After two home victories over Maryland and Wake Forest, the Virginia men's basketball team will be traveling to enemy territory today to face N.C. State. Virginia will play the Wolfpack tonight at 7 p.m. in Raleigh, N.C. The game will be a rematch of a game from December, except this time, N.C. State will have the home court advantage.
In the previous matchup, the Cavaliers won a close defensive battle over the Wolfpack. Virginia defeated N.C. State 67-62 Dec. 3 at John Paul Jones Arena. Extensive defensive pressure from both teams led to poor offensive production. Virginia shot a season-low 37 percent from field goal range, and N.C. State didn't fare much better, shooting 41 percent from the field.
The game came down to the wire and was only cemented in Virginia's favor in the final minute. Junior guard Sean Singletary knocked down a 16-foot jumper with one minute to go to give Virginia the lead for good.
Like Virginia, N.C. State has played much better at home than it has on the road. The Wolfpack is 11-7 overall and 10 of its 11 wins have come at home. Conversely, Virginia is 1-5 on the road and is looking for its first ACC road win. After Sunday's game against Wake Forest, Virginia coach Dave Leitao addressed the team's road struggles in preparation for N.C. State.
"It's not anything unique," Leitao said. "It's not something specific to basketball. It's something that a lot of teams go through. We've got to get through it."
Tonight's game against N.C. State seems to be the perfect opportunity to pick up that first ACC road win. N.C. State is 1-4 in the ACC and recently lost to Duke at home by 23 points. Additionally, the Wolfpack may be without senior point guard Engin Atsur, who has been sidelined with a hamstring injury for several weeks.
Road wins in the ACC, however, are far from a sure thing. N.C. State packed its stadium with almost 20,000 supporters against Duke, and Virginia could face a similarly intimidating crowd. What's more, when these two teams faced each other in December, the game played more or less into the Wolfpack's hands. Senior guard J.R. Reynolds was held to 14 points and Singletary was limited to 11. Virginia would prefer to play a more fast-paced and high-scoring game, but N.C. State was able to slow Virginia's attack in the first meeting and severely limited the Cavaliers' offensive production.
"We've got to prepare ourselves to play through everything: the crowd, the opponent and a lack of focus," Leitao said. "If we do that, I'm confident we'll win some on the road."
After Reynolds' 40-point explosion against Wake Forest, he garnered the ACC Player of the Week honors. Reynolds and Singletary will look to continue their rampant scoring pace in order to pull out a victory tonight in Raleigh.
"If we can keep everything together and keep working hard in practice, we can go on the road and get a win," Singletary said.
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