C - Coman, 1B - Smith, 2B - Clement, 3B - Karstetter, SS - Pinero, LF = Doherty, CF - Haseley, RF - Dozier, and DH - Thaiss. He has Jones, Haseley, and Doyle as starting pitcher and Bettinger as relief pitcher.
This is a reasonable guess, but I would not be surprised to see Doherty replaced by another first year.

With the way UVa played Ohio State, Villanova, West Va, and Cal (this one wasn't great but great finish), does anyone think that we may actually play better the more marquee our road opponent is? I know we should bring it every night but since so many are assuming road doom from losing to two lesser teams on the road I thought maybe this was worth pondering. I think the intensity and focus may grow with the name on the jersey. If so, we will play better at Louisville, Duke, Pitt and Miami. I don't think the way they played in those two losses can automatically be applied to tough road opponents. I also think UVa wins a hard fought game Sunday. FSU may take a few leads but I see our team pulling it out by 5-9 points.

Huff stood tall, in more ways than one, last night in Voyagers Academy's 80 - 61 win over Roxboro. He scored 28 points and pulled down 20 rebounds. For the year he is averaging 17.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 6.4 blocks.

Chris Long tweeted the city of St Louis with the following (classy),

"Humbly, eternally gratefully: Thank you St. Louis. I'm sorry we fell short the past 8 years. You treated me like family anyways. I love y'all"

Someone started a thread the other day about how our players and coaches need to watch Duke and how hard, passionately they play, no matter the opponent. Trust me, I am not knocking that poster, but I watched the first chance I got, and, well, they seemed like UVa last week. This league will be fun to watch this year!!! ( whoever posted that, this was absolutely no shot at you, just saying the road is tough in the ACC, and everyone has those games....except us the last 2 years)

Just wanted to post a quick note that the switch has been flipped and our new front page is now live. Take a look for yourself here: CavsCorner.com.

Personally, I think the new look is very clean and from an admin standpoint, it's like night and day in terms of what we can do with content. And just so you know, this is just version 1.0. There will be a lot of improvements and tweaks coming on what we've launched.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me.

With the dead period being over yesterday, any rumblings on players Mendenhall and his staff will be focusing on to fill some gaps/needs? Hopefully Brad's great War Room coming tomorrow will provide some scoop.

It's been a topic of conversation on the board and a sometimes heated discussion during the London years.

A lot of schools don't invite some 5th year guys back to clear room for younger guys or let them play somewhere else. Would you want a 5th year guy around if he can't crack the lineup in 4 years? I think it depends on the kid, but imo if you're good you won't be around for that year. Thoughts? Because even if Bronco RS guys more (I see both sides, we need younger speed when we can get it, but some positions depending on depth need the weight room and to sit vs. wasting a year), better management of that should solve that problem.

I just see schools more and more letting older guys go who aren't performing to clear space. UVA needs talent no matter if it's a freshman or a developed third or fourth year guy. This will be a little different for Bronco because he won't have guys leaving for Mormon missions.

but tonight is an example of how much parity is in CBB this year. Maryland and Kansas lost on the road. Iowa st. losing to Texas, as well. We have been good on the road the last couple of years, but other teams in the conference have gotten better. We do however, need to bring more intensity defensively on the road. As they say defense travels. We should get used to teams getting up to play a highly ranked team like us.

Is there any news on the possibility of us still getting Michael Porter in 2017? Any update or whispers?

I know it is next to impossible to connect all of the dots as to why we started off struggling in the ACC. You have the FOM, you have the losses of Anderson and Atkins, you have the possible variable that the bottom of the ACC is getting better, and you have a tougher OOC schedule. I do not profess to knowing exactly which one is more responsible for our 2-2 ACC start or how to slice it up percentage wise. What I am throwing out for discussion is, do you think the tougher OOC schedule has sapped UVa of some energy come ACC time? Did focusing on such challenges as Villanova, Cal, Ohio State, West Virginia, and on the road at GW, cause a letting up come ACC time? We have seen a general slip in energy since the Cal game. Finally, what trade would you make? Would you trade a less marquee ( not going to say easier because last year's OOC was rated high, just had less marquee names on it) OOC schedule in order to maybe go into ACC more fresh and undefeated or would you rather have this type of schedule even if it costs UVa some expended energy resulting in a couple unexpected ACC losses thinking that come NCAAt time the results would be paid back. I realize we probably need more info to answer these questions, namely how does UVa perform the rest of the year and in the tourney? I am just wondering if what we saw against VT and GT was partially a result of having to get up for so many name OOC teams and you just can't keep it going unless you are so physically gifted like Kentucky was last year?

