With 18 points Wednesday night in Virginia's 76-74 loss to sixth-ranked Duke, senior guard Sean Singletary moved into 44th place on the ACC's career scoring list.

Singletary, who's up to 1,975 points, passed Duke's Trajan Langdon (1,974), North Carolina's Antawn Jamison (1,974), U.Va.'s Junior Burrough (1,970), Wake Forest's Charles Davis (1,970), and N.C. State's Hawkeye Whitney (1,967).

On U.Va.'s career list, Singletary now stands fifth. He's not likely to catch No. 4 Ralph Sampson, who finished with 2,228 points in four seasons.

Singletary, who has scored in double figures in 50 consecutive games, also ranks in the top five all-time at Virginia in steals, assists, 3-pointers made and free throws made.

He has at least two games left to pad his totals. Virginia (4-11, 14-14) closes the regular season tomorrow night against Maryland (8-7, 18-11) at John Paul Jones Arena. Then comes the ACC tournament, which starts Thursday in Charlotte, N.C.

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U.Va.'s second-leading scorer against Duke was guard Calvin Baker, who had 15 points off the bench. After the game, Baker had an ice pack on his right thumb. The sophomore right-hander said he'd sprained a ligament in his thumb in the first half.

Forward Mike Scott scored only two points Wednesday night -- on the game's first basket -- but the 6-8 freshman blocked a career-best three shots. Scott is now tied with Mamadi Diane for the most rejections by a U.Va. player in a game this season. Diane had three blocks against Arizona.

Among ACC teams, Virginia has by far the fewest blocked shots, in part because 6-11 senior Tunji Soroye has played in only two games. Soroye, the projected starter at center, came into the season with 78 career blocks.

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In the crowd at the Duke game were several high school players who interest U.Va., most notably senior Wesley Witherspoon, a 6-8 wing from Georgia who was in town on an official visit.

Unofficial visitors included 6-9 John Manning, a freshman from Chantilly High whose parents are U.Va. graduates; 6-8 Josh Hairston, a sophomore from Courtland High; and 6-11 Matt Piotrowski, a junior at Atlantic Christian School in New Jersey.

Piotrowski's father, Tom, is 7-1. He starred at LaSalle University and then played for Portland in the NBA.

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U.Va.'s baseball team, off to the best start in school history, opens ACC play this afternoon at N.C. State.

The Cavaliers (10-0) and the Wolfpack (6-2) are scheduled to meet today at 3 p.m., tomorrow at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

Three players have started all 10 games for Virginia: juniors Jeremy Farrell (.467 batting average), David Adams (.395) and Greg Miclat (.355). Farrell and Adams have hit two home runs apiece.

Dan Grovatt, a freshman from Tabernacle, N.J., leads U.Va. with a .667 batting average.

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Five games into their college lacrosse careers, the nation's most heralded freshmen have 11 points between them. U.Va. midfielder Shamel Bratton has four goals and three assists; his twin, Rhamel, also a middie, has two and two.

In Virginia's 14-13 win over Syracuse last Saturday, before a crowd of 19,165 in Baltimore, Shamel passed to sophomore Brian Carroll for the winning goal in overtime.

"It's amazing the range of opinions about what they've done," Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said of the Brattons. "People say they're completely overrated because they haven't scored five goals a game. People say they're doing a great job folding into what we're doing. There's no way they can satisfy everybody."

Third-ranked U.Va. (5-0) meets No. 11 Princeton (1-1) tomorrow afternoon. Starsia can only hope it will drier in Princeton than it was Tuesday night in Charlottesville, where U.Va. whipped Virginia Military Institute 24-5.

"In 35 years, I've never stood in rain like that," Starsia said. "It reached the point in the second quarter where you almost couldn't see across the field." -- Jeff White