Not a good day to be a Wahoo fan

A Wahoo fan of any kind.

In what was supposed to be his final start before the season begins, CC Sabathia, ace of the Tribe’s pitching staff, took a line-drive off of his forearm from Reed Johnson. This is bad news. Anyway you dice it, a bruise affects his control because it’s hard to use muscles when they’re in pain, and they don’t respond as well, a fracture means time off and more arm strengthening needed to get back. A bruise would hopefully be less time, although often guys will rush back if they don’t think there’s a big injury.

The other bad news is for fans who like to chant Wahoo-wa Wahoo-wa, Uni-v-virgin-ee-uh: Leading receiver from last season, Kevin Ogletree, will be sidelined this season with an ACL tear. He’ll likely have it repaired sometime soon, but this is bad news for the Hoos, who often have trouble putting together good offensive sets.

Whether their lack of offense is due to a no-nonsense offense that often runs the same play, or due to lack of playmakers, or just due to the youth of the line and well everyone last year, losing Ogletree is a big hit. He’s not a huge guy, but think Steve Smith, just not quite as good in all aspects of the game quite yet. Regardless, the next best receiver coming into this year was under 100 yards last season. That’s right, not game. Season. We’ll see how the Hoos rebound from this. The good news is the main receivers in the Cavalier’s offense are usually the tight ends, but it would help the Cavaliers out to have a deep threat and stretch the field.

So, here’s hoping CC isn’t hurt that bad, and Ogletree makes as full of a recovery as you can after tearing your ACL.

Second Round of the Tourney pt. 2 AKA the Cavs go Home

The Cavaliers took one on the chin today and were knocked out of post season play by the Volunteers of Tennessee. The editors here at Double Wahoo believe the outcome would have been different if JR Reynolds hadn’t come up gimpy on a twisted ankle; however, those are the breaks. Tennessee also hit their final 9 free throws after struggling at the line earlier in the game to earn their date with Ohio State University.

All four of the #1 seeds moved on, but the first 2 seed lost, in Wisconsin. They were outplayed by the Running Rebels of UNLV with their father son tandem, Kevin and Lon Kruger leading the way. 3 of the 4 5-seeds moved on (that’s a loaded sentence) with Virginia Tech being the only 5 seed to fall. They were also the final hope of the ACC getting a second team through to the Sweet 16. Instead, all hopes for the ACC ride on the shoulders of UNC.

Strongest conference in terms of Sweet 16 reps: tie between the SEC and Pac-10 with 3 a piece. The Big 12 and Big East each pushed through two teams, and the Big Ten and ACC join some other not so recognized conferences with only one team each in the round of 16. Overall a pretty poor showing for the ACC with 1 out of 7 advancing to the round of 16, but they had some tough match-ups along the way with teams that were under-rated due to playing in said “mid-major” conferences. Granted, UVA lost to Tennessee, an SEC school, but Maryland and VTech were both knocked out by solid mid-major schools, Butler and Southern Illinois respectively.

This further emphasizes why the NCAA men’s (and women’s) basketball tournaments truly are the best way to decide a national champion. Regardless of conference or division you are matched up in a bracket and you get to play your way to the next day. There’s nothing else an athelete could ask for. Much better than having to hope that a committee thinks that your 11-1 season is better than another team’s 11-1 season. Just a thing of beauty: the true winners shine.

Before everyone gets down on the Cavs, let’s remember they have two shooting guards coming in next year, Jeff Jones and Mustapha Farrakhan (yes, that Farrakhan) who are both bigger 2 guards (6′4″ each) who will provide a nice complement to SS in the backcourt. Zeglinski, Singletary’s replacement at both Penn Charter School and now UVA also comes in next year to learn the ropes, and UVA is still one of six schools in the running for the services of Patrick Patterson the number 2 rated power forward in the nation out of West Virginia. Locking him down would be a huge boon for the Cavs, but we’re butting heads with the likes of Duke and Florida, so let’s see that new arena and a successful season pay off.

Second Round of the Tourney, pt. 1

Day one of the second round of the Tourney began today. Winners of these games find themselves in the much coveted Sweet 16.

