Figured this would be a good post for people to throw up the interesting stories or a quick blurb on an ACC blowout or something else going on.
To start it off, the LOLUVA is getting a huge break with their #12 vs #4 matchup with Louisville tonight. Louisville suspended Mangok Matheng (now former team captain) and Deng Adel for tonights game for violating curfew. Thats 19 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks gone from a team already missing their top 2 point guards due to injuries. Essentially 3 starters will not be on the floor for the Cardinals tonight.
I dont know if anyone caught the Florida State/Clemson game but that game made me realize that our loss to FSU could have been so much worse. Florida State took their foot off the pedal with more than 10 minutes to play but still maintained their 40+ point lead to win 109-61. Crazy part is that FSU only had three players score in double figures. They had 13 players score and 11 of those scored at least 6 points.
EDIT: Other big games this week, #18 Duke and #8North Carolina go at it on Thursday night 8PM at Cameron Indoor.
Comments
FYI: Puke vs UNCheat is Thursday @ 8p, not Friday. Hopefully they both lose the game.
I'm rooting for the e. coli in the buffet breakfast at the hotels.
FSU is going to be a hit or miss team all year. None of their guys are particularly great jump shooters, but they have those games when they just can't seem to miss. I think UNC is the best team (not exactly an earth-shattering prediction), and Louisville has a national title chance if they get healthy. Notre Dame looks the same as the last couple, Elite Eight good but probably nothing more than that. Duke is still dangerous with K back, and I think if they can finish the season in the top 6 of the conference I'd have to give Kennard ACCPOY. Syracuse suddenly becoming dangerous is surprising, that loss to BC might haunt them in March though. UVA is the devil.
Slight correction, UNC-Duke is on Thursday, not Friday.
Eh FSU isn't that hit or miss. Their three point shooting is above average, and they're outstanding at 2s. Played two really rough first halves to screw themselves against GT and Cuse but other than that they've been trucking people. The thing I like about them is that everyone on that team has a role and doesn't try to play outside of it, makes the whole better than the sum of the parts. If you want to see what Buzz is trying to build this FSU team is a great example.
I think Louisville is the best team actually, once they get Quinton Snider and Tony Woods back I think they're going to take off. That team can do a bit of everything and their defense is outstanding. I think they could be a national championship team. UNC, to me, is just lacking something. I'm not sure what it is. I love their whole roster but somehow it just doesn't fit to me. I think getting Pinson back would be huge huge huge for them, but last I've seen there is no timetable.
Duke and Notre Dame can't guard anyone and thats a dangerous way to go into March imo. They're both super talented on offense but it only takes one bad shooting game in March for your season to end. UVA is UVA. They'll end up losing to Michigan State at some point in the tournament, book it.
UVA wins by double digits against a very short-handed Louisville in C'ville.
Yeah wasnt surprised by this with the talent Louisville was playing without.
Is Mike Barber a UVA fan? I might be late to this particular party, but it seems everything he puts on Twitter is either slightly biased towards UVA or slightly biased against VT. Nothing outright disrespectful but often very thinly veiled slights towards the Hokies.
Sorry for the slightly off topic question.
Usually its Mark Berman that gets that charge against him. Barber I dont have as much problem with. I went back through his last month's worth of tweets and nothing jumped out at me. Part of it may just be that right now in terms of basketball, UVA has won 7 of their last 9 games, 2 over ranked teams and is ranked themselves. Tech is 4-5 in their last nine games, with losses to four ranked teams, while also falling out of the rankings. Tough not to be at least a little more positive on coverage of one over the other in that case.
Good point. I'm probably just looking for someone that's slighted VT, even when not really there. Thanks for your perspective.
Screw Mike Barber. UVA homer who never hesitates to shit on the Hokies. I'd embed the tweet if I knew how but rather than comment on how closely we played a talented FSU team the only thing he can think to say is to comment on how long it's been since VT has won multiple games in the ACC tourney. That's not the only tweet I've taken offense to lately either...
I think I'll unfollow. Dick...
Dont look now but Boeheim has the Orange charging to the front of the ACC. They escaped Clemson last night with a buzzer beater three to move to 8-4 in conference which puts them currently in 4th.
Other thing of note, Notre Dame fell off the map after starting conference play so hot. They started conference play 5-0, but now sit at 7-5, and only there with some late heroics last night to beat Wake Forest at home.
Injury bug perhaps?
Not that I can tell looking at their roster and stats. Start of their schedule was a bit soft and they did get into more of the top teams later on but still surprising with how well they had been playing. To be fair, four of their losses are to Florida State, Virginia, Duke and UNC. I guess I just expected them to fair better against those teams, especially with some of the duds those teams have allowed this season.
Great game between UNC and Duke right now on ESPN.
