And, to that end, Virginia coach Dave Leitao has zeroed in on Mychal Parker — a silky-smooth wing player who just so happens to be playing at the nearby Miller School this year.

On Monday, a source told The Daily Progress that Virginia has a legitimate shot of reeling in one of the jewels of the 2009 class — Renardo Sidney, a 6-foot-10, 250-pounder out of Los Angeles’ Fairfax Senior High.

Heading into this season, it was widely assumed that Virginia would start Jeff Jones, Sammy Zeglinski or Sylven Landesberg in the backcourt alongside Calvin Baker.

A former basketball player at Maryland and later at Purdue, France has seen her share of quality programs and was certainly drinking the Cavalier Kool-Aid moments after her DT3 squad dropped an exhibition game to Virginia 91-77.

Tonight in an exhibition against DT3 at John Paul Jones at 7 p.m., the new and improved Mohammed and the 15th-ranked Cavaliers will be on display.

Jayna Hartig, now considered a redshirt sophomore, is back and hopeful of contributing to the Cavaliers, who learned Saturday that they will enter the season ranked No. 15 in the country.

The challenge of replacing point guard Sharnee Zoll suddenly appears quite a bit more daunting.

Well, maybe this year’s strain of injury virus won’t be as vicious as some Virginia basketball fans feared.

At ACC Media Day on Sunday, Virginia — to nobody’s surprise — was picked to finish dead last (12th) in the conference.

North Carolina was the preseason pick to claim its fifth straight league title, receiving 15 of 42 first-place votes by the ACC’s panel of reporters and school representatives in voting results released during the league’s media day.

Toward the end of practice on Saturday afternoon at John Paul Jones Arena, Virginia coach Dave Leitao decided it was time to see what his players were really made of.

In the blink of an eye, Debbie Ryan watched as 10 players raced from one end of the practice court to the other and back.

“We’re OK. We’re not 100 percent,“ Virginia coach Dave Leitao said.

Not too many people would have wanted to be in Jim Hobgood’s shoes on a December afternoon in Puerto Rico nearly two years ago.

CBS Outdoor and Virginia Sports Properties, the multi-media rights partner of the University of Virginia athletics department, announced Wednesday that former UVa point guard Cory Alexander will serve as analyst with play-by-play announcer Dave Koehn on Virginia broadcasts during the 2008-09 men’s basketball season.

Virginia’s radio crew for men’s basketball this season will have a completely new look. Courtney Alexander, who played basketball at UVa and in the NBA, has been hired to replace long-time announcer Jim Hobgood.

Having the nation’s second-best recruiting class, as ranked by one national service, has that type of impact on a coach.

China Crosby, who is from Manhattan, N.Y., and rated as the nation’s second-best point guard in the Class of 2009, verbally committed Saturday to Virginia during an official visit, her coach confirmed.

While she can’t hear everything that her teammates can, Britny Edwards, a rookie on the Virginia women’s basketball team, is of the opinion that she is not different.

Virginia basketball coach Dave Leitao announced Wednesday that Tim Mein has been named assistant director of operations/video coordinator for the UVa men’s basketball program.

Contests with 15 postseason participants, including the defending champions of the NCAA Tournament and the WNIT, highlight a 30-game schedule that opens at John Paul Jones Arena on Nov. 14 with High Point.

“When I found out [12] days ago, it was a really sad situation,” Mikalauskas said. “I felt terrible, but at the same time I’m excited to become a professional now.”

On Wednesday, former Virginia forward Lars Mikalauskas told The Daily Progress that he has given up hope of returning to the program.

UVa’s most notable non-conference games are back-to-back road affairs. The Cavaliers play at Syracuse the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 28), then travel to take on Minnesota in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge four days later (Dec. 2).

Less than three months into his NBA career, former University of Virginia standout Sean Singletary is with his third team.

On Thursday, big man Lars Mikalauskas made his first public comments since Monday’s announcement that he had been booted from the Virginia basketball team. As Mikalauskas talked during a brief interview, one thing was obvious — he was still in shock.

“I was extremely sorry to hear about the situation with Lars,” said Ryan Pettinella, speaking by phone from Italy. “He was a good friend and a great teammate.”

On Tuesday, a day after UVa coach Dave Leitao announced that Mikalauskas would no longer be a member of the program, sources told The Daily Progress that “The Pride of Lithuania” planned to return to the states early next week and go through an appeals process with the university. The exact nature of his appeal is not known.

On Monday evening, UVa coach Dave Leitao officially issued Lars Mikalauskas his walking papers.

The Virginia men’s basketball team has an absolute steal in Tristan Spurlock, who committed to the program late Wednesday night.