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 Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao was able to find time for 14 players Tuesday in a 74-48 victory over visiting Hampton, which only made junior Solomon Tat more conspicuous by his absence.

 Tat, a 6-foot-5 wing player, was in uniform but did not play. He has played in two of Virginia's first nine games but for only a total of one minute. On both occasions, he was inserted in the game for defensive purposes at the end of the first half.

 Tat played in only 15 games last year, when he missed the first 11 games of the season after undergoing surgery for a sports hernia.

 When the subject was raised following Tuesday's game, Leitao said there is nothing physical that is keeping Tat off the floor.

 I'm paraphrasing here because of a tape-recorder malfunction but Leitao said there is a possibility that Tat will be needed in the future and that he needed to be ready, just like fifth-year senior Tunji Soroye and some of UVa's other, lesser-utilized players.

 Soroye clearly has falled behind 7-foot freshman Assane Sene on UVa's post pecking order, but when Sene fouled out with 5:27 remaining Tuesday, Soroye took off his sweats and played the rest of the way.

 Soroye was one of four UVa players who had two blocked shots apiece, joining Sene, Mike Scott and Jerome Meyinsse.

 Not long after his entry, Soroye (6-11, 250) was joined by freshman John Brandenburg (6-11, 241) and sophomore walk-on Will Sherrill (6-9, 221) in a frontcourt alignment that few would have imagined. The use of Brandenburg and Sherrill, who had played eight minutes apiece in the first eight games, served to draw attention to Tat's inactivity.

 Tat could have likened it to the 2007-2008 season, when he received negligible playing time prior to a Jan. 3 game at Xavier. Tat was inserted in the final minutes of a 108-70 shellacking and responded with 12 points in 16 minutes.

 UVa was off for 10 days after that. In UVa's next game, a Jan. 13 visit to Duke, Tat played 16 minutes again but turned the ball over twice and did not score.

 Tat had a third 16-minute stint in a late-season game against Miami and had six points, but his playing time did not increase.

 He has played 165 and 100 minutes in each of his first two seasons and it would take a drastic change in Leitao's thinking to have him get to 100 minutes this season.

 I'm not here to make Tat's case for increased playing time. He has the size and athleticism of a wing guard, but he does not handle the ball well and is not as good a shooter as a couple of other wings who have found playing time to be spotty, Jeff Jones and Mustapha Farrakhan.

Presumably, Tat has the athletic ability to furnish help as a defensive stopper or offensive rebounder, but he has lacked consistencty in those areas.

 Mostly, Tat has served as a poster child for Leitao's first full recruiting class, which arrived in 2006 amid considerable promise. Only Jamil Tucker is getting appreciable minutes (16.3 per game) from a group that included Tat; Meyinsse, the lone spring signee of the bunch, and Will Harris, who transferred to Albany.

 Maybe the UVa coaches have been wary of placing too much stock in Tat, whose visa status has clouded his eligibility on an annual basis, but, one way or another, he has become a forgotten man.

 MORE: I was surprised to see Tucker in the starting lineup against Hampton after a sub-par outing in UVa's 58-56 loss to Auburn, but the Cavaliers clearly are wary of foul trouble with Sene, who is going to be a good player, maybe a very good player.

 Sene reminds me a little bit of Olden Polynice, who looked really shaky in his first month at Virginia in 1983-84, but played a major role later that season in helping to get the Cavaliers to the Final Four. Sene is slightly-taller than Polynice, is a left-hander and thus a more natural shotblocker and has a better-looking foul shot.

Sene could do worse than have a Polynice-like career. Polynice was more than a little bit nutty but he was a first-round NBA Draft pick who spent 15 seasons in "the league."

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