By Paul Montana Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor Few predicted in November that Virginia men's basketball would be where it is at this point in the season.
At 1-8 in the ACC and 11-11 overall, Virginia sits firmly in last in the ACC, and with its most recent loss Saturday to Wake Forest, joined Georgia Tech as one of two teams to fall to a .500 overall record.
Before the season started, Virginia was picked by the ACC media to finish fifth and by ESPN.com to finish ninth in the conference. Few gave the Cavaliers a chance at a repeat performance of last year's ACC-title run; just as few, however, could have predicted that the team would be two games back of the rest of the conference in mid-February.
Three overtime losses and numerous blown second-half leads later, however, and Virginia has found itself in just that spot. Furthermore, the Cavaliers face the prospect of playing three of their four remaining home games against the conference's top-three teams -- North Carolina, Duke and Maryland -- down the closing stretch of the season.
"You could have never told me that our season was going to be like this," senior guard Sean Singletary said. "But, this is the hand we're dealt, so we've got to get out of it some way."
Virginia starts its grueling home schedule tonight when it takes on No. 5 North Carolina. The Tar Heels are coming off an emotional double-overtime comeback victory against Clemson Sunday, which had shades of Virginia's late 15-0 run to beat Clemson on the road last season. Down 11 with just over three minutes remaining, the Tar Heels outscored the Tigers 14-3 in the final minutes to knot the score at 82 and send the game to the first overtime. After the two teams battled to an 8-8 standstill in the first extra period, North Carolina outlasted Clemson in the second and escaped with the 103-93 win.
Junior forward Tyler Hansbrough, who ended with an ACC season-high 39 points against Clemson, will be a daunting challenge for a Virginia frontcourt that has been riddled with injuries. The senior is averaging a double-double with 22.8 points and 10.8 rebounds per game and tops in the ACC in both categories, putting him as the firm frontrunner for the ACC Player of the Year and in contention for National Player of the Year as well.
In its loss to Wake Forest Saturday, Virginia had a new lineup to start the game that featured more size, as 6-foot-9 senior center Ryan Pettinella, 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Jamil Tucker, and 6-foot-4 freshman guard Jeff Jones all got an unexpected start. With the Tar Heels coming to town tonight, Virginia may look to its bigger players once again to battle the hard-working Hansbrough on the block.
"We're not trying to shake things up," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "What we're doing is giving guys opportunities based on practice, and that was the decision based on practice."
At point guard Virginia will have a sizeable advantage because Singletary will likely not have to contend with Tar Heel sophomore Ty Lawson, arguably the league's fastest point guard. Lawson suffered an ankle sprain Feb. 3 in a win against Florida State, and was not available in the team's Feb. 6 loss against Duke or Sunday's win against Clemson. According to The Associated Press, North Carolina coach Roy Williams said after Sunday's game that Lawson will likely sit again in tonight's contest.
North Carolina has also been without junior backup point guard Bobby Fraser, who is out for the season with a knee injury. Senior guard Quentin Thomas and junior guard Marcus Ginyard have been handling the point guard reins in the absence of Lawson and Fraser, though Ginyard is also suffering from a sprained right ankle and a toe injury.
Virginia's chances of receiving an at-large NCAA Tournament bid is next to none, and even the prospect of an NIT bid is looking increasingly unlikely. The Cavaliers, however, do not plan on putting the rest of the season to waste.
"We can look forward to the ACC Tournament -- hopefully we can do something in that," Singletary said. "We're going to play a couple ranked teams coming up, so there's still room to do a couple of things."
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