Doug Doughty

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The comings and goings of new Indiana University men’s basketball coach Tom Crean have attracted the attention of Virginia and Virginia Tech basketball junkies.

Crean formerly was the head coach at Marquette, where the fall signees included Tyshawn Taylor, a 6-foot-3 guard from St. Anthony’s Prep in Jersey City, N.J.

Taylor’s finalists before he committed to Marquette included Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.

For a time, Taylor also was interested in Virginia, but, depending on the source, Taylor either eliminated UVa or the Cavaliers backed off as their recruiting of Flushing, N.Y., star Sylven Landesberg reached the critical stages.

(Maybe it was a little bit of both).

Landesberg said on the occasion of his oral commitment that Virginia had indicated he would have a chance to play point guard. Of course, Taylor, too, has intentions of playing point in college.

In any case, St. Anthony’s coach Bob Hurley Sr. has said that Taylor will ask out of letter-of-intent now that Crean has left Marquette, which would create an opportunity for some of his other finalists to restate their case.

Virginia probably would like to re-enter that picture, but the Crean situation has gotten the Cavaliers’ attention for another reason. Terrell Holloway, a 6-foot New Yorker who is spending the 2007-2008 school year at Harmony Community School in Cincinnati, has asked out of the letter-of-intent he signed this past fall when Kelvin Sampson was the Hoosiers’ coach.

One report at the time of Holloway’s commitment said that he had picked the Hoosiers over Tennessee and Virginia, although I don’t remember his name being mentioned prominently with UVa at the time. The rivals.com site that covers UVa reports that Holloway will visit UVa, but Indiana could be returning to the mix.

Between players who have been suspended and players leaving for the NBA, including freshman point guard Eric Gordon, Crean has all kinds of playing time to offer and Holloway already has noted that Crean has a history of featuring his guards.

Presumably, somebody could go into Marquette and make the same case to Taylor. Or, in the case of assistant Buzz Williams, stay at Marquette. Williams, the head coach at New Orleans in 2006-2007, was the primary recruiter for Taylor and two of the Golden Eagles’ other three signees. Williams already has met with Marquette officials about the vacancy.

In addition to Williams, the former head recruiter under Billy Gillispie at Texas A&M, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has indicated Marquette interest in Xavier’s Sean Miller and Washington State’s Tony Bennett, although neither is likely to leave his post for Milwaukee.

The paper also lists VCU’s Anthony Grant and Davidson’s Bob McKillop as potential targets.

THE HOKIES AND Cavaliers are traveling in many of the same circles, with UVa making a late bid for Portland, Ore., point guard Paul McCoy, who earlier had been the object of a West Coast visit by Tech’s Seth Greenberg.

Based on events of the past season, the case could be made that Virginia has more questions at point guard than does Tech. The Hokies finished 21-14 this year with a pair of freshmen getting most of the minutes at point guard.

Those two freshmen, Hank Thorns and Malcolm Delaney, had 113 and 107 assists, respectively. Nobody else on the team had more than 80, although that was a good number for Deron Washington.

Tech’s No. 3 assist man, Washington, had more assists than Virginia’s No. 2 assist man, Calvin Baker. Senior Sean Singletary led the Cavaliers in assists with 202; Baker had 79 and nobody else had more than 37.

I was struck by the fact that Virginia had more turnovers (462) than assists (445) but that was before a check of past media guides indicated that UVa turnovers have exceeded assists in each of the past three seasons.

What’s more, the Hokies, who played two more games than Virginia, had 508 turnovers and 468 assists. Only three ACC teams had more assists than turnovers this season – North Carolina, Duke and Clemson. Those were the teams that finished 1-2-3 in the regular season.

North Carolina, which plays Kansas in the NCAA semifinals Saturday, has 649 assists and 542 turnovers, a +107 differential that is easily the highest in the ACC. You might think that’s a significant statistic, except that some schools are known to be more generous when assigning assists. I’m not saying that Carolina is fudging, but assists are a subjective statistic.

DESPITE THE RETURN of Delaney and Thorns, I can see where the Hokies might want a point guard. Delaney, who made 26 of his last 43 3-point attempts, is billed as a combo guard but his best pairing would be with an accomplished point guard.

The Hokies couldn’t have expected any more than they got out of Thorns, but, in the end, he’s listed at 5 foot 9 and could be 1-2 inches shorter. At some point over four years, his height is going to be a liability.

The only point guard with a commitment to the Hokies is 6-1 Erick Green from Millbrook High School in Winchester, but he’s only a junior. There is a guard in the Hokies’ incoming recruiting class, 6-3 Kevin Durrant, but he was described as “a big, physical guard, a lot like Jamon Gordon,” by Tech coach Seth Greenberg.

Greenberg said that a fifth season of high school would help Durrant develop point-guard skills, but is he ready to run an ACC offense next year? Probably not.

So, the Hokies could use a point guard in case something happens to Delaney and Thorns, and they probably could use an elite point guard under any circumstances, but, like Virginia, they are strapped for scholarships.

Counting underclassmen and signees, Tech is at the 13-scholarship NCAA limit for next season. However, rising redshirt junior Terrance Vinson has chronic injury issues that limited his playing time this season and could make him a candidate for a medical waiver.

There is a possibility that back issues could prevent rising UVa junior Will Harris from ever returning to his previous form, but the Cavaliers’ scholarship issues run deeper than that. There is so little room on UVa’s scholarship roles that Baker is not assured a grant after playing close to 800 minutes this year.

Still, as hard as the Cavaliers are pursuing point guards this spring, it seems likely that they will add one. What may surprise some people is that Virginia looks at uncommitted 6-9 Wesley Witherspoon from Lilburn, Ga., as a potential point guard, but however this plays out, the UVa point-guard picture will remain wide open.