Both #1 seeds who played today advanced: Ohio State and UNC. Ohio State was taken to overtime by Xavier, but once there Mike Conley Jr. tore it up and pushed the Buckeyes into the Sweet 16. UNC just stayed on top of Michigan State to knock them out of the tournament.

In other ACC/Virginia news: BC lost to Georgetown after leading for much of the second half. Roy Hibbert at 7′2″ wore the Eagles down down the stretch. Maryland got knocked off by a pesky-little-quick Butler team. VCU also bit the bullet against Pitt, although the came back from a double-digit second-half deficit to force overtime, but then the Panthers hit some big threes and the Rams couldn’t pull it out.

Vandy with former Cavalier Derrick Byars (SEC player of the year) knocked off the 3-seed in the East, Washington State.

So, the Cavaliers need to man up tomorrow and stop the potent Volunteer offense of Tennesse who tied an NCAA first round record with 121 points on Friday. If the Cavaliers can do that, then they have a date with the Buckeyes in the sweet-16 and this fan’s dreams would be fulfilled. Any wins after that for the Cavaliers would be gravy in my book, although I shouldn’t sell my team short. If JR Reynolds truly is healthy again, and they can keep Cain and Soroye marginally involved in the offense, both Singletary and Reynolds shoot the ball well enough that the Cavs will never be out of a game. First things first: Chris Lofton had 25 of the Volunteers’ 121 on Friday and he needs to be shut down for the Cavaliers to be successful.

Go Hoos.

Even more first round of the tourney

The Cavs held on, winning by a final score of 84-57 against the Great Danes of Albany. Georgia Tech has come back to take the lead against UNLV, so if they hang on now Duke could be the only ACC team not moving on.

Good things about UVA’s win:

• JR Reynolds seems to be back in form from his hip injury. 9-13 from the field.
• Singletary played a very balanced game and didn’t feel the need to take over
• Diane played good defense and hit a couple 3’s
• Soroye, Cain, and Mikalauskas were big inside getting rebounds

Bad things about the win:

• Can’t really say anything. They made some sloppy passes inside and played some lax defense but it was with 10 minutes to play and they were up 30 and had been almost all game. Give the kids a break.

Looking forward to a second round match-up with the winner of the Tennessee/Long Beach State game at noon on Sunday. Now let’s go Yellow Jackets

More First Round of the Tourney

Well, barring a massive collapse, Virginia is currently leading by 20 at the half, so I guess so much for people predicting the Albany might upset us. Seriously though, JR Reynolds has scored 22 or 23 points in the first half, until the very end he was out scoring Albany by himself. I guess he’s feeling better. He hurt his hip earlier this year, and now he practiced this week for the first time, so that is great news for the Cavs NCAA chances.

In other ACC news: Georgia Tech is showing their freshman colors and losing big to UNLV, but they could still put a run together…doubtful. Maryland won yesterday, so did BC, VT plays Illinois today, and obviously everyone in the world knows that Duke lost. UNC handled their first round opponent yesterday and so if VTech plays up to their potential the ACC should get 5 of the 7 teams through to the next round.

First Round of the Tourney

Well, just watched Duke stink it up in the first round of the tournament. They just didn’t seem to have anyone willing to catch the ball and try to score, they’re all looking for someone to pass to. This is the same problem they had all season. They’re all too unselfish and need someone to just sack up and score. Ah well, the more the Dookies lose, the happier I am. My only problem with them losing is I had every game right up to that point (I know, no upsets, how hard is that, but I wasn’t just picking every top seed) and Duke spoiled that for me.

Regardless, my current school just beat Duke, my alma mater beat them in their only meeting earlier this year. It’s a good year to hate Duke.

Tribe looking good in Spring Training. In three games over two days they have allowed 0 runs. That’s right, the much maligned bullpen from last year has combined with the 4th best starting staff (last year, according to ERA) to allow zero runs the last three games. That’s good news for the Tribe who finished second in offensive production last year and have upgraded themselves in that area. We didn’t have an everyday second basemen last year after the break, and our third baseman (Marte) will hopefully pick up his hitting a bit. Combine Barfield (second base) with Marte’s hopeful improvement and Peralta’s Lasik in the offseason and the Tribe should need an average pitching squad to break .500. With a standout pitching squad AL Central opponents had better watch out.

