FMS hoops coach on WKAV
Fishburne Military School postgrad basketball coach Ed Huckaby joins
WKAV-1400′s “The Mac McDonald Show” to talk about the signing by UVa.
of FMS point guard Teven Jones.
FMS point guard enrolling early at UVa.
Bad news for Fishburne, good news for UVa. basketball: Star point guard Teven Jones is enrolling at the University of Virginia this week and will join the UVa. basketball program as a redshirt freshman.
“I really want to thank everybody here at Fishburne for the opportunities that I’ve been given. This is a big day for me. Everybody dreams of going to college, and now that day is here for me,” said Jones, a postgraduate student from Kannapolis, N.C., who signed a letter of intent with UVa. in November.
FMS postgrad coach Ed Huckaby initiated the move after news broke over the holidays that the 16th-ranked Cavaliers were losing a pair of second-year players, guard KT Harrell and center James Johnson, both of whom decided to transfer at the end of the first semester of the 2011-2012 school year. Read more
FMS PGs lose thriller
With UVa. head coach Tony Bennett watching, top recruit Teven Jones tried to lead a Fishburne comeback against rival Massanutten Military Academy, but the rally came up short as the Colonels held on for a 101-95 win Saturday night.
Jones had 19 of his 22 points in the second half against a possible future Virginia teammate. MMA point guard Corban Collins has become a subject of interest on the University of Virginia recruiting radar, and if there is interest by Bennett and his staff in Collins, that interest would have only been stoked after the 6’3″, 190-pounder threw down 37 points, including the biggest points of the game at the 4:05 mark on a three-point play that broke an 82-82 tie.
A Terry Brutus stickback at the 3:34 mark made it 87-82 MMA, and it was 89-86 Massanutten with 2:30 to go when Jones missed the front end of a one-and-one. Another Brutus post bucket made it 91-86 MMA, and Jones missed two free throws after being fouled on a drive in the lane.
Collins made one of two free throws to extend the lead to 92-86, and Brutus scored on a stickback after rebounding the missed second free throw and was fouled. The three-point play made it 95-86 Massanutten with 41 seconds to go, and Fishburne never got closer than five after that.
Spencer Parker (a Bowling Green signee) had 20 points and Mo Camera (a Winston-Salem State signee) added 16 points for Fishburne, which falls to 10-3 on the season with the loss.
Revolving door
Another postseason, another revolving door for Tony Bennett, who this week saw the departure of one of the members of his heralded freshman class with Will Regan’s announcement that he will not be returning for his sophomore season.
Another perspective you could have is that at least Bennett is only losing one guy this spring – after the high-profile departures of Sylven Landesberg, Jeff Jones and Tristan Spurlock following Bennett’s first season in Charlottesville in 2010. Read more
Regan leaving UVa.
Virginia men’s head basketball coach Tony Bennett announced on Tuesday that freshman forward Will Regan (Williamsville, N.Y.) is leaving the Cavaliers’ program.
“We wish Will the best,” Bennett said. “He expressed a desire to be closer to home and find a situation that he felt suited him better. Transfers are an increasing part of college basketball today and I hope things work out well for Will. We appreciate his contributions to our program.” Read more
What’s going on in Charlottesville?
The bloom was already off the Tony Bennett rose before the news that another underclassman was leaving the Virginia basketball program. Last year it was freshman Tristan Spurlock, sophomore Sylven Landesberg and junior Jeff Jones. This year it’s Billy Baron, who unlike last year’s departees doesn’t have the distinction of having been a holdover from the Dave Leitao era.
Baron, a 6-3 shooting guard, was a prized recruit who scored 19 points in his collegiate debut in November, a win over William and Mary in which Baron went 5-for-6 from three-point range. He scored 14 his next game out in a win over USC-Upstate, and then proceeded to play his way onto the bench before announcing on Feb. 3 that he was transferring to Rhode Island, where his father, Jim, is the head coach.
The move puzzled Virginia basketball observers as much as Baron’s diminished minutes. Baron registered DNP’s in five of his last nine games at UVa., and in his last appearance, a 68-42 blowout home loss to Maryland on Jan. 27, Baron played eight minutes and was 0-for-1 from the field with a turnover.
So Bennett is now down another potential team leader – a source close to the program told the Washington Post that Baron was being looked at as a leader down the line for the heralded six-recruit freshman class – in addition to being just 13-21 since a 14-6 start to his first season that ended with the Cavs dropping 10 of their last 11.
The 2010-2011 ‘Hoos swooned sooner – rolling out to an 8-3 start that included wins at Minnesota and Virginia Tech and dropping eight of their last 12 with a narrow win over Norfolk State and bad losses at home to Seattle and Iowa State and an ACC nadir last weekend at previously-winless-in-the-ACC Wake Forest.
At some point soon, Bennett is going to have to figure out a way to get a winning team together – that wants to stay together.
Column by Chris Graham. More UVa. sports at VaSportsOnline.com.
Selection Sunday: What it all means
Posted by afp on March 13, 2011 · Leave a Comment
OK, so ACC teams don’t get to play the likes of Georgia State in January and February. That said, the Committee has made it clear that it expects power-conference teams to play more challenging nonconference schedules than Seth Greenberg likes to put together.
That much should have been clear to Greenberg a while ago, but, well, here we go again. I think Tech had clearly played its way into the field this year (as I had thought last year), but the message has been sent. Read more
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with College Basketball, college basketball virginia, george mason, ncaa virginia tech, nit, odu, old dominion, richmond, selection sunday, seth greenberg, tony bennett, ur, uva. basketball, vcu