moved QB Brendan Nosovitch from green to yellow.
- Moved LB Quanzell Lambert from red to yellow.
- Moved RB I'Tavius Mathers and OL Greg Pyke from yellow to red.
- Moved ATH Devin Fuller (whose recruitment has exploded since I last checked in) from green to red.
Tis the season for a huge recruiting board. I'm semi-arbitrarily drawing the line there; no more additions without corresponding subtractions.
We might not have had a dog in the fight, but that doesn't mean there's no hoops news to be had:
- With Sidney Lowe and Paul Hewitt fired from their respective employers, ACC coaching figures to improve next season. One expects NC State won't be stupid enough this time around to hire a guy who went 79-228 in the League just because he's an alum. Naturally, Richmond's Chris Mooney and VCU's Shaka Smart have only not been hired somewhere else yet because they happen to still be technically eligible for the national title. Because it's how things go for UVA, expect both instate coaching hotshots to be ACC rivals about 24 hours after their eventual elimination. Maybe we can get Utah to hire one of them instead.
- How incredibly fitting that Jeff Allen fouled out of his final collegiate game. I will truly miss this guy. Comedic gold, every time. Gimme one more salute, for old times' sake.
There ya go.
- Speaking of comedic gold, I wish just once I could hear Charles Barkley and Bobby Knight call a UVA game. Barkley's not for everyone; there are a lot of people who think he's too much of a marblemouth. Well, he is a marblemouth, but how many analysts do we need telling us very seriously that such-and-such a team needs to defend better or else they might lose? Barkley doesn't act like Mr. Serious Man all the time.
- You're aware that the administration passed on the CBI; here, it sounds like confirmation that they could have had a spot if they'd wanted it. If they didn't go this year, when the freshmen could have used any game experience they got and the seniors had to go out with the memory of Miami in their minds, I'm guessing they never ever will. Dunno about you but in the future I'm going to just assume the CBI is never an option.
***********************************************
In sports we play good, the lax team beat Ohio State, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy. OSU is something of a threat this year to make the tournament - more so than I had them figured for before the season anyway - so the win should be a strong one when it comes time to seed teams in the tournament. See below for current bracketology, which has the Buckeyes seeded 7th.
Even more encouraging was Ryan Benincasa's 14-for-19 faceoff performance. I think this is evolving into a situation where there still might not be a truly 100% reliable performer at the X (Chris LaPierre looked like he might provide a spark there but then went 1-for-5 against OSU) but there might be a hot hand for the day. I guess we just hope we find that hot hand early in the game. It should be noted that OSU isn't an especially good or bad faceoff team themselves - they're just enh.
There still aren't as many assists as I'd like to see, though. Again just 50%. This isn't a problem against the OSUs of the world, and probably won't be one against Hopkins either, but the ACC schedule will test the offense's ability to score against coherent defenses.
***********************************************
The standings don't show it, but they will: UVA is now the ACC's baseball team to beat. A 2-1 series win over FSU puts them at 5-1. Miami and Georgia Tech are 6-0 but they've both been feasting on the dregs. It's UVA's turn, with Miserable Maryland coming to town and then a road series against VT. Poly was a hot team last year to make some noise, but everyone who could swing a stick or throw a ball graduated and they're back to where they're thoroughly unlikely to make the ACC tournament.
Of course, play that FSU series again and any number of outcomes could result. Three extra-inning games and three one-run margins. You probably won't see a series that close anywhere in the country for the rest of the year. FSU had better keep playing that well all season because I expect a 1 or a 2 seed in the ACC tournament and they'd better not be on our side of the pool. This should make for a pretty excellent championship rematch. GT is a threat to mess that up, but I think it's been well-established for now who the top teams are. FSU barely even dropped in the rankings, but the consensus now in all five polls is that Florida-Vanderbilt-Virginia is the 1-2-3 combo.
It shouldn't be glossed over that Danny Hultzen is now UVA's all-time strikeouts leader. 12 on Friday (and no walks) gives him 62 for the season and 292 for his career, two more than Seth Greisinger. Danny's got a great chance to top the single-season record of 146 before the regular season even ends.
***********************************************
Been a long time since I took a whack at the recruiting board, so here goes. Also, don't forget the map.
- Removed ATH Germone Hopper, LB Timothy Cole, and LB Devon Johnson from red, who don't seem too interested. At some point the red section becomes full of names who are there just for the sake of having a red section, but for now even that section has realistic names in it. Actually, Johnson may return at some point, but he's committed to Marshall, and there ain't room for everyone in this town. There's adding to be done and someone's gotta go and it might as well be the guy who's given a verbal elsewhere.
- Added CB Terrell Burt, ATH Der'Woun Greene, WR Desmond Frye, and TE Joshua Parris to green.
- Added DT Roderick Chungong, LB Noor Davis, and LB Kaiwan Lewis to yellow.
- Moved LB Trey Edmunds from yellow to green.
- Moved QB Brendan Nosovitch from green to yellow.
- Moved LB Quanzell Lambert from red to yellow.
- Moved RB I'Tavius Mathers and OL Greg Pyke from yellow to red.
