Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao is in a quandary.
He has one point guard who can defend but isn't really a playmaker. He has another point guard who can run an offense but has trouble defending.
"I know exactly what you're saying," Leitao said Saturday after a 70-60 home loss to Wake Forest. Read more »
Nobody could understand why Virginia sophomore Jeff Jones spent nearly seven minutes on the bench Thursday night after giving the Cavaliers a 43-40 lead on a three-point play with 11:16 remaining.
Jones re-entered the game with 4:13 left and almost immediately hit a 3-pointer to force a 55-55 tie, but visiting Miami scored the last seven points for a 62-55 victory.
The Cavaliers' Calvin Baker did a masterful job on 20-point-per-game scorer Jack McClinton, who scored five of his 11 points in the final minute, including a 3-pointer to make it a 60-55 with 47.3 seconds left.
Miami improved to 17-10 overall and 6-8 in the ACC. Virginia fell to 9-15 and 3-10 with its 10th loss in 11 games.
Jones led all scorers with 16 points.
UVA INSIDER FOR FEB. 26
It will be interesting to see which Mike Scott shows up as 3 ½-point underdog Virginia entertains Miami at 8 tonight at John Paul Jones Arena.
Scott, a 6-foot-8 junior, leads the Cavaliers in rebounding (7.3) and joins Sylven Landesberg as one of UVa’s two double-figure scorers (10.6), but his numbers have fluctuated more than he or head coach Dave Leitao would like. Read more »
I just got off the phone with Virginia football coach Al Groh, who was surprised to hear that new assistant Bobby Trott has been added to the UVa Directory.
You can do a people search and find that Trott has a "faculty" position in the athletic department, specifically the the football office.
"I hadn't been notified that it was official," Groh said. "It's probably not always safe to assume, but it's hard to believe there would be two people in the office with the same name." Read more »
Al Groh's selection of Bobby Trott, as reported by Jeff White in a blog Monday night, would be consistent with Groh's comments to me Friday.
What will be interesting to me is how Virginia's defensive pieces fit together.
Groh told me that he was unlikely to name a defensive coordinator, so what is Trott going to coach? Read more »
Virginia's first football commitment for 2010 is from Kevin Parks, a 5-foot-7, 185-pound running back who rushed for 2,864 yards and scored 43 touchdowns last year at West Rowan High School in Mount Ulla, N.C.
Parks also had offers from East Carolina and Illinois, and committed to the Cavaliers after a weekend trip that took him to ECU, Clemson and North Carolina State.
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Virginia experienced a return of the poor starts that doomed it to a 1-8 start in ACC men's basketball play and lost at North Carolina State 72-67.
The Wolfpack (15-10 overall, 5-7 ACC) jumped to a 24-6 first-half lead that UVa cut to 31-29 before going into halftime down 33-29.
UVa (9-14, 3-9) subsequently fell behind by 17 points in the second half, 52-35, and trailed by 13 points with less than 3 1/2 minutes left. It got as close as 68-67 following a pair of Sylven Landesberg free throws with 8.7 seconds left.
Landesberg had team highs of 16 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Freshman C.J. Williams, averaging 3.3 points, had a team-high 16 for the Wolfpack.
From UVa sports information
Charlottesville, VA –- Virginia football coach Al Groh announced today the hiring of Ron Prince to coordinate the Cavaliers special teams. A 17-year coaching veteran on the collegiate level, Prince is one of three Virginia assistant coaches who have been a head coach at the collegiate or professional level.
“Ron Prince did an outstanding job for Virginia football for five years,” Groh said. “Ron cares about the kids, makes a strong connection with them and is interested in their success. While the head coach at Kansas State, his teams led the country in punt returns (2007), kick off returns (2006) and kicks blocked (2008), and Ron was very involved with the special teams. Read more »
With the unanticipated return of the Virginia men’s basketball to the win column, people have been asking me all week if fourth-year head coach Dave Leitao is “safe.”.
I would have thought that Leitao was in big trouble if the Cavaliers’ losing ways had continued and they had finished 1-15 in the conference.
Not so.
Leitao would have kept his job no matter how the season ended. That’s what I was told by somebody who would know. Read more »
CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Virginia held Virginia Tech to 36.7-percent shooting from the field and beat the Hokies for the first time in four games, 75-61, at John Paul Jones Arena.
Freshman Sylven Landesberg had 19 points, nine rebounds and six assists to lead the Cavaliers, who have won two games in a row after dropping eight straight. Junior Jamil Tucker had 13 points and nine rebounds off the bench for UVa (9-13 overall, 3-8 ACC).
The Hokies (16-9 overall, 6-5 ACC) got 21 points from senior A.D. Vassallo, but sophomore guard Malcolm Delaney was 3-for-13 and missed all five of his 3-point attempts on a 3-for-13 night.
