This weekend brought with it several fantastic events. Most importantly of all it featured the beard feast; a celebration of all things man expressed through facial growth. The timing of this event being immediately following Valentine’s Day is no accident. The founders were very wise in their calendar exploits as the beard also provides warmth during the harsh Virginia winter. This years feast was held a little earlier in the fortnight (usual feast date is February 28th or March 1st), but in order to see a basketball game along with a feast, this date was the best.
First things first: I am the best in beard champion for 2007. This was my first bearding award in my six years as a participant and it felt great. I received my wife beater with pride, and took my shot of Vlady like a man. It was a touching moment. My beard may not have been as awesome as this guys, but I was proud of my effort nonetheless.
This weekend also held a basketball game for the Cavs: a 73-70 victory over the Seminoles of Florida State. Despite 30 points from Al Thornton, the Seminoles never lead after their first basket. UVA suffered some shooting droughts, but pulled it out in the end behind 19 from Sean Singletary, and 17 each from JR Reynolds and Adrian Joseph. AJ provided the needed third scorer, Soroye was what we hoped again, a raw athletic talent who it seems is starting to figure out how to muscle up and get some boards (9). The most impressive player of the day to me, and take this with a grain of salt as I was in row Z third from the top, was Will Harris. A 6′6 230 lb. freshman who really manned up on defense against Al Thornton. While Thornton did wind up scoring 30 points, by my sight, most of it came against Jason Cain. Harris played great defense, staying in front of Thornton and not being thrown by his athletic moves to the hoop. Harris also provided a little pop inside, grabbing weakside rebounds and going up strong. He did muff a break away oppurtunity, but he is a freshman. The upside is huge, he’s very athletic, and you can’t teach a body like his. Exciting for the future.
In other ACC basketball news, Virginia Tech got blown out of the water at NCState. They allowed the Wolfpack to shoot something like 71% from the field, and 11-15 from 3 point land en route to a 25 point blowout. Boston College also lost two games this week, to the other tobacco road powerhouses, so now UVA finds themselves in a tie atop the ACC with UNC. That is huge. We also locked up a winning record for the season, our first in ACC play since the 2000-2001 season, also our last trip to the dance. Leitao is doing a terrific job so far, and if we can continue improving as he has us going, I’m excited about at least having a chance at the dance every season. That is a huge leap from the Gillen days.
That’s all from the weekend. I’ve decided I’m getting TiVO, and I saw a hip replacement today. All cool things.
Posted by krb3b 