I was just looking at the final scores for the past football season, and one thing stood out to me. For all of our complaints about the offense, and I was one of those complaining, our defense may have actually been worse. The fewest points we gave up to any team was the 21 Georgia Tech scored in what may have been out best defensive game. We gave up 29 to Bill and Mary, 34 to Duke, 38 to Syracuse, and 56 to Boise. None of these teams would be considered a national power.
With the return of our QB, a couple of very good running backs, and a half dozen injured offensive linemen, our offense should be decent again this year. In order to improve our record, we have to show a better defense. It is hard to believe that we could not be better.

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Following No. 13 UVa's 66-58 win over No. 8 Miami, senior forward Anthony Gill talked about the victory over the Hurricanes but also too the way the Cavaliers were able to break their two-game ACC losing streak, get back to playing their brand of basketball, and why that's such a big focus for the team and coaching staff going forward.

In the latest installment of the CavsCorner Podcast, the crew breaks down UVa's loss in Atlanta and its win over Miami and tries to answer the question of where exactly the Wahoos are right now as the thick of ACC play approaches. We take a look at the rotation, the team's defense, the challenges Virginia faces in trying to be as good on that end of the floor as the Hoos have been in the past, and we look ahead to the upcoming slate of games in a league that looks to be even tougher to win.

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Duke in a close one at Clempsun! Lots of fouls on Duke, and K is beside himself that he is not getting very call as he is used to getting. 9+ to go. ACC is tough all over this year.

It has been 74 games since Virginia last lost back to back games (Wisconsin, Wisconsin GB). That's over two calendar years without dropping two straight. This was a tough and confusing week of basketball -- questions from TB's subbing patterns to our Seniors' heart to the team's collective will or interest in the game. Adversity is a good thing. And with a tough game coming against Miami, the skid may even hit L3. But the season is not lost. In fact, the regular season is only half over. For those with memories that don't stretch past last Monday, this same team we're declaring flat-lined after today has beaten Villanova, California, and West Virginia within the past month. I'm the first in line to amen everyone's suggestions that we need to rebound better, shore up rotations, see those not named LP, MB, or AG be more effective on offense, etc. But, it's early January. Areas to improve are to be expected. Sure, they seem more glaring today than they did after a great performance against ND last Saturday. But let's take a collective breath. These next few months are going to be fun to watch. We have a highly talented and experienced team and a highly effective coach. Growth will happen with a tough ACC schedule. Hopefully enough growth to give the team momentum come March to make some noise.

Trust the process.

this or any year. Alabama won because of special teams play - long returns and recovery of an onside kick.

You need a little bit of everything but in what seemed to be a desire to get more scoring and shooters, possibly an important cog had been ignored for a cycle or two. Neither Akil Mitchell nor Darion Atkins were highly rated recruits coming out of high school. Darion had some better offers, the most prevalent of them being Notre Dame. They weren't the shiny new toys like the ones we will be getting next year but they ended up being next to indispensable in making UVa an elite team. For Tony's system to work at optimal efficiency, he needs that quick and agile defensive post presence and there has been a gap in recruiting such player. I am not sure Wilkins really fills that role but it will likely be next season before he makes that leap. Akil had a good junior and senior year, Darion a good senior season. It doesn't happen overnight which is why it is important to keep the pipeline stocked. Diakite may eventually fill the role but we shouldn't expect him to do so in his first live season. I think this has become painfully obvious and it will be real interesting to see what recruiting looks like going forward. I am hoping to see the pipeline filled where guys can seamlessly step into this role.

I haven't heard of a specific time of when they're actually flipping the switch but the site redesign will launch either late tonight or early tomorrow.

When it does, you'll notice that our front page as well as content pages will look different, though I've been using the new digs for content items for a few weeks now so that part won't be as "new" to you guys as it might to others across the network. It's also a responsive design, which means that our content will (finally) render correctly regardless of which device you're using to access the site (desktop, iPad, iPhone, etc).

I'm not sure if we'll see any downtime or what potential issues the network might have so if over the next 12 hours or so the front page is acting funny, don't panic. As always, my email is open for folks who have questions.

Any info that gets passed on to me will get posted here.

Thanks in advance for your patience.