- Moved ATH Devin Fuller (whose recruitment has exploded since I last checked in) from green to red.
Tis the season for a huge recruiting board. I'm semi-arbitrarily drawing the line there; no more additions without corresponding subtractions.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
rays of light
Wrestling:
Swimming:
Lacrosse:
Baseball:
Soccer:
Just ponder all that for a second. It's possible, even likely, there's never been a point in history in which UVA athletics has been so successful as a whole. Four ACC championships. One national championship. Three teams ranked #1 nationally. It's as if the gods have smacked down our football and basketball teams to balance out the success on all the other fields. Or vice versa. Because these would be truly heady times indeed if we had a football and/or a basketball (men's, that is) team that was even remotely competitive.
Even football is having its good times at the moment. The team isn't losing games and there's a solid wave of positive recruiting vibes slowly building up around Mike London and co. that even has the Hokies a bit jittery. (Although if they're as ADD as we are about stuff, it may not be saying much. But still.) Anyway, the football team is slowly working on hoarding up the same kind of goodwill that the basketball team built up last year and is currently using up in order to get through the tail end of a miserable six weeks. (The parallels between football in March 2010 and basketball in July 2009 are striking. Believe me, that will more or less continue unabated all throughout the actual football season, so enjoy the recruiting fun times while they last.)
So let's put off talk of basketball until, say, tomorrow, when the preview of the tournament game will double as a fortune-telling of sorts for the next year.
Instead, let's offer up some congrats to the out-of-nowhere wrestlers, who stole an ACC championship right out from under the noses of the Hokies and Terps. I know about as much about wrestling as I do about the inner workings of the Space Shuttle, which is why I don't ever mention it, but hey, I'm all for celebrating an ACC championship. As a double bonus, it was probably the last good chance VT will have at getting one this year, meaning they're likely to be shut out of that particular count. So good on the grapplers: an elusive seven ACC championships is now doable.
Baseball managed to keep hold of the #1 spot in those publications that had us there before, despite a Friday loss to Wright State in which the bats went cold. Staying undefeated in baseball is bloody difficult, so as long as you recover and smash your way through the rest of the series, folks will look the other way for a hiccup or two. And Wright State and Dartmouth were tournament teams last year, so it's not like we lost to, say, Manhattan or Maine.
But the game I actually watched this weekend was the Syracuse lacrosse clash, and of course it was decided by a single goal. Again. You know I'm a damn loudmouth, so here's what I think about what I saw:
- Chris LaPierre rules. When I put together the highlight video of that game, if at all possible I'm going to make sure I include the highlight of him trucking a double team. Possibly complete with truck horn sound effects. The funny thing is that I was already duly impressed with his athleticism and speed, having watched him blow past a Cuse defender on a couple occasions. A midfielder that can either race past a defender or bulldoze through him? YES PLZ. Also please send all outlet passes stamped and addressed to #44.
- Not only LaPierre, either. Throw in the speed and athleticism of the Brattons and the clutch-nasty shots from Brian Carroll, and the midfield is looking really exciting. This is a team that needs to try and push, push, push in transition and really up the tempo when they can.
- Syracuse didn't score an even-strength goal for almost three full quarters. Defense was a question mark, but just as with the faceoffs against Stony Brook, now we know they can do it. Can do it - I'm not quite convinced yet there won't be some untimely breakdowns later on.
- Speaking of faceoffs, Benincasa, I think I read that he was 10-for-15 in the first half. And that would mean he was 0-for-6 in the second. Big shocker that we went on a big run in the second quarter and spent most of the fourth hanging on for dear life, yeah? It's just like I said before: we know they can do it - win the faceoff battles, that is - but whether they consistently will is still up in the air.
- I sure wouldn't mind if Adam Ghitelman would stop a few more shots, but I don't think there are many goalies in the country better than he at the aspects of playing goalie that happen at those times when the ball isn't flying toward the net. Example: the awareness he had, late in the game, when a shot missed the net and he realized no Cuse attacker had gone behind. He raced out and dove toward the line, and the ref gave UVA the possession. Heads-up and hustle all in one.
- OK, yes, I'll say it: the refs screwed up by allowing Stanwick that quick restart. Of course, they'd been screwing up all game - I don't think it was a well-reffed game at all. Bad fouls, missed fouls. The calls went both ways so at least it was consistent, and I feel like we just lucked out and benefitted from the most strategically lucky bad call. Call it a make-up for Stanwick having his head taken off without a foul call, I guess.
Revenge week is this Saturday as the Hoos travel to Ithaca. Last year in Foxboro, Cornell used basically the lacrosse equivalent of the pack-line defense and reduced our offense to little more than shuffling the ball around the outside. A lot. Every so often we'd send it toward the great red wall around the net and maybe it hit the ground and maybe it didn't, but it always came out on a Cornell stick.
There, it's nice to talk about sports that are doing well, isn't it? Tomorrow it's back to basketball. Don't worry, it's almost over. And besides that, I have proof positive that this whole mess of a season hasn't gone quite so badly as it looks like from here and why things are looking up regardless. Although we'll all be holding our breath for departures this offseason so that the latter point remains true.
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