As the leaves and the temperature begin to fall in earnest this week, and parents descend on Charlottesville for Family Weekend, the athletic department thought it would be a good idea not to schedule a home football game. Why would parents want to see one of those?
Instead, parents are presented with a nice slate of volleyball games, along with a men's basketball exhibition against Roanoke College. And since the over/under on the number of parents who show up in Memorial Gym for volleyball is around 13 (I'm taking the under), I would say it's probably a safe assumption that any parent who wants to see an athletic event on Grounds will go to Saturday afternoon's basketball game in John Paul Jones Arena.
But, after the turmoil and sizable roster changes the basketball team has undergone prior to this season, you probably have no earthly idea who anyone on the team is.\nSo as a public service, I spent some time going through the team's official press packet. If you have never read one of these, they're hilarious. Whoever writes them can make the most minute thing sound incredible. Example: Sylven Landesberg is shooting .759 percent when taking a three to end the half on the road in the state of North Carolina.
All right, I made that one up. But I don't think there is a better way to learn about the team than to flip through the pages of the athletic department's "Fact Book" and learn the history and accomplishments of each contributor on the Virginia squad.
We'll start with second-year coach Tony Bennett. (To all the parents over say the age of 60, we're talking about the other Tony Bennett.) He started off his career playing for University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where he set and still holds today the NCAA record for 3-point field goal percentage. After a brief NBA career, Bennett was an assistant for his father, first at Wisconsin and then at Washington State, where he later became the head coach. According to the Fact Book, in his first season as head coach, he won a total of nine Coach of the Year awards, including the AP National Coach of the Year, the Pac-10 Coach of the Year and the Scripps National Spelling Bee Coach of the Year.
Sammy Zeglinski (Pronunciation: Zuh-glin-ski) is a junior guard who returns with the most starts from last year's team. It's only fitting that Zeglinski will be out for the first six to eight weeks of the season with a knee injury. On any other ACC team, Zeglinksi would fill the familiar role of the kid who can hit threes. Not surprisingly, Zeglinski's first stat in the guide is: "Led the team in three-point field goals made (61)."
Splitting time at the guard position with Zeglinski is senior Mustapha Farrakhan, who is actually a pretty impressive player. Biggest claim to fame: His dunk against North Carolina State was the No. 1 play on SportsCenter's Top 10 the next day.
Senior Mike Scott is the Cavaliers' resident big man. He led the team in rebounds last year and is the squad's lead returning scorer. This year, if the Cavaliers want to make any kind of run for the NCAA Tournament, Scott's going to have to be much more of the consistent leader than he's been so far.
Scott is joined in the paint by former walk-on and now-scholarship player Will Sherrill. After Bennett's arrival, Sherrill's playing time gradually increased, eventually leading to an 18-point explosion against Cleveland State. His previous career-high was three points. Sherrill is from New York City and attended Phillips Academy, Andover. That is one of those ancient, elite, pop-your-collar, my-parents-own-half-of-Manhattan boarding schools that feeds into the Ivy League. Sherrill probably has more in common with the characters on Gossip Girl than anyone else playing basketball in the ACC.
Finally, we get to the most distinctive aspect of Virginia's roster (i.e., the reason why Virginia might lose): the seven freshmen on the roster. Leading this pack of is James Johnson, a power forward rated by ESPNU as a Top 100 prospect. You've probably noticed him walking across Grounds - he's the 6-foot-9 ginger who apparently doesn't know how to keep his pants up. (I'll give you a hint, James, it's called a belt.) Add to that Will Regan, a 6-foot-8 forward who was a two-time Buffalo News Player of the Year in high school, and 6-foot-8 Akil Mitchell, a small forward from Charlotte, N.C., and you've got a pretty good base of size going forward.
Although having seven freshman on a 12-man roster doesn't really bode well for this season's record - Virginia was picked to finish 11th out of 12 teams in the ACC media poll - there's at least one thing Cavaliers fans can take solace in: Saturday afternoon, we are playing Roanoke College, an in-state rival against which there's no way we won't win.
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