The departure of star point guard Sean Singletary leaves a significant void for the Virginia men’s basketball team that a nucleus of young players — oscillating between flashes of potential and inexperience — will fill together.
The Virginia men’s basketball team opens the season this Sunday against VMI at John Paul Jones Arena, where it posted a 13-7 record last year. As has been the theme throughout the preseason, defense will be key against VMI; though the Keydets have posted no better than a .500 record the past two seasons, they led Division I in scoring both years with 100.9 points per game in 2006 and 91.3 points per game in 2007. Because the high-flying Keydets are looking to give the Big South Conference a victory against a major basketball conference, the season opener will be a chance for Virginia coach Dave Leitao to assess Virginia’s defensive progress.
Leitao “talks about communication every day in practice,” sophomore guard Jeff Jones said. “That’s what’s going to win games — defense.”
The exhibition game against Division II opponent Shepherd (W.Va.) last Sunday featured both highs and lows. Though the Cavaliers won handily 87-52, sloppy play slowed the game at times, particularly in the first half. Because Virginia struggled defensively last season, giving up an average of 74.8 points per game — second worst in the conference — defense will take priority through the early season. Leitao said he was happy with the defense Sunday.
“My mindset has been to do a better job defensively at every stage all season long,” Leitao said. “I pretty much thought that we did that.”
Leitao has also been tinkering with the rotation, as seen by his decision to start sophomore guard Mustapha Farrakhan and have Jones — who started 25 games last season — come off the bench.
“I thought this was an opportunity to give Farrakhan the first look to see how he would react to it,” Leitao said. “I thought he did pretty well.”
After coming in, Jones got off to a hot start, scoring 18 points off 6-12 shooting, including 3-6 from the 3-point line, which the NCAA lengthened by a foot to 20 feet, 9 inches. Jones said he is more than willing to make the sacrifice of coming off the bench if necessary.
“We talked briefly about [Jones not starting],” Leitao said. “It’s a really good option that you have that kind of spark coming off the bench, if that is the mentality that he’s comfortable with.”
Coming to Charlottesville with star potential, freshman guard Sylven Landesberg, after a rocky first half, finished the game with 13 points and four assists, also shooting 7-10 from the free-throw line. Landesberg showed that he can play both sides of the ball, particularly in the open court.
“He can score, but he can also be very unselfish,” Leitao said. “When you do that, you have a tendency to stuff a stat sheet pretty well.”
Landesberg’s time on the court evidences the youth movement in Virginia men’s basketball at the moment; of the seven players who saw more than 18 minutes Sunday, six were either freshmen or sophomores.
“Everybody’s got to play ahead,” said redshirt freshman guard Sammy Zeglinski, who dished out six assists in his first return to action at JPJ since suffering a season-ending injury at the beginning of last season.
“The freshman have to play like sophomores, sophomores have to play like juniors because we’re so young,” Zeglinski said.
Two upperclassmen who should see more time as the season progresses are sidelined by injury: Junior forward Jamil Tucker returned for the game against Shepherd after suffering a shoulder injury during preseason practices, and junior guard Calvin Baker continues to work through a stress fracture. Doctors have cleared him to play, however, and he started as point guard against Shepherd, though he looked “a little bit choppy,” Leitao said.
This squad presents a new era of Virginia basketball, as well as a new year and even new uniforms. If the young team can work together and Leitao can drill solid defensive principles that were absent last season, there might be a few surprises in store for Virginia basketball fans.
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