Virginia has a new center this season, a 6-foot-10 transfer who started for two seasons in the Pac 10. Virginia has a new point guard, a 6-0 transfer who had been on pace to score 2,000 points at Rutgers. Virginia also has a new small forward, a 6-5 transfer who was a first-team junior college All-American.

Yet, if the Cavaliers are to do anything of note this season, if they are to be more than what they have been in four years under dynamic coach Pete Gillen, their most important offseason addition might have been a 49-year-old from Boise State with blond hair, a boyish gap in his front teeth ... and a reputation for coaching stifling defense.

ACC Projections

Here are ESPN.com's ACC projections and previews of each team: 1. Duke 2. Maryland 3. Virginia 4. Georgia Tech 5. N.C. State 6. North Carolina 7. Wake Forest 8. Florida State 9. Clemson All-ACC Team G: Steve Blake Maryland, Senior G: Daniel Ewing Duke, Soph F: Dahntay Jones Duke, Senior F: Josh Howard Wake Forest, Senior F: Travis Watson Virginia, Senior Most Valuable Player Dahntay Jones, Duke Newcomer of the Year Todd Billett, Virginia Freshman of the Year Chris Bosh, Georgia Tech

Defense has been a dirty word around Charlottesville. Gillen hopes new assistant coach Rod Jensen can take some soap to it.

"I've not been happy with that part of our play," Gillen says. "He'll be the defensive coordinator of our half-court defense. If we don't do a good job defensively I'll take the blame, not Rod Jensen. But the way it is, he'll have about carte blanche helping us improve our defense."

With a decent defense, the Cavaliers probably would be taking aim at their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance this season under Gillen, who has done a remarkable job rebuilding Jeff Jones's ashes into a competitive ACC team. As it is, Virginia has reached the NCAA field just once in those three years, despite averaging 19 victories and having a 25-23 record in ACC play. Oh, and for the record, Virginia has never won a postseason game under Gillen, not even in the ACC tournament.

Gillen has recruited and coached offensive firepower, but somewhere along the line the translation was lost at the other end of the court. Just last season, Virginia was ranked No. 4 nationally in December, and was 14-2 in January, but collapsed under the weight of its shoddy defense. Down the stretch the Cavaliers lost 10 of their final 13 games to slide from a high seed in the NCAA Tournament to a first-round loss to South Carolina -- in the NIT.

In those 10 losses, Virginia averaged a respectable 75.3 points, including games in which it scored 92, 87, 81 and 80. But in those 10 losses the Cavaliers allowed a reprehensible 86.8 points per contest, including 111 to Maryland and at least 91 points in four others. The Cavaliers' last seven foes all shot at least 50 percent from the field.

Yuck.

Enter Jensen, who forged his coaching career on the ever-dependable bedrock of defense. He was 109-93 in seven seasons as head coach at Boise State, which fired him after the team went 13-17 last season, struggling in the transition from the Big West Conference to the better WAC. Whatever his shortcomings may have been at Boise State, defense was not among them. Before becoming head coach there, he was an assistant coach, officially serving as the Broncos' defensive coordinator, and overseeing a unit that finished in the top 15 nationally in scoring defense for four consecutive seasons.

"What can you say?" says senior center Travis Watson. "The man knows defense."

Essentially, Gillen is hoping Jensen can spark his program like another former mid-major head coach, Larry Hunter, did at N.C. State last season. The Wolfpack under coach Herb Sendek had been a tenacious team known for its effort and defense, but not its offensive proficiency, and it had yet to reach the NCAA Tournament in his five seasons in Raleigh. Sendek hired Hunter after he was fired by Ohio in the spring of 2001, and call it coincidence, but the results were special. The Wolfpack won 23 games and reached the 2002 NCAA Tournament.

Remember how we said earlier that Virginia averaged 75.3 points per game in its final 10 losses last season? N.C. State lost just once when it scored at least 75 points -- just once.

Sendek was intrigued by Virginia's hiring of Jensen.

"I noticed," he says. "He has a strong reputation."

Gillen noted the trend in college basketball of a veteran head coach hiring another, recently fired head coach as an assistant, including former Penn State coach Bruce Parkhill to Jim O'Brien's staff at Ohio State and former Seton Hall coach George Blaney to Jim Calhoun's staff at Connecticut. And, of course, Hunter to N.C. State.

"They all did great jobs at those schools," Gillen said. "That was in the back of our mind when we hired Rod."

Despite heavy offseason losses, Gillen certainly would appear to have enough talent on hand to make another run at an NCAA berth this season. Leading scorer Roger Mason Jr. left early for the NBA, and four-year starters Chris Williams and Adam Hall graduated while another starter, 6-9 garbage man J.C. Mathis, transferred.

	Losers of 10 of their final 13 games last season, Pete Gillen and Keith Jenifer will try a new approach to winning this season.

That leaves undersized center Travis Watson as the Cavaliers' only returning starter. But he's a good one, and he's not going to have to do it alone. As a matter of fact, he might not have to play center any more. Watson, a second-team All-ACC pick the past two seasons despite playing center at 6-7, will see more time this season at power forward with the addition of Nick Vander Laan, who started 37 games in 1999-2000 and '00-01 at California, where he made the honorable mention Pac-10 All-Freshman team after averaging 8.5 points and 6.7 rebounds.

Todd Billet is the high-scoring guard from Rutgers, where he had 845 points in two seasons -- and the curve was going upward. Billet averaged 12.8 points as a freshman and 16.6 points as a sophomore, when he shot 40.6 percent on 3-pointers and handed out 4.2 assists per game. Point guard, such a problem area last season that the 6-5 Mason had to slide over from the wing to handle it much of the time, should be a strength this season.

So should the interior. Along with Watson and Vander Laan, the Cavaliers return 6-9 sophomores Elton Brown (an offensive force) and Jason Clark (a defensive stopper). The biggest personnel question is on the wing, where Mason, Williams and Hall were the mainstays last season. The answer figures to be 6-5 Devin Smith, a physical transfer from Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College, where he was an All-American and member of the national all-tournament team.

Smith was only in junior college because he was overlooked as a misplaced high school big man in Delaware, where he was the state's player of the year as a senior. After blossoming on the perimeter last season at Coffeyville (19.4 points per game, 45.8 percent on three-pointers), Smith transferred to Virginia, where he will have three years of eligibility left. Smith has been slowed in the preseason by knee surgery, enough so that 6-7 freshman Derrick Byars has entered the picture for playing time, but Gillen expects Smith to be ready for the opener -- and to be a major contributor.

"It's a big step from junior college to the ACC," Gillen says. "But Devin is a very good shooter, skilled with the ball, and strong. He'll help."

The time is now for the Cavaliers to make their move while the rest of the ACC retools. Maryland lost four starters from last season's national championship team, while the league's other three NCAA Tournament teams -- Duke (three All-ACC players), Wake Forest (five seniors) and N.C. State (both starting guards) -- also suffered heavy losses.

Virginia knows.

"I don't see why it can't be us," Watson says.

You want it to be you, Virginia? Get defensive.

Gregg Doyel covers college basketball for The Charlotte Observer and can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.