A week ago today, there was serious NCAA tournament buzz surrounding the Virginia Cavaliers. Virginia had just blown out then-No.11 Boston College by a score of 72-58 and had what appeared to be a winnable road game against Clemson on the horizon.
What a difference a week makes.
"The Boston College game means nothing now," Virginia guard J.R. Reynolds said. "To come on the road and get beat like this, you can throw that game out the window."
After being blown out 90-64 by the Tigers this past weekend, the Cavaliers (14-11, 7-7 ACC) are now thinking about everything but postseason possibilities.
"I'm not even thinking about that now," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said of NCAA possibilities. "The NCAA is something that happens at the end of the year that is a reward for playing your tail off. We're in year one and we've got eight scholarship guys and we're just trying to figure it out."
The first step toward figuring it out will come tonight when Virginia travels to Chapel Hill to face No. 15 North Carolina. The Tar Heels, the defending national champions, are coming into the game on a five-game winning streak and have one of the nation's most dynamic freshman players in forward Tyler Hansbrough.
But the Cavaliers do have the advantage of knowing they have beaten this team before, 72-68 in Charlottesville Jan. 19. In that contest, Virginia's starting backcourt of Sean Singletary and Reynolds combined to score 34 points. That game, however, was played at University Hall, and Virginia is a much different team when it plays on the road. The Cavaliers are 1-6 on the road with their lone win coming Jan. 15 against Virginia Tech.
"It's something we have to address," Singletary said. "Our road woes are something we have to take care of."
Virginia also has problems handling the ball on the road. All three games in which the Cavaliers have turned the ball over 20 or more times have been away games. Against Clemson, Virginia turned the ball over a season-high 29 times. That total included nine turnovers from Singletary.
An issue of particular interest is how much playing time starting forward Jason Cain gets in tonight's game. There was speculation that Cain sat for most of the game because of a shouting match with assistant coach Steve Seymour early in the first half, but Leitao nipped that talk in the bud.
In the earlier win against the Tar Heels, Cain and freshman Laurynas Mikalasukas played tough defense against Hansbrough and prevented him from getting into any type of rhythm. Cain, however, only played nine mostly ineffective minutes against Clemson. "I just don't think he played well" against Clemson, Leitao said. "I wasn't happy with the way he was playing so I didn't play him."
Whatever the reason for Cain's lack of playing time against the Tigers, his performance could be a factor in how the game plays out. Cain is the leading rebounder for the Cavaliers and is statistically the third best offensive rebounder in the ACC, just behind Hansbrough and Georgia Tech's Jeremis Smith. His presence, or possibly lack thereof, could be a key to whether Virginia picks up its second conference road win of the season or not.
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