Men’s Basketball
What: No. 2 Virginia (16-0, 4-0 ACC) at Boston College (8-7, 0-3 ACC)
Where: Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
When: Saturday, 2 p.m.
The Skinny: Riding its best start since the 1980-81 season, the Virginia men’s basketball team heads north for a Saturday afternoon matchup with conference adversary Boston College.
The Eagles snapped a three-game losing streak at the start of ACC play Wednesday night at home with a 64-57 overtime win against four-time defending Ivy League champion Harvard, the recipient of a 76-27 Cavalier rough-up Dec. 21 at John Paul Jones Arena.
After coming up empty in an 85-62 loss at No. 4 Duke in the ACC opener for both teams, Boston College played both Pittsburgh and Miami closely, falling to the Panthers by a point in overtime Jan. 6 at the Conte Forum. BC erased a 12-point second-half deficit against the Hurricanes Saturday before junior guard Olivier Hanlan missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with four seconds to go in the 60-56 loss.
First-year coach Jim Christian’s team also hung tough with No. 16 West Virginia at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in November, going on a late 6-0 run to close within a point with 50 seconds to play. Hanlan — the team’s leading scorer at 16.4 points per game — put up a game-high 23 points in the 70-66 defeat.
The third-leading scorer in program history — behind former NBA players Troy Bell and Craig Smith — and a third-team All-ACC selection last year, Hanlan plays a whopping 36.1 minutes per game and ranks fifth in the ACC with 1.93 steals per contest.
Graduate student guard Aaron Brown and seven-foot-one junior center Dennis Clifford — Clifford as the team’s most productive post player, with averages of 6.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game — complement Hanlan offensively, as do graduate student Dimitri Batten and senior Patrick Heckmann, both guards.
—compiled by Matthew Morris
Women’s Basketball
What: Virginia (13-4, 3-1 ACC) vs. No. 4 Louisville (16-1, 4-0 ACC)
Where: KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky
When: Sunday, 3 p.m.
The Skinny: Virginia returns to the road Sunday to face another tough ACC foe in Louisville. Just a week ago, the Cavaliers traveled to No. 25 Syracuse, where they lost 70-58.
The Cavaliers are coming off a 68-56 victory over Boston College, their 10th home win of the season. They have only lost one home game, but are 3-3 away from Charlottesville.
Louisville’s lone loss of the season came at home at the hands of in-state rival No. 11 Kentucky. In a battle of ranked teams, the Cardinals and Wildcats swapped double-digit leads, with Kentucky coming out on top, 77-68.
Not only does Louisville currently stand atop the conference standings, but it is also in the top five in both offensive and defensive conference statistical categories, with the highest turnover margin in the league at +7.44.
On the offensive side of the ball, freshman forward Mariya Moore, a 2014 McDonald’s All-American, leads the team in scoring and assists, ranking fifth in the ACC in the latter category. Defensively, the Cardinals have two players near the top of the league in steals per game: senior guards Jude Schimmel and Bria Smith.
Louisville’s only glaring weaknesses are its free-throw and 3-point shooting: The Cardinals are last in the conference in free-throw percentage and made 3-point field goals, averaging just 3.9 treys per game.
—compiled by Chanhong Luu
Wrestling
What: No. 14 Virginia (8-3) vs. Duke (5-3, 1-1 ACC)
Where: Memorial Gymnasium
When: Friday, 7 p.m.
The Skinny: The Virginia wrestling team will begin conference action against Duke in Charlottesville Friday. The Cavaliers put their 30-match win streak inside Memorial Gymnasium up against a Blue Devil squad that is considerably better than some of its previous iterations.
Virginia is coming off a dramatic two days at the Virginia Duals which included two come-from-behind victories, one match decided by the last bout and one heart-wrenching loss to No. 6 Virginia Tech in the finals.
Duke continues its journey from the basement of the ACC. The Blue Devils placed dead last in the previous four conference championships, and the Cavaliers shut them out 38-0 as recently as two years ago.
Duke has already defeated Northern Iowa and NC State this season, but lost a tight match to No. 9 Pittsburgh, which required overtime in the heavyweight bout.
Friday’s contest will be the first of five ACC matches for Virginia, three of which are at home. The Memorial Gymnasium home advantage will provide a boost for a team currently dealing with injuries as wrestlers like No. 13 senior Joe Spisak fight to return to the lineup and No. 13 senior Gus Sako struggles to return to his 2013-14 form.
The match begins at 7 p.m.
—compiled by Matthew Wurzburger
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