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SabreMail - January 15, 2007 |
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Cavaliers Face Big Week After losing two ACC road games last week, the Virginia men's basketball team returns to Charlottesville for a pair of league contests this week. With a 1-2 conference record, it is obviously a big week for the team, which needs to hold serve on its home court if it wants to stay alive in the ACC race. On Tuesday, the Hoos face nemesis Maryland, the team that spoiled last season's Last Ball in U-Hall finale. The Terps are also 1-2 in league play after splitting home games with Miami and Clemson last week. After that showdown, the Cavaliers have the rest of the week to prepare for Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons are 1-3 in ACC games entering the week.
Kris Wright
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Recruiting News | |||||||
This Week In Recruiting By Chris Horne Football recruiting . UVa received several surprises this past weekend, with the first being the commitment of long snapper/tight end prospect Danny Aiken. Aiken, a 6-5, 228-pound recruit who is currently at Fork Union Military Academy, was invited for an unofficial visit to the University of Virginia last month (he went the same day as offensive line recruit Anthony Castonzo), but it didn't seem like Aiken was in line for an offer . that is, until last week, when the former Cave Spring (Roanoke, VA) standout received a call from Mike London. London asked Aiken what would happen if the staff were to extend a scholarship offer. Aiken said he would accept and, a few days later, did. UVa is recruiting Aiken as a long snapper who will have a shot at tight end as well. At Cave Spring, Aiken saw time at the quarterback, defensive end and safety positions. He played tight end and long snapper at Fork Union and impressed Coach London last month with his long-snapping ability. A bigger surprise came Sunday when Lamar Milstead, a 6-6, 275-pound offensive tackle recruit out of Ballou High School (Washington, D.C.), pledged to the Hoos. Milstead, one of UVa's top targets for offensive line, verbally committed to UNC last summer. He re-evaluated his situation once John Bunting was dismissed as the Tar Heels head coach and made several unofficial visits to Charlottesville Still, it seemed inevitable that Milstead would remain a committed to UNC. As recent as last Monday, Ballou head coach Moses Ware told TheSabre.com that UNC would be where Milstead would end up. But, upon returning from an official visit to Chapel Hill this past weekend, Milstead called up the UVa coaches and verbally committed, saying that he had de-committed from UNC. This pick-up is huge for a number of reasons, none more important than UVa's need at offensive line. Milstead becomes UVa's highest rated offensive line prospect.
This upcoming weekend will be an important one for the Hoos, as the staff will host offensive line targets Anthony Castonzo and John Elliott on official visits. Castonzo, a 6-6 ½, 255-pound prospect out of Hawthorne Woods, Illinois, attended Fork Union Military Academy for the fall semester. He made an official visit to Vanderbilt this past weekend and is also considering Boston College and Illinois, neither of which have offered. UVa and Vanderbilt each have offered. Elliott has been at the top of UVa's offensive line board for quite some time. The 6-4, 295-pound East Meadow (N.Y.) prospect, a two-time Martone Award winner for top lineman in Nassau County, is down to three schools - Rutgers, Virginia, and Boston College. He has made an official visit to Rutgers and he heads to UVa this weekend followed by BC next weekend. The addition of Milstead certainly helps UVa's offensive line recruiting in a big way, but the staff continues to go after these two prospects as well.
It should be interesting to see how Al Groh's in-home visit goes tonight with Henrico (VA) defensive back/athlete Corey Mosley. Mosley knows UVa could run out of scholarships, and with Milstead committing things look even tighter. Stay tuned, as we plan to follow up with the 5-9, 190-pound prospect to discuss how tonight's in-home visit goes and where he stands with the Cavaliers.
Men's basketball recruiting . A little more than a week ago, the EDGE produced an update on UVa 2007 signee Mike Scott. The 6-8, 215-pound forward has played in three games since the update, helping Hargrave Military Academy's postgraduate team to an undefeated record in 2007 (3-0). In a win over Patrick Henry Community College, Scott scored 26 points and had three steals. In a win over Virginia Western Community College, he tallied 17 points and eight rebounds. In a win over Northfield Mount Hermon in the Hall of Fame Invitational, Scott scored 18 points and pulled down eight boards.
