In case you missed it, the Virginia men's basketball team is in first place in the ACC.
Now stop, take a deep breath, and read that first sentence over again.
After two home wins over No. 10 Duke and Miami in the last week, Virginia now sits atop the ACC with a 7-2 conference record. How is this even possible? It is possible for any number of reasons, but the main one is that this Cavalier team has simply figured out how to win. Attribute it to great coaching, veteran leadership or maybe blind luck; this team just knows how to win basketball games.
A couple weeks back, I wrote that Virginia's new emphasis on offense and apparent de-emphasis on defense worried me heading deeper into conference play. Well since then, Virginia has held its next four opponents to 58, 62, 66 and (last night) 70 points. Earlier in the season, Virginia pulled out decisive ACC victories over Maryland and Wake Forest by simply running them off the court. In their subsequent games against N.C. State, Duke and Clemson, however, the Cavaliers ran into quality defensive teams capable of slowing down the tempo of the game. Despite an inability to "run and stun," Virginia persevered and pulled out three gritty conference wins behind stellar defense, great free throw shooting and clutch baskets.
Saturday night's game against Miami presented a completely different challenge for Virginia -- one of which I, personally, was quite fearful. Call it what you want -- a letdown game, a hangover game, a trap game -- the fact is that Virginia had every excuse to come out flat and lifeless against the Hurri-can'ts. I think most Virginia fans were still exhausted from last Thursday's epic, overtime thriller against Duke. Certainly it would have been somewhat understandable if the Cavaliers "showed up" a little late for Miami.
This opinion, however, discredits both the Virginia team and coaching staff. While the 'Hoos didn't set the world on fire, they did "take care of business" as Leitao said after the game. Virginia reinstituted the "run and stun" wonderfully, taking a considerable sum of 26 three-pointers (16 in the first as part of the "stun") and gleefully making 42 percent of them.
Looking forward, it is officially time to get excited about Virginia's postseason chances. For those students who aren't aware, when teams play better than Virginia has the last four seasons, they get to compete in this little thing called the NCAA Tournament. It's quite glorious, with many games in a small number of days, national TV exposure and the chance to compete for a national title. I imagine there will be much more to come about this later.
For now, Virginia fans have to be excited about the state of Cavalier basketball. After a number of years toiling in the doldrums of ACC obscurity, Virginia basketball matters again. We've won six straight conference games. We're tied with Boston College for first place in arguably the toughest conference in the country. And we have plenty of winnable games left on the schedule.
Enjoy it Wahoo Nation. I certainly am.
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