When you get right down to it, it's still basketball, pure and simple. Starting today, when the nine ACC women's basketball teams square off to decide the Conference championship, the sounds of the game - the squeaking of leather sneakers, the swish of a nylon net, the clock-like tick-tock of a bouncing ball - will be as identifiable on the court in Greensboro as in a Saturday afternoon pick-up game.
But, when you pack thousands of fans into the Greensboro Coliseum and put an ACC title up for grabs, this weekend's Tournament takes on a lot more significance than your average rec league game.
Clemson, last year's Tournament champion, comes in looking to keep the title from leaving Death Valley, and Duke, the 1999 regular season champion, surely wants to spur a repeat run to the NCAA Final Four. But both of those teams, plus the other championship hopefuls, will have to find a way to knock off top-seeded Virginia, which has the easiest road to the Conference crown.
The No. 16 Cavaliers (22-7, 13-3 ACC) earned the No. 1 seed for the 10th time in the Tournament's 22-year history with a dominant late-season run against top competition. After two losses to ranked teams to start the season, Virginia has won four straight against Top 25 opponents, including an upset of then-No. 7 N.C. State Feb. 20 that vaulted the Cavaliers up the polls.
Certainly the Cavs have their work cut out for them against the other ACC powers, but Coach Debbie Ryan thinks they pose a formidable threat.
"I think that we have to be hitting on all cylinders to win and that we have to handle things extremely well, but you better not sleep on us," Ryan said.
Virginia opens its run tonight at 8 p.m. against ninth-seeded Wake Forest (7-20, 3-13). The last-place Deacons struggled through another disappointing season, duplicating the 3-13 Conference record they posted in 1999.
Despite facing a team at the bottom of the league in field goal percentage, turnover margin and rebound margin, the Cavs maintain they are not writing Wake off.
"We're not looking past Wake Forest," senior forward Lisa Hosac said. "They're playing with nothing to lose now."
Whoever emerges tonight will move on to play the winner of Saturday's contest between fourth-seeded Clemson (18-10, 9-7) and fifth-seeded North Carolina (16-11, 8-8).
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