UVA vs. NCState

Since Duke bit it and has now lost the last three games including their first round ACC tournament game tonight, UVA will face NCState in the second round tomorrow at 7 o’clock on ESPN2.

Good news for the Hoos: NCState really only plays 6 guys, and they all played an overtime game tonight. The Hoos also won both of their meetings against NCState this year. In addition, even though UVA is the 2-seed, NCState will surely suffer a hangover from this big win, and that should dog them energywise even more.

Bad news for the Hoos: NCState has some very young big guys who have gotten more and more polished offensively as the year goes on. They have beat UNC and Duke now this season, and that says alot about a program, even though it seems to be happening alot this year.

Go Hoos

Best Day Ever

Not only did the Indians win their first spring training game 13-2, but UVa beat Virginia Tech AND combined with UNC losing to Georgia Tech tonight, that puts UVA in sole possession of first place in the ACC. If we can beat Wake Forest on Saturday at Wake Forest, we will win the regular season ACC championship.

UVA rode Singletary and Reynolds all the way tonight, but they also got significant contributions from Diane, a nice little pop from Joseph, Cain and Soroye were pounding the glass and playing a nice inside out game. If we can play stingy defense like we did and attack the glass…oh man. Now we need to go on the road and take care of business.

To top it all off, pending the uploading of stats I should win my regular season ACC-fantasy league in my first year participating. Couple that with my first best in beard win and all in all this is a great year.

Revenge

Big game this week for the Cavaliers (10-4 ACC) as they are currently tied atop the ACC standings and are playing host tomorrow night to in-state rival Virginia Tech. UVA has played more consistently this season than Tech, but both have their share of bad out of conference losses and bad in-conference losses, UVA’s coming at the hands of the Hokies 84-57 in Blacksburg. Now the Hokies are in town at the brand new JPJ, a place where UVA has not lost in conference, and lost only once since it’s opening. It’s senior night for the Hoos, they’re looking to revenge a bad loss, and first place in the conference is on the line.

J.R. Reynolds and Jason Cain are the only two seniors left from their incoming class. That is good news for the Cavaliers as these two should play a big role in the Cavalier’s success in this game. Reynolds’ contributions are obvious: he needs to score and he needs to create. Cain is one of those mystery men. He doesn’t have a huge frame, his major recruitable attribute was his “athleticism”, and there are flashes of that when he drives the lane from the wing and slams home a winner, but the rest of the time he seems tentative and almost as though he’s not paying attention to what’s going on. The Cavs run the motion offense, and that requires the big men to handle the ball on the perimeter so that the smaller guys can go running around screens set up by other big guys. This means that Cain’s decision making abilities are tested often. Unfortunately, I don’t think he passes the ball that well, and the Cavs never seem to convert baskets off of his touches. So maybe he’ll bring rebounding. Good thought, and at the beginning of the season Cain was doing just that, pulling down double-digit boards every time you turned your head. As the season wears on and the talent level increases as we play deeper and deeper in the ACC, Cain just does not seem to be as effective as we need him to be. Hopefully that will change in this game, as he needs to make the Hokies respect his inside abilities in order to open up the outside for SS and JR, the main problem in the shelaking earlier this year.

The Cavs will definitely be looking for revenge. SS does not like losing, and neither does Leitao, especially not to an in-state rival, by a huge margin. Who cares if that team is playing good basketball and is currently tied atop the league while boasting wins AT Duke and a season sweep of Carolina. That doesn’t matter, the Hoos want to win.  After the GT game, Reynolds was quoted as saying, “now we can focus on the big game. I just want to beat them. Really beat them” or something to that effect.

Not to mention the rivalry implications, or the fact that it’s the final home game for two of the Hoos, UVA could remain tied for first place in the ACC with one game to go should they be victorious. Granted, unless the TarHeels lose to Georgia Tech or Duke in their final two games, UVA would lose the tie-breaker, but a tie for first is just that. Huge accomplishment for a team picked to finish 8th in the league.

