Theo Smalling, a forward and captain on Hampton University’s basketball team, is in critical condition after being accidentally shot, officials said.

The 6½-month wait ends today for Shaka Smart. Virginia Commonwealth’s basketball coach, hired in April, will direct his first basketball practice as the Rams start preparations for their Nov. 13 opener against Bethune-Cookman. Smart, 32, takes over a team that will be expected to contend for a fourth consecutive Colonial Athletic Association regular-season title. VCU will be without one of the best players in the program’s history, first-round NBA draft pick Eric Maynor. But the Rams return four starters, including another potential first-round NBA pick in junior forward Larry Sanders, plus experience and talented transfers.

The standing room only crowd at the John Marshall High School gym last night will remember several things about the Tri-Cities Summer League championship game. They will remember the league all-star game is tomorrow at 4 p.m., also at John Marshall. Admission is $5, as indefatigable public address announcer Mack Anderson constantly reminded everyone throughout the evening.

Virginia Tech has received its first men’s basketball commitment for the Class of 2011 and its 12th football commitment for the Class of 2010. Joining the Hokies’ hoops program is Robert Brown, a 6-4 175-pound shooting guard from East Ridge High in Clermont, Fla. Recruiting Web site Rivals.com ranks him as the 81st-best rising junior in the country.

Wallace Express, led by Ben Wallace (above), has won the Tri-City Summer League seven times since 1999. Basketball is back in Richmond, in the crowd-pleasing form of the Tri-City Summer League, which starts Tuesday and runs through July 30. The league will feature eight teams comprised of high school, college and professional stars with connections to the Richmond area. As usual, headlining the league is former Virginia Union star Ben Wallace.

Dr. Larry Benson could have been a Division I basketball player, but he decided to concentrate on becoming a doctor. From the Detroit area, Class of ‘91, heralded high school basketball hotshots included Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Shawn Respert . . . and Larry Benson. All eventually went pro - Rose, Webber and Respert to the NBA, Benson to the medical profession.

Kudos to the University of Virginia for buying out Dave Leitao’s contract. All you hear is “Groh must go,“ whereas the truth is Leitao had to go. I am a U.Va. season ticket holder for football, and I appreciate the way the team competes in most every game. But in basketball, we have become a disgrace with the lackluster, undisciplined performances the past two years.

Top Seed Dave Leitao arrived in Charlottesville amid high hopes. College coaches usually do. Coaches also bear great burdens, especially in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Before their first team takes the court, their name is associated with a so-called era. This week the Leitao era at the University of Virginia closed after four years, hardly a span equal to that of the Roman Empire. As is typical in these situations, the circumstances of the coach’s departure seem somewhat murky. Although Leitao was named the ACC’s coach of the year after his second season (in which the team won a first-round game in the NCAA tournament), the program did not appear to be making progress. Fans are an impatient lot. Next season likely would have been dominated by gossip about Leitao’s future.

Dawn Evans, James Madison University’s high-scoring sophomore guard, will almost certainly miss this afternoon’s key CAA women’s basketball showdown with VCU.

Lefty Lefkowitz might have gone on to play third base as a Cincinnati Red. Instead he remained in Richmond as a Spider and fought in World War II as a Wildcat. Meyer B. Lefkowitz was a multisport star at Thomas Jefferson High School. He earned letters in baseball, basketball and football and as a senior was captain of the basketball team and was named to the all-state team. Scouts for the Cincinnati Reds were considering his third-base abilities.

VCU women’s basketball tam loses D’Andra Moss to knee injury

BASKETBALL  YESTERDAY
STATE
Virginia Tech 78, Virginia 75 Richmond 60, George Washington 48 VCU 68, Hofstra 60 George Mason 61, Old Dominion 53 VMI 103, Coastal Carolina 102 Liberty 79, Charleston Southern 60 Radford 98, UNC Asheville 88 (OT) Hampton 53, Bethune-Cookman 51

John Marshall is the top team in the Colonial District. For now. By the skin of its teeth. The Justices, ranked No. 3 in The Times-Dispatch Top 10, defended their home court and defeated second-ranked Douglas Freeman 84-80 last night.

Tiffany Green scored 15 points and Jazzmin Walters added 11, including a pair of go-ahead free throws with 11 seconds remaining, as Old Dominion’s women’s basketball team rallied from an eight-point deficit at 4:10 and a four-point deficit with less than a minute to play to stun Virginia Commonwealth University 69-68 tonight at the Constant Center.

Energy. Excitement. Memories of city basketball glory. The atmosphere generated by last night’s boys basketball game between John Marshall and Huguenot has been missing for a decade. Not since Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe played for the Central Region title in 1999 has the electricity for a city game been so palpable. Spectators filled every inch of seating space and then some at John Marshall. New bleachers have cut the seating capacity to 800. JM activities director Kevin Adams turned people away.