Bracketology 2021: BYU, Utah State, and Virginia among biggest winners

Virginia Cavaliers

The ACC is a complete mess at the moment. Two of the traditional heavyweights, Duke and North Carolina, are very likely to not be ranked at the next AP top-25 rankings. Louisville, who was on roll coming into Saturday, was defeated by Miami without its top two scorers. And by the way, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh, two teams projected to finish in the bottom four of the standings, are currently a combined 7-2 in league play.

But there is one team that has played up to its projected potential. After giving up 98 points to Gonzaga a few weeks ago, Virginia was thrown off the radars of many. However, they’ve been nothing but impressive since that beatdown, winning five straight games in ACC play. Of course, the first four came against Notre Dame, Boston College, and Wake Forest, so they’ll only get but so much credit.

However, the Cavaliers had a legit opponent on Saturday in the Clemson Tigers, who boasted a defense nearly as good as Virginia. It was expected by many that this ranked matchup would end up in the 50s for both teams. In the end, that did happen for Clemson, scoring 50 points total. However, Virginia scoring a shocking 85 points in the massive blowout victory.

That game represented the first Quad 1 win for Virginia, who now stands alone at the top of the ACC standings at 5-0. Due to the lack of collective strength of the conference, this was the opportunity for Clemson to get a signature victory and to assert itself as the team to beat in the league. They did just that in emphatic fashion, showing that the Gonzaga game was more about the strength of the Bulldogs and not the weaknesses of the Cavaliers.