Chris Horne, our resident recruiting expert, provides updates throughout the week for Edge subscribers about UVa's commitments and recruiting targets in football and men's basketball. To sign up for an Edge subscription, please check out the Sabre Edge Sign Up and Information Page. If you're already on board as an Edge subscriber, click the links below to catch up on recruiting. Sabre Edge recruiting updates from the past week ...
Lamar Milstead's Road to Committing to UVa
Castonzo Returns from Vanderbilt Matt Mihalik, UVa's first commitment for the 2008 recruiting class, followed his future team closely throughout the 2006 season. The 6-7, 270-pound offensive tackle standout discussed his impressions of UVa's football program, how solid he is in his verbal commitment as well as when he plans to return to Charlottesville for a visit.
Former Cave Spring Star Commits to UVa Updates since the last SabreMail ...
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News, Notes, and Fan Discussion | |||||||
Thread of the Week
Last week, Virginia lost two ACC road games at North Carolina and Boston College. The road woes of the program have been well documented, but the two defeats set off some concerns among the Wahoo faithful. On the EDGE board, this rational conversation sparked great discussion on the direction of the team. The Thread of the Week follows:
Subject: Real concerns about the basketball program...
In addition, this year's team seems to have gone backwards in terms of rebounding and defense - the supposed hallmark of Leitao teams. If we had done either of these things well in the last three games, we would have won one or two of them. I am not sure what to make of this regression, as our personnel is the same as last year. Team/Coach Demeanor: I do not like the joyless, intimidating, abusive approach Leitao employs towards his players, I admit it. I never have. Whether it is Bobby Knight or Gary Williams, it just doesn't resonate with me. But that is just my personal opinion - what matters is whether the players react to it. Do they? It is easy to just move on after the San Juan tournament, but the performance was so wretched there, that it is very easy to take away some very disturbing conclusions from that tournament. Is the team shattered in terms of confidence? Does this team have the desire to play for this coach? Take away the Gonzaga game, and the trend has continued upon our return. I think it is probably too early to draw conclusions here, but this is one area to keep an eye on, imo. Player Development: This was one area of optimism until just recently. Leitao was getting kudos for his work with Cain and Diame, among others. Again, it is still early, but is there a single player this year who is better than last year? Maybe Diame, but that is it. More generally, as a team who returned everybody, are we better than last year? It doesn't appear so to me. Recruiting: Personally, I have been under whelmed by the recruiting efforts of the staff so far. But maybe I have unrealistic expectations. Still, it is my opinion that in the ACC impact players reveal themselves as such by the first half of their first years. There has not been an impact player at UVa over the last 25 years that you didn't know was going to be special by January of his first year. So, using that context, I feel comfortable in saying that last year's recruiting class is not likely to produce any impact players. Harris, Tat, and Tucker will be solid, but not spectacular. We all know that next year's class is ranked in the bottom half of the ACC (barring a commitment from Patterson, which is a longshot). If we go two years without recruiting impact players, well it doesn't bode well for competing for ACC titles or tournament births. I guess the bottom line is that we seem to have gotten worse as a team than last year. We are tournament long shots this year, thanks to this recent stretch. And, if Singletary goes pro (which, based on his body language, seems likely to me), we will be a very longshot to make the tournament again next year. Just a very disappointing year so far, with very few silver bullets at our disposal.
