UVa unfazed by low expectations

Some of Virginia’s younger players will use it as motivation, but Mamadi Diane has been around long enough to know better.

It seems no one in college basketball expects the Cavaliers do to much of anything this season. Just about every major preseason publication has tabbed UVa to finish last in the conference. The ACC media picked the Hoos 12th, and by a large margin.

Neither Diane, one of Virginia’s two seniors, nor Cavs coach Dave Leitao seem fazed by the pick.

“Every year, those rankings really don’t matter,” Diane said. “Things never end up where they’re predicted. If we’re picked 12th, maybe that’s a good sign. We have to finish above that.”

No one seems to be too terribly perturbed by the low expectations because, well, they’re understandable. Two years removed from its last NCAA tournament appearance, Virginia must replace point guard Sean Singletary, and forwards Adrian Joseph and Laurynas Mikalauskas, who averaged a combined 36.8 points per game.

And even with Singletary’s playmaking ability in the lineup, the Cavaliers limped to a 5-11 finish in the ACC and only secured a winning season by advancing to the semifinals of the College Basketball Invitational.

“It’s definitely big losing someone like him,” Diane said. “But it’s not like every day we’re thinking about Sean. He’s been gone for a while now. We’ve been playing spring ball, and through the summer, and on until now without him. Other guys have stepped up and filled different roles.”

The 6-foot-5 Diane is Virginia’s leading returning scorer after averaging 11.8 points per game as a junior. He was the Cavs’ best outside threat, hitting 41.4 percent of his 3-pointers. He had offseason surgery to repair a small fracture in his foot and missed the team’s summer trip to Canada, but he said he’s 100 percent healthy now.

Guard Calvin Baker, who has a stress fracture in his left foot, was cleared Oct. 30 to resume practice and played 14 minutes in Virginia’s lone exhibition game, an 87-52 win over Shepherd last Sunday.

Baker and Sammy Zeglinski are expected to split time at the point. Freshman Sylven Landesberg will be in the mix there as well. Initially, Leitao didn’t want to add additional pressure to Landesberg, a talented 6-6 wing from Flushing, N.Y., who has spent much of the fall playing the two and the three.

“I think his game, and our lineup, dictated that we’ll see him … at some point, rather than later at the one as well,” Leitao said. “Injuries, being as they are, I’ve had to put him in that position earlier than he or I would have liked to have happen. We’ll just use him as a jack of all trades and allow him to grow.”

Landesberg is expected to be one of the ACC’s top freshmen, and he gives Virginia an immediate big-time scoring threat. In 20 minutes against Shepherd, filled up the stat sheet, finishing with 13 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.

“I’m just real aggressive at both ends of the court,” Landesberg said. “I like to create offensive opportunities for me or my teammates. I’m always looking to get to the basket, either for a basket for myself, or finding an open shooter in the corner, or dishing down to a big man.”

Landesberg will have plenty to choose from in that regard. Virginia will benefit defensively from the return of 6-11 center Tunji Soroye, and Leitao expects to see more consistency from sophomore Mike Scott, a 6-8, 233-pound power forward who often played out of position last year.

Scott put up a tidy double-double against Shepherd, finishing with 10 points and 14 rebounds in 22 minutes.

“He had some very good moments last year,” Leitao said. “Now we’re trying to take those moments and make them into games.”

Virginia has frontcourt depth, but the strength of that depth is still in question. Jamil Tucker, a 6-9 junior, missed the first two weeks of practice with a shoulder injury but is back on the floor now.

Junior Jerome Meyinsse will get a crack at some minutes, and, freshmen Assane Sene, a 7-footer from Nigeria, and John Brandenburg, a 6-11, 234-pounder from Missouri, are ready to battle for playing time.

How quickly will the group come together? No one really knows. But one common goal has united the Cavaliers.

“Everybody on our team knows we’re picked to finish last in the ACC,” Landesberg said. “That’s always in the back of our head. We go hard in practice every day. We want to show everybody, and all the analysts that we’re not going to finish last, and that we’re going to compete with the best teams in the league.”