Dear Old U.Va.

The Starting Five

Monday, November 10 2008 by Tiki

Thanks for the kind words, Ben.  He did a great job with the bench.  I will handle the starters.  I apologize in advance for the lack of humor; Ben is a much better writer than I am.  They don’t teach us engineers how to write English.  I’m going to handle these from 1 to 5.  If you don’t know, that means starting with the smaller players and moving to the bigger players.  Point guard is 1, and center is 5.

For the 5th consecutive year, we will be opening the season with a point guard from The William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia.  Unfortunately, this year’s PG is not a preseason All-America candidate.  Singletary scored more than a quarter of our points last year, and dominated the ball as much as anybody in the country.  Sammy Zeglinski does not need to do all that.  He just needs to be solid with the ball, and show the ability to make a jumper now and then.  His biggest job will be defensively, having to guard all the PGs the ACC has to offer. 

At shooting guard, we’ve got our only real “known”.  Senior Mamadi Diane will start and will give us the same thing he has for the past couple of years.  Namely solid perimeter defense and good shooting.  A season ago, Diane took almost half his shots from behind the arc, and made over 40% of those.  It was easy with defenses paying so much attention to Singletary.  Without that threat on the ball, Diane will not be able to spot up as easily.  He will have to prove he can do a little bit more that just shoot jumpers.  And maybe he can learn how to dribble along the way. 

The new name among the starters is McDonald’s All American Sylven Landesberg, who is expected to start at 3.  He will, however, see time at both guard spots as well.  Landesberg played high school ball at Holy Cross in Queens NY.  Hopefully, he can fulfill his promise a bit more than the last Burger Boy we had from Holy Cross, Willie Dersch (pictured, courtesy gettyimages.com).   Ask me about Willie some time, I’ve got some stories.

In the frontcourt, we start sophomore Mike Scott and 5th year senior Tunji Soroye.  Upon his return from an ankle injury midway through the season, Scott was forced to play out of position at center, due to injuries and overall lack of depth.  Despite being undersized, Scott held his own.  His rebound rate led the team, as did his FT rate.  He has the ability to step out and hit a jumper, as well as having a solid post game.  Because he had to guard much bigger players, he was overmatched at times defensively, although he did show good instincts on the weakside. 

Soroye is returning for his 5th year after being granted a medical hardship waiver.  Soroye has never shown much ability to score, and frankly despite being 7 feet tall has never been much on the glass either.  However, the one thing Soroye does, he does very well.  He blocks everything in reach.  And even when he doesn’t get there, he is a presence inside, allowing the perimeter defenders to take more chances.  Still, the most important thing Soroye will do this season is teach the younger big men how to play in the ACC, and how to be comfortable at UVA.  He will start game one, but likely will not be starting once ACC play begins.  Sene and  Brandenburg both have a lot more potential, and just need some seasoning. 

Addendum – It appears as though the reports of Calvin Baker being out for the season were too hasty.  Baker started at PG in the exhibition opener and played 14 minutes.  Baker made the Colonial Athletic Association All Rookie team at William & Mary before transferring to Virginia prior to the 2006-2007 season, which he was forced to miss due to transfer rules.  Last year was his first as a Hoo, and he started at shooting guard 8 times as well as backing up Mr. All America at the point.  Look for Baker to again see time at both backcourt positions, though he will be the primary ballhandler more often.  He will need to work on his handle and his passing, as his assist to turnover ratio was poor.  Also, if he expects to be handling the ball late in close games, he needs to work on his FT shooting.  Still if he is truly healthy, it is good news for a team that does not have another established PG.