UVA Basketball Tip-Off Tidbits II

This installment will break the season down into portions and look at how the Hoos should fare in each portion. It also will critique the game selection a little. Let’s ride this optimism wave.
 

Preseason: South Carolina State, Winthrop

                There is absolutely no reason we should struggle with either of these games. We flexed nuts on SC State and should do the same to Winthrop. Our team is much too athletic, experienced, and talented to let these sorts of games slip away. Especially since they will really hurt our tournament chances.

Record: 2-0

U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam: TCU, Drexel/Norfolk State, Drake/Ole Miss/Marquette/Winthrop

                These tournaments are usually set up to be a cake walk for two teams that will make a good matchup for the finals. In our case that will be us and Marquette. I think this is a winnable tournament for us up to that Marquette game. If we have an impressive showing here and win the whole shebang I expect us to return home with a number in front of our name.

Record: 5-0

ACC Warmups: Green Bay, Michigan, Longwood, George Mason, at Oregon, at Seattle, MD-Eastern Shore, Towson, at LSU

What could have been...

                These games are a mixed bag. Some of them are good out of conference games (at LSU, at Oregon, Michigan) and some of them are head scratchers (at Seattle, MD-Eastern Shore). Yes this is a very winnable schedule but for strength of schedule it is slightly concerning.

Comfortable games will be: Green Bay, Longwood, Mason, at Seattle, MD-Eastern Shore, and Towson.

Tough games will be: at Oregon, Michigan, and at LSU.

 

I think this team is too good to drop stupid games like last season and will come out of this relatively clean. I think we will most likely drop the Oregon game. I think we head into the ACC schedule ranked around 20.

Record: 14-1

ACC Regular Season: Miami, at Duke, at Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Boston College, at NC State, Clemson, at FSU, Wake Forest, at UNC, at Clemson, Maryland, at Virginia Tech, UNC, FSU, at Maryland

                The ACC will be a little bit crazy. Duke and UNC are the class of the league once again but the rest is really up in the air. Tony Bennett is the 5^th most tenured coach in the ACC. Wrap your brain around that. Who knows what will be going on this season. Virginia is at the top of the second cut of the ACC along with FSU, Virginia Tech, and Miami, but the rest is anyone’s guess. UVA is clearly better than a good chunk of the ACC, but you never know what happens in the ACC. UVA needs to finish .500 or better to get into the tournament, which I don’t think will be a problem.

Comfortable games are: Virginia Tech, Boston College, Wake, Maryland, at Maryland.

Winnable games are: Miami, at Georgia Tech, Clemson, at Clemson, at Tech, and FSU.

Tough games will be: at Duke, at FSU, at UNC, and UNC.

I think we will win all the comfortable games and most of the winnable games. The one that concerns me the most is at Virginia Tech since they might have revenge on their minds. We should split the season series with FSU. I also would like to call a home upset of UNC. That would put us in a great position heading into the ACC tournament and more importantly not put much pressure on that going into the NCAAs.

Record: 25-6 (11-5)

ACC Tournament

                I think Virginia will enter the ACC tournament as a 3/4 seed. That gives us a bye to the second round. We have a team that can win this. The pillars of this program are defense and taking good shots. This bodes well for the ACC tournament. They will also benefit from UNC most likely having a number one seed wrapped up and being on cruise control. I expect us to be the number 4 seed and get UNC in the third round. This will most likely put us in the Championship game, against a team that is most likely hungry for a tournament bid. I think we could win this tournament easily, setting us up for a sweet 4/5 seed. We will at least get to the semi-finals.

NCAA Tournament

                Sweet 16? Hopefully. I think UVA will fall somewhere in the 4-6 seed range. I think we can get about that far before we fall to a 1 or 2 seed. As I said before the strengths of this team are good defense and shot selection. We play good tournament basketball, and if Coach Bennett’s track record matters we should be set. We have a chance to put UVA back on the map this season and set up this program for years to come. Let’s get it done!