Brown comes to town

By Whitey Reid

Published: January 6, 2009

One of the positives in the aftermath of Virginia’s ugly 84-70 home loss to Xavier on Saturday was that nobody seemed to give up. Several UVa players took solace in the fact that even after they got down by 28, everybody kept plugging.

Since Virginia hasn’t even gotten into the meat of its ACC schedule (which includes the likes of North Carolina and Duke), that seems like a silver lining that UVa fans could be hearing about a few more times in the future.

Tonight, Virginia, like an inmate on death row, gets its last supper in the form of an Ivy League opponent. The Cavaliers (6-5) host Brown in their final non-conference game. UVa has defeated its last 12 Ivy League opponents, dating back to 1979.

Brown (5-7) is coming off a 15-point loss to former UVa coach Jeff Jones’ American team. The Bears are just 1-6 on the road and have lost to the likes of Wagner and New Hampshire.

Of course, Virginia has already lost at home to Liberty this season, so taking anyone for granted at this point is foolish.

“We have to grow up and grow up quickly,” were Virginia coach Dave Leitao’s final words in the Xavier postgame press conference.

Defense, the main bugaboo that haunted Virginia last season, was once again the primary issue against Xavier.

“We started the game really aggressively,” said freshman center Assane Sene, “but then started making a lot of mistakes.”

Flooding to the ball, pressuring the wings and helping out in the post were just a few of the areas that Virginia had lapses in, according to guard Sammy Zeglinski.

“It was real frustrating that we weren’t able to make a competitive game out of it,” said Zeglinski, who had a season-low eight points on 3 of 12 shooting versus Xavier. “We need to learn from it and try and get better.

“We need to have a short memory, a good mindset and be ready to turn the page.”

Zeglinski may very well turn to his brother, Joe, for a scouting report on Brown. The elder Zeglinski, who plays for Hartford, scored 14 points in a loss to the Bears on Dec. 9.

In that game, Brown shot a blistering 9 of 18 from 3-point range in the first half.

The bulk of Brown’s scoring comes from three players — undersized forwards Matt Mullery (15.9 points per game) and Pete Sullivan (14.8), and guard Adrian Williams (13.7), the son of former Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams.

Coach Jesse Agel is in his first year at Brown. The former Bears assistant took over for Craig Robinson (the brother in-law of President-elect Barack Obama), who left for Oregon State.

Virginia forward Mike Scott says Virginia just needs to play like it cares for a full 40 minutes.

“We were playing with enthusiasm and passion toward the end of the [Xavier] game,” said Scott, who had 16 points and five rebounds. “We were slowly but surely making a comeback. If we had had that same excitement and energy the whole game, we would have won the game.

“If we come out passionately on defense and offense, we should be able to take care of this.”

Dunks

Virginia leads the all-time series, 2-0. Both meetings have come in Charlottesville, the most recent in the first round of the 2003 NIT. … Virginia freshman Sylven Landesberg leads the ACC in scoring (19.6 ppg). … Scott has four double-doubles this season.