10 lead changes at halftime.
surprisingly good. I kind of expected UNC to throttle Duke.
Then again you never know with rivalries.
Grayson Allen with 7 threes, they should guard him lol /s
Tremendous game for sure.
Just saw the over under for the LOLUVa Duke game was 129. At half time it's bad guy:21, worse guys:25. I don't see either team breaking 60 tonight. Such a boring style of basketball...
mainly Uva playing D, and Duke being confused on offense. Glad to see Duke cut the halftime deficit in like 40 seconds to start the second half
I'll take that bet. That over/under number will be scarily accurate by the end. Both teams unusually cold in the first half and will rebound in the second
Duke with the 3s, looking to put this one away
...the last two minutes of a close basketball game. longest two minutes in sports, i swear.
LOLUVA now 3-6 in games they allow more than 60 points. 15-1 in all other games.
Meltdown on the sabre currently. They are all questioning coach TB. Very fun to read.
I think I have this right...in addition to us continuing to win, we want the good teams we beat (UVA, Duke, etc) to win onthe road. That improves their RPI, which improves ours (at least more than a home win), right?
It would seem that way, but there is always the LOLUVa exception: we want them to lose every game from here on out so we can feast on their torment and throw "wait til basketball season" back in their douchebag faces all year.
I wanna see Uva get blown the fuck out
So far so good
Watching London Perrantes cry on the bench is fun.
VT loses to UNC by 19 while scoring 71 points.
UVA loses to UNC by 24 while scoring just 41 points.
They broke Chris Clarke's knee, so we broke their season.
LOLUVA 3-7 now when an opponent scores 60+. If the boys had managed the upset we would have been equal records in ACC play.
UVA 20
Miami 19
At the half. Yuck.
UVA has averaged 23 points per half in the last 5 halves. IF they lose tonight, they will have a worse record than VT in late February. Wait for basketball season, my ass.
LOLuva has lost their last 4 games, and is 2-6 in their last 8 - yet they are still ranked #18?
Quality losses
you heard it right folks, we quality
UVA's strategy on offense... Wait till the end of the shot clock then......
snoozer of a game, Miami and uva
UVA has now lost 4 in a row.
Looks to me like Perrentes has just run out of gas down the stretch. They ask him to do an unbelievable amount for them
Hey Hoos, am I still waiting for basketball season?
That's a great picture of UVA's offense.
Shameless plug.
That was an exciting game. NOT. How do you not break 50 in OT?
If LOLuva keeps this up, they don't make the tournament right? How many wins do they need to be safe? I would so love to see us make it for the first time since I was in school, and them miss out.
Just need one more w to get to 9-9, and they are in with their high RPI. But their seeding is dropping. Were around a 3-4, now maybe a 6
With 18 wins and their reputation, they probably make it in regardless.
Wouldn't that be something if VT got into the NCAA tourney (at whatever seed because I will take anything) and UVA continues their collapse and miss the tournament. They could EASILY lose their last 3 regular season games (@NCST, UNC, and PITT) and be 18-12 (8-10 ACC) before the ACC tourney, most likely being in the bottom half of the conference.
That would put the LOL in LOLUVA.... again
LOLLOLuva
I see what you're doing, you bastards...
UVa is tanking on purpose to mess up our RPI.
UVA must've taken our broken, uneven rim with them and used it on all of their offensive possessions since the 2nd half in Cassell
Syracuse just helped their cause with a Seth Allenesque buzzer beater over Duke.
Hell of a shot
Duke's last possession was so LOLUVA. Waste the entire shot clock and throw up a horrible shot.
That 10 point win over Syracuse is starting to look really good.
Also. Dick Vitale yelling "it's over. They're in. The committee can't keep them out now" sounds awfully familiar after a duke loss. Ugh.
I have 200 Mbps internet, and WatchESPN buffers every 30 seconds for me. It's always been ass, but it has been unwatchable ever since they overhauled their website a few months ago. Is it this bad for everyone else?
I never have issues with it, on pretty much any connection I use. Home (50 Mbps), my former workplace, streaming on my phone through 4g...
That's strange. I have a wired connection to my computer, and have never had any issues with any other streaming/video services.
WatchESPN works great in my bedroom TV which is connected to my wifi. My living room TV's Xbox One is hard wired to the router and sucks. Not sure why, but it's frustrating.
the espn app on xbox one blows. i was trying to watch the oj documentary on it. Half the time it shows "no content for this sport available" the other half of the time i can watch one of them for a bit then it will hit a commercial and i lose video.
Mostly works fine for me using a chromecast
Must be a preview of no net neutrality. Your internet provider probably has beef with ESPN.
I think you might be right. Everything was good when I had Comcast, but my problems started when I moved and switched to Time Warner.
