Countdown to tip-off: Sylven Landesberg

Note: Each day leading up to the Nov. 13 opener against Longwood, Cavaliers Journal will explore a different topic about the 2009-10 Virginia men’s basketball team. Here are last week's topics:

Nov. 2: The offense
Nov. 3: The defense
Nov. 4: The schedule
Nov. 5: The rotation
Nov. 6: The preseason

In separate interviews with Sylven Landesberg, Virginia’s star guard discussed his plans to become a “complete player” this season. Landesberg earned the ACC rookie of the year in 2008-09 after averaging 16.6 points per game as a freshman.

Landesberg improved his shooting during the offseason, as detailed in Monday’s story. He now considers himself a three-point shooter despite hitting only 31.4 percent of his attempts last season. Opponents started to play off Landesberg because he was less dangerous shooting than penetrating.

Landesberg also worked on his ballhandling, and Coach Tony Bennett expects all his guards to take ballhandling responsibilities. Landesberg made a pledge to involve his teammates in the scoring. Of all the statistics Landesberg hopes to improve, he placed assist-to-turnover ratio at the top of the list.

But any conversation about Bennett’s teams begins with defense, and that is one area in which Landesberg must improve if his sophomore year will trump his freshman year.

“I’d say my defense can get better,” Landesberg said. “There’s parts in there where I get lazy and I just lay back, and Coach Bennett is helping me with that, telling me to stay on the ball and stuff. I want to be a complete player, so playing defense is part of that and I’m willing to get better at it.”

Defense is often a sore subject with top scorers. Landesberg exerts so much energy on offense that he sometimes needs to conserve energy on defense. Bennett said he was the same way when he played for Wisconsin-Green Bay. During the first few weeks of practice, Bennett has made it clear that Landesberg cannot skirt defensive responsibilities.

“He’s working at it, because he has to,” Bennett said. “There’s no choice. That’s a constant. You’re going to have to work hard at it. Does it become natural to most prolific scorers? No. But he is working at it and we’re challenging him to really help his team that way.”

Even though he’s a sophomore, Landesberg assumed a leadership role on the Cavaliers. It started last season when he became an unofficial spokesman for the team after Dave Leitao resigned and has continued this season, when Landesberg is the player prominently featured in Virginia’s promotional campaign.

He understands that he will no longer sneak up on ACC opponents. Landesberg’s reputation is well established in the conference, and he was often voted one of the ACC’s best guards during an informal survey conducted with a collection of the ACC’s top players last month.

If he meets those expectations, Landesberg will be discussed as a possible early entry for next June’s NBA Draft. It’s something that his father, Steve Landesberg, said the family is not thinking about at this point.

“I’m in no hurry with Sylven,” Steve Landesberg said. “I was never in a hurry to see him grow up. It’s going to eventually happen. And if it happens, it happens. Whether it’s this year, next year – I’m in no rush here. …And Sylven should be in no hurry here. When he feels the time is right, he’ll step up and say the time is right. Right now, all we’re looking forward to is that he does well on the academic front as well as the athletic front at Virginia.”

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