CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Walk-on Damin Altizer has found his niche on the Virginia men's basketball team and it's not at the end of the bench.

His role first came into focus Jan. 28 at Clemson, where, following Virginia's second road victory in five days, boisterous freshman Will Harris asked for his teammates' attention.

"Let's hear it for Damin," said Harris, as other players gradually joined him in applause. "He's our good-luck charm."

Altizer, a sophomore guard from Bath County, earlier had been at North Carolina State when the Cavaliers captured their first road victory in more than a year. He can't remember the exact circumstances that sent him on the Clemson trip, but the scholarship players noticed his presence.

"We're supposed to alternate the road trips among the walk-ons," Altizer said. "I don't know if Coach [Dave] Leitao is superstitious or not, but I ended up going to five games in a row."

Altizer is one of three non-scholarship players who survived preseason tryouts and joined what has become a 17-man roster, including Calvin Baker, a transfer from William and Mary who is ineligible.

By rule, the Cavaliers are not allowed to take more than 15 players on the road and usually travel with 14 for hotel rooming purposes.

Altizer and fellow walk-ons Bob McCormick and David Noel didn't know how that would affect their status for the ACC Tournament starting Thursday in Tampa, Fla.

"We had to ask," Altizer said.

Good thing they did.

Not only will the walk-ons be making the trip, but they will receive two complimentary guest tickets, which Altizer has promised to a cousin in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

Altizer can't say for sure that he will be in uniform and, given his playing time to date, it is highly remote that he will get in a game. Never mind. Just being in the same city as the ACC Tournament will be a first for him.

Graduating third in his class at Bath County, Altizer built up enough credibility with his mom that she wrote excuses that enabled him to leave school early as a junior and senior and watch the ACC Tournament on television.

He would always root for North Carolina, which made for an interesting situation Sunday, when it would have taken a Duke victory in Chapel Hill, N.C., for the Cavaliers to capture an outright championship.

"My dad called me and was giving me a hard time," Altizer said. "He was like, 'Who are you going to cheer for? People might not think I bleed orange like the way I used to bleed Carolina blue, but that's the way it is now. I was cheering for Duke. It was a little bit weird."

Former Bath County coach Terry Bradley said, "I laugh at the irony."

Altizer spent four years on the varsity at Bath County and was the Pioneer District player of the year as a senior in 2005, when he also made All-Region C. Lynchburg and Roanoke College were among the Division III teams that inquired about his future plans.

"I mostly applied to Virginia to see if I could get in," he said. "I wasn't really considering it until either January or February of my senior year. I was just thinking 'basketball, basketball.' When I got the letter saying I had gotten in here, I tried to step back and think about the rest of my life."

Altizer attempted to make the team in 2005-2006 as a freshman but had been advised that Virginia was looking for players who were a little bigger and that "guards are a dime a dozen," he said. "It was a little bit disheartening."

Altizer, at 5-foot-11, 162 pounds, didn't feel he was any less of a longshot this year, but that didn't prevent him from trying out again.

"That doesn't surprise me," Bradley, who said. "I could have told you that he would."

Bath County had championship-caliber football teams throughout Altizer's time there. Indeed, his fellow 2005 Bath County teammate, John Phillips, is a scholarship UVa football player, but Altizer was all basketball.

"The football team would be in the playoffs and it would just be me, Damin and a couple of other guys at basketball practice," said Bradley, who frequently would use Altizer during demonstrations. "Damin was the only constant."

Bradley is struck by the similarity to a situation involving his twin brother, Jerry, the coach at Greenbrier (W.Va.) East. One of Greenbrier East's players, Devon White, walked on at Ohio State and was a member of the Buckeyes' 1999 Final Four team. White now serves as director of basketball operations at Louisville.

"I'll never forget, we were watching the Final Four on TV and there was Devon sitting on the bench," Bradley said. "My brother turned to me and said, 'He's flying and eating steak. What are we doing?' "

Altizer has played in only two games, logging a combined 4 minutes against Maryland-Eastern Shore and Longwood, but he'll always be able to say he was a member of the first Virginia men's team to play in the John Paul Jones Arena and the fifth to win or share a regular-season ACC title.

"That's something they'll never be able to take away from you," he said.

He gets satisfaction in different ways.

On Tuesday, when fatigued senior guard J.R. Reynolds did individual drills instead of scrimmaging, Altizer chased him around for 90 minutes.

The coaches haven't said anything about next year, but Altizer has been asked about his availability to work at UVa's camp and strength coach Shaun Brown has mentioned the offseason conditioning program. Besides, who would want to discard a good-luck charm.

"I think I'll remind them of that," he said.