Subject: He's barely a year and half into a majjor reclamation project As for recruiting, I think your assessment is way off. I could list dozens of players that evolved into all-ACC talents that didn't show much in their first 3 months of college. From our own school, Junior Burrough and Norman Nolan are 2 examples that come immediately to mind. Tim Duncan was almost non existant his first year, especially the first half of that year. Shamond Williams scored a total of 48 points his freshman year. Drew Nicholas was non existant for his first two and a half seasons. David Noel basically didn't play the first half of his frosh season and ended up averaging about 5 ppg. Al Thornton was a complete non factor his freshman year. I could go on and on. Not to mention, Leitao did a miracle job to even get the freshman that are here this year here. When he came in, the only commit we had was that Kendall kid who wasn't even remotely ACC material. Gillen had just taken another committment from a kid that couldn't even crack the starting line up for a suburban Denver high school. Leitao worked miracles to get committments from the kids he got despite the fact that he had almost no time. Recruiting these days starts when kids are 8th and 9th graders. Yet Leitao was able to walk into living rooms of seniors for the first time and convince them to come to UVa. Plus you're not even mentioning the fact that we're in the top 2 for a top 15 talent in this class and are universally acknowledged as the leaders for a top 10 talent in the next class. I just think attacking Leitao this early into his tenure is exceptionally short sited. It appears everyone has either forgotten or chosen to ignore what horrendous shape we were in just 18 months ago. The fact that we just lost road games - close ones at that - to two of the top teams in the leauge is hardly cause for revolt.
Subject: Our problem is simple: no post player. None who would Lighten up. We have improved. Last year's team would have been run our of the gyms in Chapel Hill and Boston.
Subject: Nothing wrong with concerns... Coach had the players ready to play at the start of both road ACC games. He's gone about as far as he can with the bench-jockeying, IMO. The key to the season so far was the aftermath of the Puerto Rico experience, and the TEAM made it back after that lacklustre series. I could understand your concern had not that tourney been put in the rearview mirror. With the early requirements to make contacts with future recruits, DL was way behind the curve, especially as he has come into a new recruiting area for him and his assistants. I hoped to see us tap into his Midwest for recruits to get us to competitiveness, and that seems to be occurring with Tucker and Farrakhan, and perhaps Pettinella. We knew it would be uphill after Gillen, and to make matters worse, playing an ACC schedule that will be seriously disadvantageous in a lot of regards with a much less talented team than the top half of the ACC teams. The only games that I favored us to win were the Wake, Miami and NCSU contests. Based on talent, and VT's heightened performance, the rest of the games will be upsets if you look at the matchups. Even if we had won those 3, that would not have changed my perceptions. We are what we were over the full course of last year and what we are today, a team struggling toward .500, a team that will not be favored to win many ACC games, but a team that will be tough to beat on a given night. My own personal opinion is that this team will make more than its share of TOs based on the way our guys are playing the offense and the way the games are being called by the officials. If there is a weakness in the coaching, it is the inability to get the team to adjust and deal with the opponent-called games recently. We just are not able to ratchet up our D to intensify the play and take it to the opponents when we need a stop. We also have to remember that most of our opponents have the talent to make big plays late in games, but so do we. We just have to create more pressure on the ball. That is where we are falling short, as much as inside too. Hard for a non- Carolina team to get by with a PG playing 40 minutes a game over 30 games. SS has to pace himself, and that is too bad on the defensive end. I am looking forward to the UMd game. If you have not attended a game in person yet, you need to do it, to get a better, wider perspective of the game(s) and what goes on over the whole court and not just what the cameras show on TV or what Mac and Hobbo call.
To read the entire thread, click here.
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Around the World of Wahoo Sports ...
To read the full stories or gather more information on Virginia athletics, check out Virginiasports.com.
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SabreMail History | |||||||
Issue No. 238 - April 21, 2006 Hot Topic
Subject: Cornerback Blitz
Subject: It's not just about speed with Hall ... I do hope he gets some snaps now and again on offense, but I mainly want to see him on the field a LOT ...
Subject: Why do people hate defense so much?
What's New on TheSabre.com? |
Coming Soon January means that 2007 is officially under way and Virginia's winter sports are heating up. The Sabre will help you start the new year with plenty of content to keep you excited about the Hoos! Here's a sneak peak at some of the articles to expect on the site in the coming days:
In Case You Missed It ... Sabre articles since the last SabreMail
Boston College Bounces UVa
Best Seat in the House: Al Skinner, Matt Schaub
Scouting Report: Boston College
Best Seat in the House: Chris Horne
Heels Hit Glass To Hush Hoos
Scouting Report: North Carolina
Things I Learned About ... Receivers & Tight Ends
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