As I told you in the earlier Red Sox News & Notes post, Terry Francona was in Charlottesville, VA last night for the Virginia Cavaliers baseball team’s Step Up to the Plate banquet. The event was sold-out as over 925 people crammed Virginia’s Memorial Coliseum to see Francona speak.

Francona went down to Charlottesville on Friday and took a tour of the stadium and the campus with pitching coach John Farrell and his son, Jeremy. Jeremy is a freshman first baseman for the Cavaliers.

Francona talked about the value of an education to the crowd.

“If you can take another step baseball-wise, great, but in the meantime if you get your education, then nobody will ever have the chance to tell you, No,” Francona said.  “And that’s exciting to me.”

“I am probably a prime example. If I was drafted out of high school, I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have lasted two years. I wasn’t strong enough mentally, physically. Now you go through these college programs and these kids are not only prepared for baseball, but for how to deal with real-life situations, too.”

Current Red Sox reliever and former UVA player Javier Lopez was on hand for the event as well. Washington Nationals 3B Ryan Zimmerman was another former Cavalier in attendance at the event.

Francona praises Cavs’ program [DailyProgress.com]

UConn Huskies head coach Jim Calhoun hasn’t said whether or not Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins will play tomorrow against Louisville but judging from these quotes, it doesn’t look as though they will see the court.

“I have no idea what the future holds about anything.”

“With the personnel we have now,” might be an indication Calhoun is pretty sure Wiggins and Dyson will not play.

I did find on an article from Andy Katz that Calhoun does expect to make a decision on the two players this week.

“During the week, something will happen. I will make a decision this week,” Calhoun said. “There are more facts to come. More information is coming. It’s complex. I’m going to get more facts.”

“I knew I made the right decision,” Calhoun said. “I’m the one that made the decision, no one else. There were a couple of people strongly suggesting that I bring them, play them over the weekend and reassess the situation.

What I find surprising is that none of the players know anything about what Dyson and Wiggins did to get suspended.

“We still have no idea,” UConn’s A.J. Price said on ESPN’s Radio GameDay after the game. “[The coaches] told us to be prepared to go just as we did.”

Before the Huskies played Indiana yesterday, I wasn’t sure whether the Huskies could beat them. After watching them play against Indiana, I definitely could see the Huskies winning the game tomorrow. Their defense was so stifling that forced Indiana to play the Huskies game, one in which Indiana didn’t have any success with.

Obviously whatever the pair did is pretty serious for Calhoun not to reinstate them to the team. As I said on Friday night, Calhoun knows what he’s doing. It just sucks that they have this type of distraction so late in the season.

John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant spoke with Brittany Hunter on Friday and she fully expects to play in tonight’s game against Notre Dame.

“I’ve been frustrated because it’s hard to have patience with things like that,” Hunter said. “Sitting out for two weeks in the middle of the season is very annoying. Just imagine what it feels like to have a cavity and chew on it. You know something is wrong and that’s how it’s been every day, even when I was shifting in a chair. And it was hurting before Louisville [where she played 21 minutes in her last appearance]. We assumed it would just be a pain-tolerance situation. But we decided to just let it heal.”

Definitely check out the rest of the article too as there are some great quotes from head coach Geno Auriemma about the game against North Carolina and the play of his team.

The game between Ursuline Academy and Manchester High School finally has a venue to play the game. The game, which features incoming UConn recruit Elena Delle Donne and her Ursuline Academy team, will be played the Chase Arena on the University of Hartford campus on February 9th at 7:30 PM. Tickets to the game can be bought through this website.

With the Patriots dominating the headlines in the Boston area papers, there isn’t a lot of news concerning the Red Sox even though spring training is just under 18 days away.

I had hoped to find a little more information on this to maybe bring you some snippets from what Terry Francona had to say to the Virginia Cavaliers baseball team at it’s annual Step Up to the Plate banquet to kick of their season. I can tell you Francona was on hand last night to talk the Cavaliers baseball team in front of a sold-out audience.

For those of you who didn’t know, Francona was the National Player of the Year in college baseball back in 1980 while he was student-athlete at the University of Arizona. One of his teammates with the Wildcats was none other than his bench coach, Brad Mills. The pair were also roommates while at Arizona.

While at Arizona, Francona was named the College World Series MVP as he helped lead the Wildcats to a national championship in 1980. After that he was selected in the first round by the Montreal Expos. He made his MLB debut in 1981 with the Expos and was a teammate of Mills from 1981-83.

Virginia coach Brian O’Connor was very happy to secure the Francona for the banquet.

“Timing is everything,” O’Connor said. “To be able to get the world championship manager to come here to Charlottesville for this dinner is a great opportunity, and part of the reason that I am excited about Terry coming here, and specifically talking to our team, is that he has worn the college baseball uniform before.

“In 1980 he was the national player of the year in college baseball at the University of Arizona, so he has been in our players’ shoes before and he can speak to being a college athlete. I think he will be great for our players and great for the fans that are in attendance, too, to hear from him.”

Francona and Dustin Pedroia shared a special bond during the 2007 season. They played cribbage together before the games. As we all know Francona says he kicked Pedroia’s ass most of the time while Pedroia says the same but with him doing it to Francona.

We all know of Pedroia’s struggles early in the season when he was hitting around .180 but Francona never wavered from putting Pedroia in the lineup everyday.

“I wasn’t about to give up on someone who was so highly regarded by so many people in baseball, including myself.”

Pedroia has worked hard in the offseason, especially once he got his cast off. Hopefully, he can continue his great play at second base and at the plate as the Red Sox look to win the World Series again in 2008.

“I’m going to continue to work hard and do the things I’m capable of. I’m not going to hit 50 home runs,” said Pedroia. “My job is to play well at second base, get on base and let our big hitters drive me in.”

Nick Cafardo reports that the Red Sox have until November 10th to exercise the option on the contract of Manny Ramirez. He also states that the Red Sox will wait until the end of the season to see what Manny does at the plate to exercise the option.

Francona opens up Cavs’ season [DailyProgress.com]

Pedroia primed to build on success [MetroWest Daily News]

Show and tell [Boston Globe]

UConn will be without their top receiver in 2008 as Terence Jeffers has decided to transfer from the program. Jeffers was only sophomore last season but started every game for the Huskies at wide receiver. The reason he is transferring is because he felt underused in the offense for the Huskies.

During the 2007 season, Jeffers had 44 catches for 582 yards and 5 touchdowns. Jeffers started 9 games for the Huskies as a freshman in 2006.

Head coach Randy Edsall’s only comments were as follows:

“personnel issues will be addressed after recruiting is over.”