A Bulleted List!

I find myself stuck with a shit-ton of ideas for blog posts, and not enough time/energy to actually make it happen.  So here's a fucking bulleted list!  Enjoy!

-- I got the following text last night, from a person close to me but who will remain nameless, currently struggling with the fact that he might be becoming a UVA fan:

I'm either a Virginia fan, or I just had a heart attack.

-- I've heard some alarmist scuttlebutt about the fact that we're suddenly winning basketball games close, and no longer blowing our opponents out.  HELLO?  We're winning games.  Tough games.  Against teams that are better than you think.  On the road!  So before you dive into questioning the free throw shooting or Mike Tobey being soft or Joe deferring to others too much or London Perrantes looking tired and not playing defense or whatever, ask yourself this question: Are we winning tough games on the road?  We just absorbed Virginia Tech's best shot, after absorbing Clemson's best shot, after absorbing a pretty good shot from Maryland, and from Georgia Tech... and we just keep winning.

-- Rule 2b tells us that we, as Virginia fans, cannot have nice things.  But you know what?  This year's basketball team is a pretty nice thing.  And it's a pure joy to watch.  My advice is to sit back and enjoy the ride.

-- WTF is up with Malcolm Brogdon chewing on his mouth guard?  It's getting to be a bit much, Brog.  Get some Big League Chew or something, breh.

-- An incredibly salient point that a poster named StLouHoo made on the Wahoos247 board this morning:

Just reviewed the schedule, and letting it sink in how exhausting the last ~three weeks must've been, having to travel to South Bend, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, South Carolina, and lastly Bleaksburg. The team hasn't bad back-to-back home games in almost a month. (And yet we still went undefeated in that stretch.)

And now we have a whopping 18 days before we have to play a road game again. That's two and a half weeks the boys don't have to get on a bus or a plane, don't have to crawl into bed at 3AM after an evening of ball and a night of travel, get to have a normal practice/game/recovery routine, spend a little quality time with their girlfriends and get on track with their homework and studies.

Great points.  But these 18 days represent the last bit of rest before the end-of-season postseason push.  We head to Maryland on March 9th, then to Greensboro for the ACC Tournament, then to who-knows-where for the NCAA Tournament.


-- That's right, I just said the NCAA Tournament.  No jinx, because we're now a lock for the Big Dance.  Coming into the season, I said we'd need to win 12 in the ACC to secure a bid, 13+ for a favorable bid.  Last night was lucky #13.

-- And hey, maybe some confusion about this, so HERE'S A LINK to the wacky, wild ACC Tournament bracket, new for 15 teams in 2014!  The happy news is that with last night's win, we secured a double-bye to Friday's quarterfinal round!  I wonder if we can find a way to do the very un-Virginia thing and actually win a game in the ACCT and actually advance to Saturday's semifinals?

-- I know Syracuse losing at Duke this weekend would help our cause in trying to win the ACC regular season and get the #1 seed in the ACCT... but I don't care.  I want the Cuse to be undefeated when we play them in the JPJ on March 1st.  WE ARE GOING TO WIN THAT GAME.  (And with Pitt now sucking, we need a new "signature win" four our Tournament résumé.)

-- Plus, I don't mind if we finish the season as the ACC's #2 team, because I want another crack at what figures to be the #3 seed, Duke.  We'd have a lot of that crowd in Greensboro behind us in that game on Saturday, March 15th.  My freaking birthday.

-- You might not have noticed, but Joe Lunardi released his latest Bracketology on Monday.  I've been waiting for it, as all the peripherals (RPI, KenPom, BPI, Sagarin) were in place... but we're now a 3-seed.  Wow, a 3-seed.

-- By the way, here are the 1st/2nd round host sites (I refuse to call the play-in games in Dayton the 1st round): Buffalo (MAC), Milwaukee (Marquette), Orlando (Stetson), Spokane (Washington State), Raleigh (NC State), San Antonio (Texas-San Antonio), San Diego (San Diego St.), St. Louis (Missouri Valley Conference).  Fingers crossed for Raleigh, right?  Rule 2b: We get shipped off to Siberia Spokane.

-- By the way, if you don't mind following me down the rabbit hole for a second, here are the capacities of those arenas:

• First Niagara Center (Buffalo): 18,690
• BMO Harris Bradley Center (Milwaukee): 19,000
• Amway Center (Orlando): 20,000
• Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena (Spokane): 14,000
• PNC Arena (Raleigh): 19,772
• AT&T Center (San Antonio): 18,581
• Viejas Arena (San Diego): 12,414
• Scotttrade Center (St. Louis): 19,260

It stands to reason that our glistening jewel of a facility, our beloved John Paul Jones Arena, could handle hosting an NCAA Tournament 1st/2nd round pod, right?  Our 14,593 capacity outpaces two of this year's host sites.  The reason UVA won't be hosting anytime soon?  According to Craig Littlepage, whom I e-mailed about the subject a few years ago, there are not enough hotels in and around Charlottesville.  I guess that makes sense, but jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.  How cool would it be to host in CVille?

