Thursday, January 04, 2007
UVa bandwagon could make reappearance
Singletary show comes before eight NBA scouts
Doug Doughty
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I can’t remember what basketball game I was watching in November when ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes described Virginia as “a sleeper Final Four team.”
When the Cavaliers were losing two of three games in the San Juan Shootout, that statement couldn’t have sounded more farcical.
Then, Virginia goes out and buries Gonzaga in the first half Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena and who was doing commentary on the game for ESPN2?
You got it. Jimmy Dykes.
I didn’t have access to the ESPN2 feed, but I can’t imagine that Virginia was any less impressive Wednesday night than it was when Dykes was prompted to offer his original remark.
A sleeper Final Four team? The Cavaliers would have to make the field first.
A victory over Stanford on Sunday would put Virginia at 10-3 and give them quality non-conference wins over Arizona, Gonzaga and Stanford, but all of those wins would have come at home, where UVa is 8-0.
Virginia still hasn’t shown it can win on the road and, in many cases, the Cavaliers are barely competitive when they get away from Charlottesville. In Dave Leitao’s two seasons as head coach, Virginia is 19-3 at home and 2-12 on the road.
I don’t see that changing unless junior point guard Sean Singletary makes it change. To this point, Singletary has been brilliant at home, averaging more than 30 points over the last three games, and mediocre on the road.
Leitao often has praised Singletary’s will and did so again Wednesday night. Singletary has seldom looked better, which was both good and bad for Virginia. There were eight NBA scouts on the pregame media seating chart and they couldn’t all have been looking at Gonzaga’s 6-foot-11, 238-pound Josh Heytvelt, who went scoreless from the field.
One of those scouts said beforehand that there isn’t much interest in 5-foot-11 guards, but that was before Singletary put on his best Allen Iverson imitation. And, unlike Iverson, his former fellow Philadelphian, Singletary likes to practice.
In one of his most famous rants, Iverson questioned the value of practice, “but he was joking,” said Singletary, who has played in pick-up games with the Denver Nuggets’ prize early season acquisition. “He was just getting y’all [in the media] psyched up. You know, he definitely practices.”
Singletary said before the season that he intended to remain at Virginia for four years and his play over the first month did not spark any speculation along those lines. However, if he were to continue his recent strong play, which he attributes to an ability to get in the gym and practice his shooting, it would have to open some eyes.
If you look at Virginia’s game last week with American, in which Singletary and J.R. Reynolds combined for 59 points in a 91-70, it just serves to emphasize the kind of rebuilding job UVa would face next year if it had to replace both of them (Reynolds is a senior).
With or without Singletary next year, it will be interesting to see what kind of player the Cavaliers have in Sammy Zeglinski, Singletary’s successor at point guard at Penn Charter in Philadelphia and his heir apparent since committing to the Cavaliers as a junior.
Zeglinski continues to be downgraded by publications like Prep Stars, which does not list him among the top 250 seniors in the country, but just from listening to the way Leitao talks about Zeglinski, it’s obvious he feels he has something.
