GREENSBORO, N.C.- Print the invitations - the unlikely recipients for March Madness are the Virginia Cavaliers.
This past weekend, I saw the Virginia women's basketball team grow up right before my very eyes. The ACC basketball tournament in Greensboro, N.C., was a milestone for the Cavaliers. All the preseason hype revolved around the eight new players, the five freshmen, and the one senior - "too young and too inexperienced," cried the naysayers. After willing a victory away from Georgia Tech and nearly knocking off No. 4 Duke, no longer can anyone claim the Virginia roster is comprised of anything but a group of seasoned veterans who have learned to play the game under every circumstance. When favorites, when underdogs, when protecting a lead, and when coming back from a large deficit.
Saturday's first round action pitted Virginia against Georgia Tech and placed the Cavaliers in an unlikely role - as favorites. Third-seeded Virginia showed their nerves early, trailing for most of the first half. Freshman Brandi Teamer was particularly off her game, taking just one shot and finishing the half with one point and seven turnovers.
Undeterred, Virginia rebounded with the steady emotion befitting of an experienced team and even staked out a small lead for most of the second half. And when the Yellow Jackets surged to take a two-point lead with 49 seconds remaining, Teamer found her shot and tied the game as the clock read 00:29.
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Back at the other end of the floor, facing tournament extinction, the Virginia defense held true, as it was Teamer again who made the play. She alertly jumped in the passing lane for a steal with six ticks left and launched the ball to a racing Telisha Quarles who coolly laid it in with just 1.7 seconds to go. Virginia took the game and the chance to play a Duke team that hadn't lost an ACC game all year, or, for that matter, any game at all in 2002 - their last loss was to then No. 2 Tennessee in December.
Now no one gave Virginia even the slightest chance, considering Duke's 34 and 17-point victories in their two previous meetings. And this was especially true after Duke pulled ahead by 18 points with just four minutes and 23 seconds remaining. No one, that is, except Virginia, which had other ideas for how this game would end.
"Give Virginia so much credit because they never gave up," Duke coach Gail Goestenkors said. "I thought we were on the verge of putting them away, but they did a great job and hit some huge shots down the stretch."
Her remarks may sound like Virginia won this game, and in many ways they did. With 6.1 seconds left, Virginia was down three but had the ball and was in position to tie the game with one shot. Sure, they turned the ball over on that possession, but no one else in the ACC has come anywhere near that close to beating the Blue Devils.
"I knew we could pull it off," Quarles said. "We stayed together even when they had that lead, we still had tight huddles and played together and believed in ourselves. I just told the team 'we can do this.'"
And, depending on your definition of the weekend's objectives, Virginia did indeed do it - that is, they came away from the weekend having accomplished all they needed to do this weekend. They have all but certainly secured a bid for this year's NCAA tournament.
"I think this team has made great, great progress, which gives us some confidence going into the NCAA tournament," Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. "I feel very strongly that, depending on where we're seeded, we can make some noise [in the tournament], and this is a team that wasn't even supposed to be smelling the NCAA tournament, let alone be in it."
Virginia began the tournament with what Ryan described as "one of our worst offensive games of the season in the first half" and ended it with a half in which it outscored Duke 46-36 and held them to a meager 25.9 percent field goal percentage. And to what do the Cavaliers owe the credit for this change?
"My staff has done an outstanding job all year long of not only tactical but also emotional preparation, constantly making sure players were staying in the game, staying focus, staying on task," Ryan said. "I can't say enough about [coaches] Audra Smith, Nikki Caldwell and Tim Taylor. They did a fabulous job."
There's no need for the past tense, Coach, as Virginia's job is not yet done - the NCAA tournament requests their presence.
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