After a breakout 2000-20001 season, Virginia junior guard Roger Mason Jr. was named to the 2001 USA Basketball Men's World University Games team on Aug. 15. Penn State coach Jerry Dunn hopes to guide the 12-player team to its seventh consecutive gold medal and add to its 40-game winning streak in Beijing, China, Aug. 22-31.
Mason was in the starting lineup in Team USA's wins over Iran, 112-50, on Wednesday and South Africa, 118-56, on Thursday. He scored seven points with four rebounds against Iran and added 12 points and eight rebounds against South Africa.
Team USA closes out preliminary round play on Friday against Turkey before beginning the playoff round on Sunday. The gold medal game will be played on Aug. 31.
Mason posted his finest season last year by averaging 15.7 points per game and making 88.4 percent of his free-throw attempts. He shot 44.2 percent from three-point range and averaged 3.7 rebounds a game. He earned third-team All-ACC honors and was the co-recipient of the Bill Gibson Cavalier of the Year Award. Mason was also recently named as one of the top 50 candidates for the 2001-2002 Wooden Award All-America Basketball team.
A natural shooting guard, Mason split time with Donald Hand at point guard last year after sophomore Majestic Mapp sat out the season with a torn ACL suffered in the preseason. He ended the 2000 season as the team leader in minutes played per game, with 32.0.
Antwain Barbour (Wabash Valley Community College), Andre Barrett (Seton Hall), Earl Barron (Memphis), Lonny Baxter (Maryland), Dan Dickau (Gonzaga), Juan Dixon (Maryland), Melvin Ely (Fresno State), Lynn Greer (Temple), Chris Owens (Texas), Justin Reed (Mississippi) and Tyler Smith (Penn State) join Mason on the World University Games team.
Boland nets first assistant
New Virginia men's tennis coach Brian Boland hired his first assistant coach on Thursday. Constantine Anandias joins Boland's coaching staff after coaching at Agnes Scott College for the last two seasons. He also served at assistant tennis professional at the Anniston Country Club in Anniston, Ala. for one year before coaching Agnes Scott College.
Hole-in-1.4
Newly appointed Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage announced on Wednesday that women's golf will become Virginia's 25th varsity sport. A $1.4 million gift by alumnus William C. Eacho Jr. will help create an endowment to fund women's golf scholarships for the team to begin play during the 2003-2004 academic year.
Women's golf will become the 13th women's intercollegiate sport at the University and the seventh ACC women's golf team. The Cavaliers will play at the Birdwood Golf course. The last sport to be given varsity status was women's rowing in 1995-1996.
Eacho graduated from Virginia in 1945.
Swimming up the Yangtze
Virginia swimming and diving coach Mark Bernadino and sophomore Gary Marshall will head to Beijing, China, to compete in the 2001 World University Games, Aug. 23-28. Bernadino will serve as the head coach for the U.S. men's swimming team and Marshall will compete in the 200-meter breaststroke.
Bernadino has coached U.S. teams in international competition in each of the past two years. He also has served as an assistant coach for the 2000 men's United States National Junior team that competed in the 2000 Mare Nostrom International competition in Barcelona, Spain. Bernadino led the Cavalier men's swimming team to its third consecutive ACC title in 2001.
Marshall won a spot on the team with a sixth-place finish in the Phillips 66 National Championships on March 30. His time of 2 minutes, 16.57 seconds earned him the honor of being one of 24 male swimmers competing in the World University Games. Marshall was the ACC champion in the 100 and 200 breast, and earned first-team All-American honors with a seventh-place finish in the 200 breast in the 2001 NCAA Championships on March 24.
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