You know, I think Le Sabre is perfect for LOLUVa. If you paired a better user interface and regular content with their crap on the field product and the overwhelming douchebaggery of their fan base, it would just feel out of place. But the clunky ass set up they have now just screams "hey we used to be quasi relevant 15 years ago, but even then we thought more of ourselves than we should have." It's a match made in heaven.
Just wanna give Joe a shout out for a well laid out website that stands well on its own, but is a gorram daVinci masterpiece when compared to Le Sabre. If you haven't already, please join The Key Players Club to help Joe keep the site running.
So does the Syracuse win help our RPI more than it devalues the win over Duke? Or were we in a no win situation there.
It definitely bumps up the W over Syracuse more. The win over Duke will still get the recognition it deserves
speaking purely in terms of RPI calculation, Duke winning would have been more beneficial, but only very slightly.
With the win, Syracuse ended up at 17-12 (58.62%) and Duke at 22-6 (78.57%). Had Duke won, those percentages would have been 55.17% and 82.14%, respectively. Since a component of our RPI is 0.50*OWP (opponents win percentage), at this point in time, a Duke win would have increased Duke's WP slightly more than Syracuse's did by winning (3.57% change for Duke vs. 3.45% change for Syracuse). Given that these percentages will be averaged across all our opponents, this is basically a wash.
Of course, the committee is not bound by RPI so I'm assuming a blowout road win by Duke would have made us look a lot better, but who the heck knows.
The result of a one off Syracuse/Duke game had no effect on what the committee may think of us. However, if this is a win that ultimately propels Syracuse into the tournament (big IF), and if we stutter down the road (big IF) it (might) help us that Syracuse wins and gives us another "team in the field" win. Otherwise, a win over Syracuse isn't going to be the deciding factor in us getting an 8 seed or 9 seed.
I guess Syracuse's surprising win last night could hurt us if we go 1-2 down the stretch, since we want to be ranked as high as possible in the ACC. Now if the orange go 1-1 for their last 2 games we'll have to go 2-1 to tie them, but we have the tie breaker at least with overall record and head to head. But then again we're going 3-0 so nothing to worry about, right?
Committee takes into account the wins you got in the conference, not the total number. 10 wins in the ACC are not made equal. You could be crossed over with BC, PITT, WAKE and State and have 8 of your wins come from there. Pick up your win against GT and scrape by us and Miami at home and you have an 11 win ACC team. Now take into account a team that has to be crossed with UNC, UL, Duke and FSU. Maybe they go 2-6 there. Lose to Syracuse and Virginia, but beat us, Miami and ND as well and win the rest. You have a 10 win ACC team. That 10 win resume looks a whole lot better doesn't it?
Guys, I think we broke London Perrantes.
UVA/NCSU is 8-7, 9 mins in.
First to break 40 wins.
UVAs offense is hilarious right now, but I sure would like to see VT pressure the ball like they do.
We won't ever pressure the ball the way they do. They recruit a different style (in terms of size and quickness trade off) of player than us
Apparently NC State used up their one good game against us...
That and Duke, but yeah that was a nightmare game to watch.
Wake with a big upset at home over Louisville last night - definitely helped their cause on the bubble.
I was glad to see one of those ACC bubble teams get the win they needed. For a while it looked like they would all miss the dance. Most folks' first 4 out had 2 or 3 ACC teams in them for a while now.
Although Wake has generally been a team I don't worry too much about (we have beaten them in our last 3 matchups), This will be a very tough matchup, partially considering this win over L'ville. John Collins is a beast. He has scored 20+ in each of their last 12 games and is averaging nearly 10 boards/game. At 6-10, he is just the kind of guy to exploit our undersized roster. And if we slow him down, they've got another experienced 6-10 guy in Mitoglu.
Hooowweevvverrrrr....I like the Hokies at home. 81-75 good guys
Good news is Wake doesn't play much defense either, so I could easily seeing this one in the 80's. We'll score a ton, but they will score a ton too. Should be a fun one.
Grayson Allen definitely just elbowed a UNC player in the face on purpose during a drive.
At least he drew a T for that.
Not even sure how he managed to snap his head back while delivering that bow.
I've never seen one player regularly make so many unnatural movements on a basketball court except maybe Draymond Green. I can't imagine they're all intentional
This one didn't look as intentional as some of the others. It looked more like he was trying to get his arm up and over the defenders arm.
So every time I think we're going to outright do better than LOLUVa, we slip up (like losing to wake to end the season). But at least every time they have a chance to do better than us, they blow it (like getting owned by ND last night). Factoring in expectations, I'd say we're winning in basketball this season. Here's to a deeper run in the NCAA than them.
I would love nothing more than to see UVa fall victim to the annual 12 over 5 upset.