Say It Is So, Joe
June 6, 2004
 If ever there was a time the Virginia baseball team needed its best player to rise to the occasion, it was Saturday afternoon. On the brink of being bounced out of their own NCAA regional, on the verge of having their dream season end in terrible disappointment, the Cavaliers called on Joe Koshansky.
And, boy, did he deliver.
The ACC player of the year pitched a complete game and blasted a two-run homer as UVa ousted George Mason, 7-2, in the losers’ bracket game at Davenport Field. Maybe it was just a temporary reprieve for the still-shaky Cavs, who fell to Princeton earlier in the day, but Koshansky made sure things wouldn’t end on his watch.
“When you play baseball, you’ve got to live for these situations,” he said.
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From Underdogs to Favorites: A Tricky Transition
June 3, 2004
Throughout the regular season, little was expected of the Virginia baseball team, and the Cavaliers used that perceived disrespect as motivation. Think we’ll finish seventh in the ACC? Think we’ll be mediocre again? Think we don’t have enough talent to win?
Well, we’ll show you.
That underdog mentality provided a psychological edge for the Cavs as they won 42 of 53 games, topped the conference standings most of the spring (eventually finishing second) and set all kinds of school records.
But right now, heading into the NCAA tournament, their advantage may be gone. As first-year UVa coach Brian O’Connor said the other day, “We’re not sneaking up on anybody anymore, that’s for sure.”
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"Mr. Lacrosse" Leaves Lasting Legacy
June 2, 2004
 Doyle Smith always seemed to be the least likely person to make a giant impact in sports. Even before he contracted Parkinson's disease, which finally cost him his life early Tuesday morning, he was slight of build, admittedly unathletic and afraid of physical contact.
In fact, the only reason he got involved in keeping lacrosse stats while at Johns Hopkins was to avoid playing the game. Lacrosse, after all, was mandatory for male students at the university back in the early '60s. “Self-defense,” he called his decision to become team manager rather than pick up a stick.
But from that cowardly choice came a life and a career of extraordinary influence and courage.
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Nice Job, Julie Myers
May 21, 2004
 Given what Brian O’Connor (baseball) and Brian Boland (men’s tennis) have accomplished this spring, it’s been easy to overlook another outstanding job by a Virginia coach – Julie Myers.
Unlike O’Connor and Boland, who have taken mediocre programs to new heights, Myers has her women’s lacrosse team back in its customary spot: the Final Four this weekend in Princeton, N.J. It is the fifth time the Cavaliers have advanced this far in Myers’ nine years as head coach, but considering the circumstances, this may be her best work.
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A Black Eye for Virginia Football?
May 3, 2004
 An old college friend in New York called the other day, wondering what the heck was going on. All he heard was that a UVa football player had been shot and three other Cavaliers had been arrested. Which goes to show how easily -- and unfairly -- a program’s reputation can become tarnished.
I don’t pretend to know all the details about the incident that occurred at Hench Dormitory last Wednesday, but it doesn’t take much knowledge of the situation to conclude that the football players did not do anything egregiously wrong.
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Quarterbacks Get Passing Grade -- Barely
April 17, 2004
 Virginia coach Al Groh said he wanted to see how all of his quarterback candidates handled themselves in the spring game before settling on a depth chart at the position. Based on Saturday’s play, it’s clear who should be the Cavs’ starting QB next season.
Wali Lundy.
For UVa fans, it had to be at least somewhat discouraging that a tailback threw the only touchdown pass. None of the four guys who actually played quarterback distinguished himself on a day in which the defense dominated.
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Get Rid of Gillen? Not So Fast
April 6, 2004
For my first column as the Sabre’s new editor, I thought about writing about something innocuous, like the improvement of the baseball and tennis programs, or how the Cavaliers have looked during spring practice. But why ease into this job? Might as well jump in headfirst and tackle the big question of the moment: Should UVa have gotten rid of Gillen?
To many fans -- and, no doubt, some administrators and donors -- the answer was obvious: Heck, yes.
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One Idiot’s ACC Football Preview
April 2, 2004
Since January, I’ve been poring over depth charts and recruiting rankings. I’ve been studying game film of last season. I’ve visited the spring practices of all 11 ACC teams, and I’ve sat down with the coaches to get their opinion on the upcoming season. I’ve been hanging out with Marques Hagans to gain some insight on who will be Virginia’s quarterback, and I’ve been conducting stadium grass tests to determine which has the best traction. After two months of 80-hour weeks and barely talking to my family, I’ve come up with “Michael Gillespie’s Ridiculously Early, Comprehensive, and Completely Accurate 2004 ACC Football Predictions.”
