As Virginia took the floor in each of the first two rounds of the College Basketball Invitational, John Paul Jones Arena didn't have the buzz of a typical tournament elimination game. There wasn't even a half-full crowd to witness the two games, with 4,000 showing up for the first-round game, and 6,460 for the second-round match Monday.
The atmosphere of the CBI might not be up to par for the fans and the media, but as senior guard Sean Singletary suits up for the semifinal game against Bradley tonight at JPJ, there will be only one thing that matters to him: There's a winner and there's a loser.
"If you're playing a card game in your room, there's no difference between that and the biggest stage to perform on," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said in reference to Singletary. "That's what competitors all do ... it's just him. He doesn't know any other way."
Led by Singletary's competitive ego, Virginia (17-15, 5-11 ACC) has staged two of the most improbable comebacks in recent memory in the first two games of this tournament. With 35 seconds left in the second round against Old Dominion (18-16) Monday, Singletary scored six points in 26 seconds -- including a bank-three to tie and a 3-point play off a steal to take the lead -- to bring Virginia back from a 4-point deficit to an 80-76 victory. One week before against Richmond in round one, the Cavaliers were down 12 with 8:41 remaining before they ran off 17 points to the Spiders' 3 in the time remaining to win 66-64.
Singletary admitted that while it's impossible to make up for the three overtime losses and the four other defeats by 2 points or less in conference play this season, these wins are meaningful in other ways.
"I don't know if you can make up with it at this point in time, because we're in the lesser of the three tournaments," Singletary said. "But it's never too late to turn things around, and we're not just playing for this year. We're playing for next year and we're playing for the future of the program."
With Singletary still chomping at the bit to get on the court, the relatively small crowds at the two games have been surprisingly intense. At both postseason contests, the fans were as loud as they had been during most games of the regular season. After the win against Old Dominion, Leitao suggested that the unusual ticket prices -- $10 per ticket for the general public -- may have been the biggest factor.
"I could tell no difference between the crowd today and 15,000 people who have been in here," Leitao said. "I think part of it is, if you have somebody who hasn't been able to in two years sit on the lower level, and for $10 they can do that, it makes for an excited fan."
After the excitement of Virginia's late-game heroics in the last two games, the crowd for today's 7 p.m. tipoff is likely to be even more raucous. The Cavaliers' opponent tonight is Bradley, the only No. 1 seed left in the bracket, which had a late-game spurt of its own Monday night to make it to the semifinal game not unlike Virginia's comeback against Richmond. Down 14 to Ohio with 9:10 remaining in regulation, the Braves went on a 25-5 rampage in the closing minutes to win by six. Bradley features four players who average double figures in scoring, and fittingly, the same four all hit double figures in scoring in the win Monday night.
When Bradley comes into Charlottesville tonight, Singletary will be prepared. He is not ready to have his career end quite yet.
"This is my job, this is what I do," Singletary said. "This is what I want to do after college. My college career's winding down, and the energy and the feeling you get playing in this gym, you don't want that to be over."
With the emotional goodbye at Singletary's senior night against Maryland more than two weeks ago, the senior was asked whether he was "giggling" about his chance to suit up at JPJ a few more times.
"I don't know if I'm giggling yet," he said. "Maybe when we win the championship"
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