-- This post isn't just about basketball, mind you.  In light of THIS REPORT that the ACC is exploring a football scheduling partnership with the SEC, to go along with existing ACC/SEC matchups Florida State/Florida, Georgia Tech/Georgia, Clemson/South Carolina, and Louisville/Kentucky, (and also a possible rekindling of Wake Forest/Vanderbilt), I've been thinking about what ACC/SEC matchups should be formed for a) the almighty television dollar, and b) the good of UVA.  Here's my plan for the additional pairings:

• Virginia Tech/Tennessee - This one's obvious, isn't it?  Put all the insufferable mouthbreathing rednecks together and let them work it out.  Maybe they could even play it on a NASCAR track or something.  *snicker*
• Miami/Alabama - Miami will enjoy getting their asses kicked by the players they used to be able to afford to buy back in the early 90s.
• North Carolina/Auburn - Classic 7s who think they're 10s.  Need to put the delusional fanbases together on the field of battle.  (Note: Carolina is a ctually just a 5.  Really, a 4.5 if I'm being honest.  Still thinks she's a 10, though.)
• Duke/LSU - Just because I want to see Dook endure a brutal, Medieval-style torture every season.
• Pitt/Texas A&M - I feel like these conference-hopping, ungrateful shitsippers deserve each other.
• NC State/Mississippi State - West Virginia is the obvious runaway #1, but these schools are #2 and #3 in the rankings of the number of fans who shit and piss themselves in the stands during football games.  (I don't know this to be true of Mississippi State fans, but having met a few of them during last season's baseball super regional, I think it's an extremely safe assumption.)
• Boston College/Arkansas - A good, ole fashioned Who Gives a Shit? game.
• Syracuse/Missouri - Look, not all of these are going to be goldmines.
• Virginia/Ole Miss - We gon' have us a sundress party up in here!

-- Speaking of the SEC...  Given the incredible suckitude of Virginia Football right now, and the way that it tends to completely mangle my mood all fall into December into getting salty with Santa Claus because of how bad the Hoos suck, I have decided to adopt another team and put another dog in the fight.  Specifically, I want to put another Dawg in the fight.  That's right, Hoofans, along with dying hard as a Virginia die-hard, I will also be a fan of "big boy football" via the University of Georgia.  HUNKER DOWN YOU HAIRY DAWGS!

-- Last item on the list, and it's back to basketball.  Blasphemy that the ACC is the #5 conference by way of RPI, right?  But there it is.  And with Virginia now having its best season in decades, I no longer live in a glass house when I throw this stone.  The following traditional powers need to step the fuck up on the hardwood:

• Georgia Tech - Last Tournament appearance: 2010.  Last Sweet 16: 2004.  Current RPI: 151.
• Wake Forest - Last Tournament appearance: 2010.  Last Sweet 16: 2004.  Current RPI: 102.
• Boston College - Last Tournament appearance: 2009.  Last Sweet 16: 2006.  Current RPI: 195 (woof).
• Maryland - Last Tournament appearance: 2010.  Last Sweet 16: 2003.  Current RPI: 68.

Now, trading Maryland for Louisville is a slam dunk gain for the ACC in terms of basketball heft.  But part of the premise that the ACC was building the elitist of the elite basketball conferences in the history of roundball was based at least partly on the concept that UVA, NC State, GT, Wake, and BC would be solid performers to go along with Tobacco Road, 'Cuse, Pitt, ND, and L'Ville.  We're doing our part right now along with the shitbags at NC State, but the Yellow Jackets, Demon Deacons, and Eagles are dragging the conference down.  The ACC is soft in the middle, and that's why the conference sucks from an RPI perspective.  Virginia Tech will never be good at basketball, but with FSU and Miami sort of outperforming their basketball destiny in recent seasons, the ACC should be the creme de la creme de la creme.  Instead, we're looking up at the fucking Big Ten.  It's time for GT and Wake to fire their staffs and get moving in the right direction, as Brian Gregory and Jeff Bzdelik are just awful college basketball coaches.  BC... I'm not really sure what the problem is.  But you three programs are officially on notice.  Wahooze says step the fuck up!

Start by firing this clown.

-- Bonus bullet!  Baseball.  It's [extremely] early in the season, and the loss to Kentucky was a bummer.  But it looks like we have some real studs in sophomore weekend starters Nathan Kirby and Josh Sborz, and in (6-foot-4!) freshman shortstop Daniel Pinero.  I'll be watching to see if we properly hammer William & Mary down in Williamsburg this afternoon, and if we can get out the broom against ECU this weekend.  If Derek Fisher can keep swinging a hot bat, and Brandon Downes, Joe McCarthy, Branden Cogswell, and/or Kenny Towns can battle out of their early season slumps, we should be sitting pretty at 6-1 in short order.  GO HOOS!