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The Ball is in Littlepage's Court
March 24, 2004
Here we are at the end of yet another up and down season of Virginia basketball, in the unfortunate situation where the fans are forced to discuss why the team lost in the second round of the NIT, instead of going over the possibilities of an upcoming matchup in the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament. Instead of moving the Cavaliers through everyone’s NCAA tournament brackets, fans discuss whether or not the program needs a change at the top. And possibly just as important, who might be brought in to bestow a positive change on a program that has been telling its fans to “wait until next year” for the past three seasons.
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Why We Hate Duke
March 19, 2004
Everyone has that one friend who’s a Duke basketball fan. He doesn’t live in North Carolina. His family members didn’t attend Duke. He has absolutely no reason to follow Duke. And yet, he does. And he’s cocky. And he says that you’re jealous, that you hate Duke because they win all the time, and you can’t stand their success.
Little does he know.
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J.R. Reynolds: Smokin’
March 18, 2004
If there was any doubt about J.R. Reynolds’ inclusion on the All-ACC Rookie team when the squad was announced one week ago, the freshman guard has taken care of that. After setting new career highs in consecutive games with 18 and 20 points in ACC Tournament games against Clemson and Duke, Reynolds scored 17 points to lead Virginia over George Washington, 79-66, in the first round of the National Invitational Tournament.
Reynolds logged a career-high 35 minutes and connected on 6-of-11 shots, including 4-of-8 from long range. It appeared to be Reynolds’ night early, when his first three-point attempt hit off of the rim, went high into the air, and landed softly inside the front rim before dropping through the hole. The freshman would add eight more first half-points, including a pair of three-pointers late in the first half to push the Cavalier lead to fifteen.
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The Basketball Diaries, Part 2
March 11, 2004
Well, for better or for worse, the regular season is over. Here are some more thoughts on the season overall.
Net results? The overall feeling of the fan base seems to be that 2003-04 was a disappointing season with an extremely exciting three-week streak near the end. I think it is certainly possible, though, to take some positives from the year.
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The Basketball Diaries, Part 1
March 6, 2004
It’s been a season full of ups and downs, of varying opinions and tense debate, of buyouts, buzzer beaters, and bubbles. Regardless of the outcomes of the games, it’s been one of the more interesting Virginia basketball seasons in recent memory. So, here’s the first installment of a season’s worth of thoughts on the Virginia basketball team.
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Hardwood Hoos #8: Loosened-up Cavs Start Winning
March 5, 2004
When Elton Brown proclaimed that the University of Virginia’s NCAA Tournament chances were far from dead in early February, following their fourth straight loss in the ACC, there were plenty of genius’ out there, including this one, snickering at the comment. How, after all, was this Cavalier team finally going to win down the stretch in the ACC during February and early March, when it couldn’t even win in January? With the late swoons of the Gillen era fresh in the mind of fans and writers, the thought was preposterous, to the point of amusement. Only now, no one seems to be laughing anymore.
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Hardwood Hoos #3: Reynolds Steps Up
January 29, 2004
After two ACC home wins put the Cavaliers back into the middle of the conference pack, Pete Gillen and company had to feel somewhat confident heading into Dean Dome on Saturday afternoon. While wins against Clemson and Florida State certainly shouldn’t have given them any kind of overconfidence, Virginia was obviously intent on coming out strong and staying with the loaded Heels, and they did just that.
While they let it get away from them in the second half, and a loss is a loss, there were quite a few positive pieces to be taken from the game. And at the same time, there were problems evident that have given the Cavaliers fits on the road throughout the Gillen tenure.
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Hardwood Hoos #2: Defense Improves, Rebounding Still Ailing
January 22, 2004
The Virginia basketball program got a little good news over the past couple of days, as they finally picked up their first two wins in ACC play. While it is safe to say that two wins over teams at the bottom of the ACC standings should not get the Cavaliers and their fans overly excited, holding both teams to under 32 percent from the field should encourage the fans, no matter who it comes against.
In this space last week, I said that the Cavaliers would have to find a semblance of a defense if they hoped to compete in the ACC. They didn’t quite make it for the Georgia Tech game, as they allowed the Yellow Jackets to hit 46 percent of their shots. They did pick it up for their next two “must win” home games against the likes of Clemson and Florida State.
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Hardwood Hoos #1: Searching for Defense
January 14, 2004
After their loss to No. 2 Duke on Sunday night, Virginia has started its conference season much like it has every other year under head coach Pete Gillen. Unfortunately for fans, that means that the Cavaliers are once again forced to work from the bottom up in the ACC standings. While Gillen’s team wasn’t exactly handed a favorable early season schedule, as his team began against N.C. State and Duke before now traveling to Georgia Tech, the first two losses have been by 17+ points in both contests.
