Virginia Basketball: Breaking down 2023-24 non-conference schedule

Virginia Basketball enters the 2023-24 season squarely as a bubble team for the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Still, it must be nice for Tony Bennett that Googling “Virginia basketball” turns up more results for the saga in West Virginia these days.

This week, the program announced its non-conference schedule for the coming season. The Cavaliers will have the advantage of being at home for a majority of its 11 games, hosting seven of them at John Paul Jones Arena.

Virginia actually came out ahead in the ACC last season and largely took care of business in non-conference play. All of that was obscured by the biggest non-conference loss of their year, though: the upset at the hands of the Furman Paladins in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Let’s have a look at the non-conference schedule for one of the ACC’s biggest bubble teams in 2023-24, the Virginia Cavaliers.

The Cavs received a huge reprieve in the offseason when guard Reece Beekman retreated from the NBA Draft process and decided to return to Charlottesville for his senior season. He’ll be the engine for Virginia, coming off an ACC Defensive Player of the Year honor. He averaged 9.5 points and 5.3 assists per game on the other end of the court.

Beyond that, however, Virginia lost a majority of its top scorers from a year ago. The losses include program salwart Kihei Clark, Jayden Gardner, Kadin Shedrick, and Ben Vander Plas. Bennett is going to have to work his usual magic to get this team through non-conference play and into the NCAA Tournament once again.

Let’s take a look at Virginia’s non-conference schedule, kicking off with the more traditional regular season contests.