The Miami Hurricanes’ solution to recent struggles: new uniforms!

“Get the f— out!” — Ryan Zimmerman, willing his home run ball over the fence.

Nice to see a Wahoo becoming such a force in the major leagues. Bottom of the ninth walk off to win opening day in a new park? Very nice.

Time for UVa baseball to get some Zimmerman posters up in whatever room they use to sell the program to recruits.

The good news: Dave Leitao’s squad has only two things to improve on for next season. The bad news: those two things are scoring points and stopping the other team from scoring more.

This season, the Cavs (17-16) stopped virtually no one. Nine teams — eight ACC opponents and second-round CBI foe Old Dominion — shot better than 50 percent against Virginia, and Bradley made 48 percent of its shots, including 6 of 12 second-half 3-pointers.

“When we needed a (defensive) stretch or a stop, we have not been able to get it with any level of consistency, and that’s got to be something that we address moving forward,” Leitao said.

That’s not the only issue confronting the Cavaliers in the 2008-09 season.

Question marks also abound on an offense that was hit-or-miss, even with Sean Singletary’s 20 points a game. Without Singletary, a three-time first-team all-ACC selection, can U.Va. realistically expect to improve?

Frick, we better hope so. I mean, it’s not like they were setting the world on fire with Sean’s 20 points per game. Hopefully, a little “Ewing theory” action will get a talented group of players who relied too much on Singletary to actually rely on themselves.

With the reseating policy as a good lead in, Mikeysurf decries the frustrating inability of the Athletic Department to communicate in general. One Edge writer noted* (sub. req.) that the Ticket Office told him that the new policy won’t really effect most of us:

I was told that the re-seating will probably not impact me at all. I was told that it will most likely impact a small group of people: 1) Long time, low donation givers who have seats on the 50 yard line. 2) New, big money donors who want to give a big chunk for great seats…and are committed to continue giving for a while.

As for the rest of us…most likely we’ll say the same.

I’m not saying that re-seating is a good thing…I just think that in the end, the number of people impacted will be much smaller than originally thought.

And Mike responds* (sub. req.) …

Unfortunately, that message you received wasn’t conveyed… early on with the same clarity. I’m concerned the misinformed have polluted some ticket buyers into believing the vast majority will be forced to move. Which is not the case unless they choose. As a result, a number of individuals are looking at other options, most significantly, not renewing their season tickets.

This is what I find frustrating with how our Athletic Dept. communicates, at times. In many ways, Athletics is still operating in an archive in terms of modern communications. I constantly see complaints about how numerous columnists/writers in the media misrepresent UVa and/or have an agenda with their articles/columns. In an era when information can be produced and circulated worldwide in a matter of seconds, there is NO REASON any entity should permit information about their organization to become stagnant with incorrect data points, and/or, if conveyed by others, to go unchallenged with bad info.

UVa Athletics has its own web site, along with an active customer/donor list, and enough Sabre/Cav Corner board monitors to know exactly what subjects are being discussed in the Wahoo Nation, and in the case of a few of us, those who are actually saying it. Why not use the UVa web site to communicate many different topics or issues, email to customers/donors links of informative stories with a reasoned position and supportive data, as well as distribute the info to the Sabre et al?

If UVa has a problem with miscommunication orgrowing unrest from their fan/donor base, they only have themselves to blame when this stuff bubbles up with so little info to counter it. In a world of instant communications, there is no reason to allow the media, fans, or anyone else the ability to shape important issues facing any sport within athletics without framing it appropriately so fans/donors can have real-time data on with regard to how a topic is being examined. By the way, I’m not talking about “spin-machine” or P.R. type stuff, but carefully written articles on Virginiasports.com that deals with and responds in a comprehensive manner to the topics important to fans/donors.

Just look at the important issues (re-seating, academic attrition, VT fan-fest/Casteen’s “jocular” comments, why playing in the CBI was important for the men’s basketball program, etc.) to go on for extended periods of time without an appropriate counter to many of the public challenges. The external outreach within Athletics needs to become more proactive in this area.

You know, it sounds like they need a, I dunno, blogger or something. Regardless, I generally agree that UVa is still a bit behind when it comes to addressing potential or developing issues head-on with the full force of their media arsenal. Maybe UVa needs to bring back that communications department and make some of these athletic department types take a few classes on new media.

*message board links that will expire, some formating changes from original

Some sage advice last week from tlmii directed at despondent UVa fans …

There’s a lot of grief coming from people who are upset that the basketball season is finally over (and thus the “major”) sports season is over for this school year.

Well, I just wanted to drop a reminder that we have a lot going on in the world of U.Va. sports still and some of it has to do with some very good programs (all rankings are national rankings):

* #1 Men’s Tennis team. Undefeated on the season. #1 player in the country. #1 doubles team in the country. They take on Miami and Florida State this weekend in Charlottesville.
* #1 Men’s Lacrosse team. Also undefeated on the season. Two of the top four scorers in the country are on our team, and we have potentially the two most exciting freshmen in the country in the Bratton twins. They have a big game at Maryland on Saturday.
* #4 Women’s Lacrosse team. They’ve had a couple tough losses, but continue to play strong. They just beat JMU last night. They too have a big road ACC match this weekend with Duke.
* #15 Baseball team. They have some curious losses on the season and haven’t been as dominant in the last couple weeks as they looked like they might be. But they’ve got a strong pitching staff and should be able to recover.

I realize this are the so-called non-revenue sports. But they are all exciting to watch, and they should all make us proud to be Cavalier fans.

So true, sometimes we lose perspective on …. Wait a minute, didn’t the men’s lacrosse team lose that game this weekend?!

Hey, if the point is to be “mad” or something like that, might as well go big.

… with the #1 pick? Scout/Fox profiles Long and Gholston. My favorite part is how our guy’s weaknesses are that he may have “little upside” and that he’s “still developing.” Those two comments sort of cancel each other out, right?

Of course, free would’ve been a better deal. Sheesh.