“We’ve got to focus on Georgia Tech,” Devin Smith said after the loss to Duke. “We can’t let [our start in the ACC] affect us when we play that game. We just have to be ready to come out down there and play well and get a win. It’s going to all start with defense. We’ve got to play better defense.”
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2003 Virginia Tech Game Analysis: Aggressive Attitude Gets it Done
December 3, 2003
In the biggest game of the season, and arguably of Groh’s career, the Virginia Cavaliers finally got over the hump against Virginia Tech, as they beat them in all phases of the game. It was one of those classic rivalry games, where it appeared the momentum would switch on almost every play. At some points, it appeared as if the game would turn around, only to have a penalty get in the way for either team.
The Cavaliers saved their best defensive performance for the last, and possibly most important, game of the season, as they shut down Kevin Jones and limited what Bryan Randall was able to do on Saturday.
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Hoos Up Close: The Virginia Tech Game
December 1, 2003
For the second straight week, UVa played and coached with a definitive “playoff” purpose, using a festive home field crowd to help carry them to a critical 14-point win over in-state rival Virginia Tech. Many believed prior to the game that making and preventing big plays would be the keys to UVa producing a win against the Hokies. The Wahoos created their opportunities with aggressive play calling and received outstanding performances from an assortment of different players. The results ended UVa’s four-game losing streak to VT, returned the Commonwealth Cup to Mr. Jefferson’s grounds, and placed the ‘Hoos in Charlotte’s Continental Tire Bowl for the second straight year.
Of equal importance, it sends a message loud and clear to top in-state high school prospects that Frank Beamer and his coaching staff must do some serious re-evaluation of the direction of their program. This win helps the Virginia Cavalier program under Al Groh finally rid itself of the over-hyped Hokie presence and provides them the kind of equal footing on the recruiting trail they have sought since taking over after the 2000 season.
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Hoos Up Close: The Georgia Tech Game
November 25, 2003
With their backs against the wall after four consecutive ACC loses and the prospects of a less than adequate season looming, Al Groh rallied his young Virginia team to a decisive 12-point win over Georgia Tech.
This game was more critical than many wanted to discuss. A loss would have relegated the Wahoos to 6th or 7th in the league. Regardless of how any UVa loyalist would want to spin it, the perception would clearly have been a step back for a program that came into the season with higher expectations. It would have certainly made the staff’s sales message for top prospective recruits less attractive when competing against the upper tier programs.
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2003 Georgia Tech Game Analysis: Defense Returns
November 24, 2003
When it mattered the most, the Virginia defense was up to the challenge in Saturday’s game against Georgia Tech. For two straight weeks the defense had been one of the biggest reasons that the Cavaliers had lost two in a row on the road, and if they hoped to become bowl eligible before the Virginia Tech game, the defense would have to play well. Needless to say, they certainly did as they went on to beat the Yellow Jackets 29-17.
In only allowing 10 points on the day, as seven came on a Georgia Tech punt return, the defense was able to keep the ACC’s leading rusher in check after struggling against T.A. McLendon and getting blasted by Josh Allen. Georgia Tech's P.J. Daniels, who ran for 200+ yards against North Carolina the week before, was held to 76 total yards on 18 carries, which was one of the Cavaliers' biggest keys coming into the game.
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Two for the Road
November 21, 2003
And so it comes down to this.
Seven long months of the off-season - full of workouts and practices for the team, and full of anxiety and expectation for the fans - have passed. So too have nearly three months of the season itself, complete with college football’s usual unpredictable outcomes and dominating performances. And after all of that, after nearly ten months, two practice seasons and ten live games, the state of the Virginia program may very well come down to just…two…games.
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Hoos Up Close: The Maryland Game
November 17, 2003
Maryland used a Thursday night national stage to rip off a game-deciding 17 second quarter points in route to a 10-point win over the Wahoos. Once again, UVa experienced numerous defensive breakdowns and poor tackling exhibitions that helped to propel UMD backup running back Josh Allen to a 257-yard rushing jewel on 38 workhorse carries. The loss drops the ‘Hoos below .500 in the league and all but assures them of a lower tier finish in the ACC.
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The Top 5 Reasons I’m Looking Forward to Virginia Basketball
November 13, 2003
It’s basketball season (almost). So let’s skip the intro and get right to los cinco superiores...
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A Game of 27
November 6, 2003
Twenty-seven.
That’s the number of games the Virginia men’s basketball team will play this year. Twenty-seven contests, starting November 23rd, at home against Mount St. Mary’s.
For Pete Gillen - whether he wants to concern himself with it or not - they are more than just twenty-seven games. They’re twenty-seven auditions. Twenty-seven interviews. Twenty-seven chances to keep his job.
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