WBB visits UVA Mar 1 at Noon

The 11-6 Hokies travel to Charlottesville Sunday to play the 11-6 UVA Cavaliers. The game will be on the ACC Network at Noon. VT and UVA are tied with Syracuse and Clemson at 11-6 for seeds 5 through 8 and one game behind 12-5 NC State. NC State plays 1-16 Pitt; so they probably will not drop below the #4 seed. We play UVA; Syracuse plays 1-16 BC, probably also a win. Clemson is at 7-10 Stanford; Stanford is favored in the matchup predictor at 62.8%. The best case is if we win and the other 11-6 teams lose; we would be the 5 seed no matter what NC State does because they beat us head to head. I think we would still be the 5 seed if Clemson and Syracuse won because we won our games against them. I think as the 5 seed we would eventually play NC State in the tournament, which I prefer to Duke, Louisville or UNC. If we lose to UVA, we could end up anywhere between 5 and 8; I don't think we can fall below 8. So, we will get at least one bye. I have no idea how to figure out the seeds if four teams tie at 12-6. But if that is the case, I hope one of the 12-6 teams is us; otherwise, we would be the 8 seed and eventually face Duke.

UVA has beaten the teams they should have except UMBC, Cal and maybe us.

The Hoos are a very experienced team with one grad student, two seniors, a redshirt junior and a junior starting. They are also relatively tall. They start #7 senior forward 6' 4" Tabitha Amanze; #5 junior forward 6' 2" Sa'Myah Smith and #23 grad student guard 6' 3" Romi Levy. The other two guards are #21 junior guard 5' 7" Kymora Johnson and #1 senior guard 5' 8" Paris Clark. The next two in minutes played versus UNC were #12 grad student forward 6' 4" Caitlin Weimar and #32 sophomore forward 6' 2" Breona Hurd. When we played UVA the first time Jillian Brown started instead of Paris Clark.

Johnson is the leading scorer at 19 ppg shooting 42.6% overall, 37.1% from three and 87.1% from the line. She also averages 6 assists and 3.1 TOs per game. Amanze is the only other player to average double digits at 10.0 ppg; she shoots 48% overall, has not made a three and shoots 74.1% from the line. Clark averages 8.9 ppg; Levy and Smith average 8.0. Amanze averages 2.8 fouls per game, Clark 2.1 and Smith 2.3; fouls could be a factor in this game.

The Hoos average 44.6% overall, 32.5% from three and 71.6% from the line. They score 76 ppg and allow 64. They have won the rebounding battle by 10 rebounds per game; have 17.6 assists and 14.1 turnovers per game. They average 6.9 blocks and 8.5 steals per game.

For comparison, here are the Hokies stats:

I don't know how to guess which way this game will go. If we play our best, we should lock up a big win. If we don't shoot well, don't block out underneath and our not careful with the ball, this could get ugly. A saving grace could be if we can put a couple of their players on the bench with fouls.

LET'S GO HOKIES!