Tech is not without its hurdles or motivations either. They have showed glimmers of being unstoppable, with Dowdell certainly doing a mean bit of scoring. Gordon is a nice compliment to Dowdell, and they have a real energy guy in Deron Washington. This guy torched the Cavs in the earlier meeting, and was 1 rebound away from a double double in the first half. If I were Leitao, I would put Will Harris, the highly touted freshman on him and match it up athlete for athlete. Harris has a better chance of containing Washington than Cain or any of the slower big guys. The other option is Diane, but I think that’s who was covering in Blacksburg and that didn’t work out. Washington is a lot like a former Hoo, Adam Hall. Not necessarily the most gifted shooter on the court, nor is he their best inside presence. He’s a wing player, but he’s a big wing player with great leaping ability which gives him the chance to fire up his team and his home crowd with a big dunk.

Another key to the game is inside. I can only guess that Lars Mikalauskas is hampered with an injury because he hasn’t been seeing as much of the court recently, and he’s our only offensive threat inside. Without that, throwing the ball inside to Pettinella, Soroye, or Cain results in the deer in headlights syndrome and either results in a quick pass back outside, or a turnover. The Cavs needs someone to legitimize the post, otherwise the Hokies will go with the same game plan from the last game. Run a modified 3-2 zone that ends up looking like a 4-1 zone, with everybody hovering around the perimeter, and then collapsing on any drive. I’m not sure if the Cavs weren’t seeing well that day, or if the Hokies are just that fast, but it seemed as though 4-5 guys could converge on the lane thoroughly clogging that option, and the driving Cavalier couldn’t find anybody open on the perimeter either. Kudos to the Hokies for a well played game in Blacksburg that was extremely demoralizing as a fan. Here’s hoping that the more even schedule will help the Hoos this go around as entering the last meeting, the Hokies had not played in a week and were coming off of a bad loss. This time around the Hokies should be fat and happy with their smothering of Miami at home, and they played Saturday like the Cavs.

Ok, that’s enough about basketball. In reality I’m trying to delay learning more about renal and gastro-intestinal physiology, so I had better get back to that. Go Hoos.

Ramblin’ Wrecked

The Ramblin’ Wreck of Georgia Tech came into town today, and was dispatched of 75-69. That score belies the competition of the game, or actually lack thereof. The final minute was a hard fought battle, and the rest of the game was filled with dominance from one team or the other and a long period of stalemate.

Virginia came out strong and gained a 22-6 advantage approximately half way through the first period. GT then turned around and put together a heck of a run stimulated by their full court press to lead by 4 at half. The second half was mostly even. UVA would hit a three or two, get a couple runs, but Georgia Tech was pounding the glass and pounding it inside to Dickey. Their point guard is 6′5″, that’s how tall this team is. The Cavs point guard on the other hand is 6′ on a great day. But, what matters is the score, and SS scored 24 points while his back court mate scored 25, thus the tandem scored 65.3% of the teams points. No other Cavalier scored in double digits, but they got solid play form the supporting cast.

And now to analyze the pros and cons:

Pros:

• We won
• Singletary and Reynolds played all but three minutes of the game
• We showed some resiliency
• We won without a dominant “third scorer”
• We beat a much taller, much more polished inside team

Cons:

• We had to come from behind because we let a 16 point lead just piddle away. Foolish mistakes and getting out hustled
• If we hadn’t corrected back to man-to-man defense when we did (~3 minutes to go) we wouldn’t have won. GT just had a man planted at the free-throw line and was eating us up all day because our center had to flash out to deny that man his shot, thereby leaving open the entire lane. Easy lay-ups all day for the gold and black
• We have no inside scoring presence. We ran one designed play for the guy in the paint to score and that was a lay-up by Joseph. The other “points in the paint” were drives and offensive rebounds including one HUGE one by Soroye with the game tied at 69.
• That’s enough. Who cares how you win them, we’re winning them. That was our 10th ACC win and I bet that hasn’t happened since ‘95 and before then not since Sampson.

So it may not have been the prettiest win, but a win none the less. That means that if UVA can revenge their loss earlier this season to Tech we would go undefeated at home through ACC play, and that is the first step to becoming a perennial contender: defend home court.

I would have posted a picture of Reynolds or Singletary doing something awesome, but ESPN has chosen to only show pictures of GT players doing awesome things, and the virginiasports site shows pictures in flash slideshows now, probably because they’re sick of people stealing them…