TOBIN: Early tournament exit should be wake-up call for Virginia
There’s no need to beat around the bush — last night was the most unwatchable game I have ever seen Virginia men’s basketball play.
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There’s no need to beat around the bush — last night was the most unwatchable game I have ever seen Virginia men’s basketball play.
Losing was not an option for the No. 23 Virginia men’s basketball team against No. 5 North Carolina. Having lost the previous four of five games, the Cavaliers were in dire straits and desperately needed a win. So, they did what they do best — play suffocating defense.
Regrettably, I was not present to witness Virginia women’s basketball’s greatest victory of the season Thursday night.
If you asked anyone to name the most prolific Virginia sports program of the past 10 years and they answered anything other than “Virginia women’s swimming and diving,” they’d be wrong.
No Virginia team has had more of an up-and-down season than women’s basketball. Last week the Cavaliers looked unstoppable, dismantling an impressive Virginia Tech squad via a 49-point shellacking. Three days later, they gave up 82 points in a losing effort against Notre Dame.
Coach Tony Bennett took a big risk by putting the ball in freshman guard Ty Jerome’s hands at the end of the matchup against then-No. 1 Villanova this past weekend. Rather than opting for senior point guard London Perrantes or freshman guard Kyle Guy to get the Cavaliers out of a 59-57 hole with 37 seconds left, Bennett drew up an ISO play for a player who is averaging 2.4 points per game on the season.
In the spring of 2015, the Virginia men’s swimming and diving teams were not in a good place. After Virginia finished eighth in the ACC Championship meet — the teams’ worst finish in program history — former Cavalier Daily columnist Matt Comey wrote that the Cavaliers were “in for a long stretch of mediocre recruiting and even worse team development.”
Like pretty much every other Hoo fan, I had high expectations for senior guard London Perrantes this season. Showing flashes of brilliance last year in both facilitating the ball and scoring, Perrantes seemed poised to take over the men’s basketball team from departing stars Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill.
For the past six seasons, the Virginia women’s basketball team has not received a bid to compete in the NCAA Tournament. That could very well change this season based on the Cavaliers’ performance through their first six games.
The Virginia football team has had a mess of a season. When coach Bronco Mendenhall took the helm and preached his “earned, not given” mantra, the Cavalier fan base hoped the team would find more success than it had in years past.
Since its 7-0-0 start when senior goalie Morgan Stearns did not allow a single goal, the Virginia women’s soccer team has been far from dominant. After being shutout several times, the Cavaliers bowed out in the quarterfinals of the ACC Championships to eventual runner-up North Carolina — to finish with a record of 14-4-2.
Heading into the 2016-17 men’s college basketball season, everyone has their eyes on three Cavaliers — senior guard London Perrantes, junior forward Austin Nichols and freshman guard Kyle Guy.
Fans have not hyped up a single player on the Virginia men’s basketball team more than they have junior Austin Nichols. As a forward at Memphis, he was selected as the American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year for the 2013-14 season and placed third in the nation with his 3.4 blocks per game in the following season.
Last season, six of Virginia’s seven home games were decided by 10 points or fewer. Although the team lost every game on the road and three of these seven games at home, most contests went down to the wire — giving the Cavalier faithful something to watch until the final whistle blew.
The term “rivalry” implies a back-and-forth competition between two opponents for a prize. Certain sports rivalries — Celtics versus Lakers, Cowboys versus Redskins and Yankees versus Red Sox — are famous for their intensity and unpredictable outcomes each time the teams take the court or field.
From the start of his tenure as Virginia football’s head coach, Bronco Mendenhall instituted a phrase that became the mantra for Virginia football — “earned, not given.”
In their last 16 games, the Virginia women’s volleyball team has suffered 13 losses. Last season, through 31 games, the Cavaliers lost the same number — 13. Stating the obvious, it has not been a good season for Virginia volleyball.
For once, Virginia football didn’t play like Virginia football this past Saturday. The Cavaliers didn’t fall to an FCS team in an embarrassing fashion. The defense didn’t get its lid blown off and give up over 40 points. The coaches didn’t completely mismanage the clock and rush their placekicker up to miss a chip-in shot.
Whenever a placekicker misses an easy chip-in field goal to win or tie a game, fans are conditioned to blame them for the team’s losses. These placekickers have one job: to put points on the board after the offense puts them in position to do so. While the position comes with a lot of pressure, I usually have no sympathy for those that fail to accomplish their task.
Whenever football season rolls around, a majority of Virginia students seem to neglect the successes of other Cavaliers sports teams. This year, one particularly successful team is being overshadowed by the beginning of the Mendenhall era — women’s soccer.