Bearded rookies get their feet wet

ATLANTA — If you need to know how excited Virginia’s freshmen are for their first ACC tournament experience tonight in the Georgia Dome, just check out their stubble.

Rookies Sylven Landesberg, Assane Sene, Sammy Zeglinski and John Brandenburg are presidents and founders of the Freshman Facial Hair Club.

All four players haven’t shaved since before the Maryland game last Saturday and say they don’t plan on doing so anytime soon.

“We’ve got some tournament beards going,” said Brandenburg, the president and founder of the club.

Landesberg, who was named ACC rookie of the year on Tuesday, was clearly pumped for tonight.

“It kind of reminds me of playing AAU back in [Las] Vegas,” Landesberg said. “You just see a bunch of teams walking around who you might play. When we went out to eat near the hotel, we saw a few guys from Miami, a few guys from Boston College.

“I was like, ‘Oh man, this is going to be fun.’”

Zeglinski actually attended last season’s tournament in Charlotte but didn’t play because he was redshirting.

“I’m not really sure what it’s going to be like until the ball gets thrown up [tonight],” Zeglinski said. “We can really come out here and make our season if we can string a few wins together. It gives us a chance to get to the NCAA tournament. We’ll put all our eggs in that basket and see how it goes.

“I’ll probably have a few jitters, but then after a few minutes they’ll go away.”

Sene is looking to get back in the groove. He’s played just one minute in the last three games after suffering a right ankle injury against Miami.

Sene now feels 100 percent, though.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “I have to be ready to do something to make my teammates and my coach happy. We have to do something great in this tournament because my goal is to play in the NCAA [Tournament]. We’ve got to do something great. I think we can do that if we play good.

“My energy is back now. I’ve been working out with [strength coach] Shaun [Brown] and [assistant] coach [Steve] Seymour to bring that back. I feel good now and I’m ready to play.”

Brandenburg, who has played sparingly this season, probably won’t see any action tonight. However, he says he’ll be more than ready to go if he gets the call.

Brandenburg said the loss at Clemson on March 3 prepared him for just about any kind of environment. In that game, the freshman was hit with a technical foul for taunting.

“I had the whole crowd hating me after about two minutes in the game,” he said, smiling. “I had about 30 friend requests [on Facebook] from Clemson people about an hour after that game. I rejected them all.”

Landesberg said he doesn’t expect to have any ACC jitters.

“I think I’m past that, even though this is a big environment,” he said. “If anything, I think I’ll have too much energy.”