On the same day that Sylven Landesberg was notified of his selection as ACC men's basketball freshman of the year, he also learned that he was an honorable-mention all-conference choice.

"I wasn't happy about it," said Landesberg, who got the word from his Virginia coach, Dave Leitao. "When he told me how many people were on the three teams and then, with the three honorable mentions, that came to 18.

"If people think that there's 18 people better than me in the ACC, that means I've got a lot of work to do."

Actually, if Landesberg was third among three players who received the 15 votes required for honorable mention, only 17 players were ahead of him. But, the message remains the same.

"After I heard that, I completely forgot about the rookie-of-the-year award," Landesberg said. "That's going to be the main focus of my work ethic for the whole summer."

Chad Ford, billed as an NBA Draft insider by ESPN.com, wrote in a Feb. 27 column that Landesberg was his top draft sleeper. Ford added that Landesberg was thinking about making himself available for the draft and "a number [of teams] haven't ruled him out as a first-round pick."

Landesberg, a 6-foot-6, 205-pounder from Flushing, N.Y., said Tuesday that he definitely would be returning to UVa for his second year.

"I don't think I accomplished anything for me to leave," he said. "As a team, we didn't have a successful season. I want to have a winning record in the ACC [and] at least be in the top four teams. I want to go to the NCAA, deep in there.

"There's a lot of things I want to accomplish before I leave this school, so I'm coming back."

Landesberg, the top scorer among ACC freshmen, carries a 16.8 scoring average into 11th-seeded UVa's game Thursday with sixth-seeded Boston College in the ACC Tournament.

For most of the season, Landesberg was on pace to break Jeff Lamp's school record for scoring average by a freshman (17.4) but he was 6-for-23 from the field during a three-game stretch prior to UVa's season finale against Maryland.

After scoring three points March 3 at Clemson, he had a two-point first half against Maryland. He finished with 14 points in a 68-63 UVa victory.

"From the beginning of the ACC season till those three [or] four games before the Maryland game, I thought I was playing pretty well," he said. "In those three or four games, I just got a little frustrated.

"Defenses starting playing me differently and a lot of things were going on. The rookie-of-the-year award never really crossed my mind but I guess, at one point, I thought I might not have a chance."

Landesberg received 55 of 76 votes, Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu had 20 and Florida State's Solomon Alabi had the other.

Landesberg followed Ralph Sampson (1980), Bryant Stith (1988) and Chris Williams (1999) as Cavaliers to win the award.

"I guess it was a goal of mine," said Landesberg, who was a six-time ACC rookie-of-the-week honoree. "It wasn't the No. 1 goal.

"I thought that I was always underrated but I felt like I could compete with the top of my class [nationally].

"When I kept racking up rookie-of-the-week awards -- I didn't know about them till people kept coming around and telling me -- I was like, 'Oh, man, I'm going to have a chance now.'"