Thursday, February 22, 2007
Doughty has all day to dissect Cavs’ demise
2007-2008 post situation starting to look scary
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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Shortly after arriving at Miami International at 6:30 this morning, I learned that my anticipated 8:45 a.m. flight to Virginia wasn’t due to depart until 8:45 p.m.
And, I was the guy who made the reservation, mercifully changed to send me off at 11:45 a.m.
There were a few other snafus, including a failure to pack socks, but I couldn’t have been much more miserable than the Virginia men’s basketball team, a 68-60 loser Wednesday night at BankUnited Center.
The Cavaliers lost at Purdue (62-60) and at home to Stanford (76-75) on shots inside the final two seconds, but those back-and-forth affairs weren’t any more winnable than Wednesday night’s debacle, when Miami outscored Virginia 7-0 over the final 25 seconds.
All it would have taken was one defensive stop and the Cavaliers were holding tough until Miami called a timeout with 25.7 seconds left on the game clock and seven seconds remaining on the shot clock. Then, J.R. Reynolds slipped coming around a screen and a 61-60 Miami lead jumped to 64-60 on a Jack McClinton 3-pointer.
At various points of the season, second-year UVa coach Dave Leitao has chosen to overlook the Cavaliers’ offensive shortcomings while harping on defense. The defense Wednesday night wasn’t great, but what can you say when a team scores 25 points in a half, as Virginia did over the final 20 minutes.
UVa shot under 40 percent for the second game in a row and was 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) from the field in the second half. The only guy who could make a shot was Jamil Tucker, a 6-foot-9 freshman who hit three 3-pointers in the second half
As bad as they were from the field, however, the Cavaliers could have saved the game by making their free throws. Not only did Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds both miss the front ends of one-and-ones, but Tunji Soroye missed both ends of a two-shot opportunity – all in the final eight minutes.
Soroye blocked four shots and has been a defensive force in recent games, but he has gone 1-for-8 from the free-throw line in the last two games. When you consider that Ryan Pettinella is shooting 25 percent (8-for-33) from the line for the season, it makes you cringe at the thought of Virginia’s post play in 2007-2008.
Starting post player Jason Cain made five of six free throws but all he had to show for a 25-minute outing was seven points, two rebounds and three blocks. The Cavaliers were killed on the boards in the second half, 27-14, after outrebounding the Hurricanes 20-14 in the first half.
A fourth post player, former starter Lauris Mikalauskas, played five minutes and did not have a rebound. Pettinella’s only stats over a two-minute stint were a pair of fouls.
This wasn’t one of the nation’s top inside games that Virginia was facing, but freshman Dwayne Collins chewed up the Cavaliers in the second half. UVa’s leading rebounder for the game was J.R. Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 ½ guard, with eight.
Reynolds and Singletary were less than stellar, but what of sophomore wing Mamadi Diane, one of the Cavaliers’ three double-figure scorers on the season? Diane had two points and zero rebounds in 17 minutes and continues to come up small on the road.
It was Diane’s second straight two-point game on the road, dating back to an 84-57 loss at Virginia Tech on Feb. 10. Those same Hokies, flush off a XX-XX drubbing of Boston College in an early Wednesday game that did not make the final edition of the Miami Herald, are the opponents for one of the two home games that remain on Virginia’s schedule.
Diane shouldn’t be singled out. Freshmen Will Harris and Solomon Tat were 0-for-1 from the field in a combined 12 minutes Wednesday and have joined a growing group of Virginia players who aren’t a factor at the offensive end (Diane, Cain, Soroye, Pettinella and Mikaluaskas).
Given that the Cavaliers are 14-1 at home, you would think they would win one of their two final games at John Paul Jones Arena, where they entertain Georgia Tech at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, but the longer it takes for Virginia to get a 10th ACC victory, the more pressure there will be on the Cavaliers.
An inconsistent non-conference performance against a weaker-than-expected schedule has created some question as to whether even a 10-6 ACC record will get the Cavaliers in the NCAA field. One thing’s for sure: At 9-7, with four straight losses to end the regular season, UVa would be in big trouble.
MEDIA GADFLY Jeff White loves to shoot down my theories, but even White agrees that University of Richmond offensive coordinator Wayne Lineburg merits strong consideration for the football assistant’s job left vacant by receiver coach John Garrett.
Lineburg, a former walk-on quarterback and 1996 graduate, knows the school and he knows the state after working at William and Mary and Richmond. He comes from a coaching background where academics have been valued in recruiting.
If there is a question about Lineburg, it concerns his experience with wide receivers, although he did work with that position group while serving as a UVa graduate assistant in 1997-98. As Richmond’s offensive coordinator, he doubled up as running backs coach.
