HellUVa Week for Virginia Sports

Last night UVa earned a marquee win over #3 Duke 73-68 on national TV essentially clinching a spot in the big dance. Here are some of the key stats:

• The last time the Cavaliers beat a top 5 team was exactly 11 years ago, against #3 Duke.
• Duke never had the lead.
• The Blue Devils only had one offensive rebound after averaging 10 for the season.
• Joe Harris had a career high 36 points, the most for any player against Duke since 2006, and the most in the ACC this season.
• Harris is now 2^nd in the ACC in scoring, 3^rd in FG%, 3^rd in 3PT FG%, and 4^th in FT%, and is in consideration for ACC Player of the Year and has his own Twitter feed pushing for it https://twitter.com/JoeHarrisACCPOY
• This picture is in consideration for picture of the year as well.
• Akil Mitchell also had a great game with 19 points (2^nd highest this year) and 12 rebounds (2^nd highest as well).
• UVA is now 10-5 in the ACC, with 4 top 50 RPI wins, greatly improving their NCAA tournament selection chances.

Meanwhile Virginia’s men’s spring sports are undefeated so far.  #19 Baseball has started off 8-0 with a combined score of 84-19. #1 Tennis is 6-0, including the Indoor Championship against arch-rival USC.  #6 Lacrosse is 4-0, scoring a combined 62-34, with a huge matchup tonight against Syracuse. Not to be outdone, the Football team got a big boost, when they got a commitment from the #4 ranked recruit in the country as well.  Not to put too much stock in these things, but from 2002-2008 29 of the 35 top 5 rated recruits went on to become NFL starters.

Great week to be a Wahoo Fan!

Hoo’s Battling Duke for 1st Place?

Don’t look now, but UVa men’s basketball team is 14-1 and ranked #16 in the country. The Cavaliers are the only one loss team left in in the ACC, putting them in first place as conference play starts up. This is the highest the team has been ranked since 2000, when they were #8 in the country. In the latest Bracketology forecast, ESPN predicts Virginia will be a 5 seed in the tournament which would be the team’s best seeding since they last made the tournament as a 4 seed in 2007.

UVa is led by fifth year senior Mike Scott, who is the leading scorer and has had five double doubles so far. He has already earned three ACC player of the week awards this season, only the fifth Cavalier to do so. The team also relies on one of the best defenses in the country, which is 2^nd out of 338 in scoring at 50.5 points a game, and 20^th in opponents’ field goal %. The fans at John Paul Jones Arena have embraced the defensive mindset by ramping up the decimal level whenever the opponents’ shot clock goes below 10 seconds.

However, the team’s biggest test to date is Thursday as they travel to Cameron Indoor Stadium to take on #6 Duke. ESPN has this matchup as the upset pick of the week. Unfortunately, the Wahoos have not beaten the Blue Devils since 2007 and have not won on Coach K court since 1995, when the members of the Hoo’s roster were still learning how to walk let alone dribble a basketball. Yikes!