Virginia basketball absolutely manhandled Virginia Tech on Tuesday evening, the latest indication that UVA could make some serious noise in March Madness.
All signs point to the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title traveling through Charlottesville, Va., yet again. Before a boisterous home crowd on Tuesday night, No. 4 Virginia basketball stomped No. 9 Virginia Tech, 81-59.
The Cavaliers (16-0, 4-0) shot lights-out and dominated virtually every statistical category in their conquest of the Hokies (14-2, 3-1). Given this result, coupled with No. 1 Duke’s stunning OT loss to unranked Syracuse on Monday, UVA finds itself in sole possession of first place in the ACC standings.
Now, there’s tons of basketball left before the Big Dance arrives, so I don’t want to make any grand proclamations. However, the way that the Cavaliers are playing, it’s going to prove mighty difficult for any other squad to unseat them at the top of the league.
Virginia travels to Durham, N.C., for a Saturday tilt with the Blue Devils, a crew that could miss its freshman point guard, Tre Jones, for an extended duration. Jones suffered an unfortunate shoulder injury versus the Orange, and that changed the entire complexion of the contest. It also makes Duke a bit vulnerable moving forward.
As such, UVA has an excellent opportunity to defeat the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium and open up a two-game advantage on Duke. Then again, beyond the Blue Devils, there’s a handful of other teams with only one conference setback, so it’s not like the Cavaliers are running away with the ACC crown.
However, at this juncture in the 2018-19 campaign, I’m really impressed with how Virginia is faring. Talk about resiliency. This past March, the Cavaliers became the inaugural No. 1 seed to fall in the NCAA Tournament’s first round. But they didn’t let that get the best of them, as UVA and No. 2 Michigan are the final two unbeaten groups in Division I men’s basketball. Pretty remarkable, if you ask me.
The Cavaliers, in recent years, have succeeded mostly due to their spectacular defense, a defense that Virginia Tech encountered and couldn’t master in this clash of the Commonwealth. What will enable Virginia to overcome its recent Big Dance woes and advance to a long-overdue Final Four is a more potent offense.
In the NCAA Tournament’s single-elimination format, anything can happen if one unit gets hot. Just ask the Cavaliers about the thrashing that they took from a No. 16 seed, UMBC. Should UVA enter March with that same stingy defense, while also executing at an efficient clip on offense, watch out. Case in point, against a fairly good Hokies defense, the Cavaliers connected on nearly 59 percent from the field, and about 54 percent from downtown.
No one – I repeat, no one – will beat Virginia if it shoots at such a remarkable rate. And while the Cavaliers won’t do that all the time, this current roster of UVA players simply feels different. There’s swag in their collective step. Let’s see how the Cavaliers perform when they visit Blacksburg, Va., next month. You know that Virginia Tech will desperately want to exact revenge.
Furthermore, Virginia has to suit up on the road versus the likes of Louisville, N.C. State, North Carolina and Syracuse. The Cavaliers will also entertain Duke in Charlottesville for a second go-round.
The main takeaway here is that the ACC is a rugged gauntlet, and I don’t foresee UVA flying through the league calendar unblemished. The Cavaliers, though, have the pieces in place to capture a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and erase last year’s painful memory by dancing well into March. Or, better yet, April.