Just checked bracketology and saw where, after the Wisconsin win, we have dropped to a #2 in the East. Not that surprised or upset though. Wisconsin played extremely well in the 2nd half of their game and will most likely win their conference tournament tomorrow. I do think we should still be ahead of Duke, but we all know that Duke is Duke and Coach K is almighty and No one wins a close call with them. We will be okay and I hope the team has a chip on their shoulder, they need to play with one.

First off, love and appreciate everything Tony has done. The job he's done in 6 short years is nothing short of a miracle.

That said, the use of Devon Hall has been a total head scratcher to me this season. He has not played 1 minute in the last 3 games (2 of them losses). He played extended minutes and looked great in arguably our most complete game of the season, against Wake, not that long ago.

When I watch him, I see a kid who plays with confidence, within the offense, doesn't turn it over, attacks the basket, and can hit from the perimeter. His defense is a work in progress, but he's not a liability out there.

What am I missing?

Does anyone know what time and channel the selection show is on? For as long as I can remember, it has been at 6 o'clock on CBS. It is not showing on my Directv guide and of course my newspaper was not delivered today.
This post was edited on 3/15 9:11 AM by dj08hoo

Epic.

first time in the history of the conference we've gone 4 years with neither UNC or Duke winning the ACC Tournament. FSU, Miami, us & now Notre Dame.

Congrats to the Irish!

He had a rough time today against Kentucky, but really went out with a bang in this SEC tournament. He led a great underdog Auburn run and will be an All Tournament Team selection for sure.

Good for him going out with a run to remember.

Duke losing today basically guarantees both of our teams a #1 seed. No other potential 1 seed has the opportunity to gain a "key" win which will elevate them above us.

Blew a 16 point lead to lose by 4. Now we need Sparty to stay hot and knock off Wisconsin tomorrow.

Our one major weakness this season has been consistent outside shooting. Tonight UNC made their outside shots and we didn't until the last few minutes. To little and to late.

I thought Bilas did a good announcing job tonight. He continuosly pointed out that UVA was in a bad way without Brogdon, and when MB turned it on we got back in the game. He pointed out the early foul trouble in the 2nd half made UNC back off a notch after they had played excellent man defense all game to that point. That allowed MB to muscle into the paint and further pulled UNC's defense in tight which opened up some late game perimeter shots which we finally hit until the last few minutes.

We just didn't finish in crunch time and Carlina did. Have to give UNC credit, they played a hell of a game and shot better against us then anybody since Tenn. I've been pretty critical of RW this season but I thought he did a satisfactory job of game management this game and did a good job of motivating his players.

Unfortunately it may have been the wrong time to try to integrate JA back into the rotation. After that long of a time, the guys had learned to post without him. His return was probably an overall negative, but TB is coaching for the NCAA's now. Hopefully those issues are resolved by the sweet 16. I thought Nolte stepping back zone tonight may have hurt us. I like his outside shot the last several games. I would of pregrred to get him more looks from the top if the key as he is a significantly better shooter there then from the corner. Also a little surprised that Gill ride the pine so much coming down the stretch. JA took his minutes.

Even a great team has its bad games. Point in fact is Duke getting its ass kicked right now. Carolina is a more talented team then we are and they played better than us tonight and deserved to win. Carolina can beat anybody in the country not named Kentucky, so no shame in this loss. UVA is a great team with guts and they fought to the end. I expect more good things from this team this year.

Coming back to my original point that I have made a few times this year, a little surprised that TB didn't get at least one dead eye outside shooter last Spring when he picked up Thompson and Shayok. Now with Rueter coming in its been a while since he signed a bona fide pure 40% plus 3 point shooter. All the other top ACC have had better 3 point shooting then us all year. It really makes the season that we have had even more impressive. I guess the shooters are at least 2 years out. Eventually 1-2 of those players mixed with the athletic plus perimeter defenders will I think be TB's optimum roster balance. We will see as he gets to close on more of the higher recruits that he lost out on over the last few years. His increased national profile from here forward will help that situation.

Have faith Hoos. The sun will come up tomorrow. And what's with some of those ridiculous posts in the game thread. MB is the toughest UVA player since Kenton Edelin and Lee Raker. What is it some of you young guys say? SMH!

Hope notre dame wins

Now that I have said that watch the officiating

For those on here regularly, you know I never feel we need a loss to learn from, break the pressure or so we are no longer "due" a loss. However, we almost won tonight in spte of not playing, IMO, completely to win. There was a choice tonight and last night for that matter. We had started to play pretty well without Justin, and I believe we would have been better both games without him. I am certain of it. Justin also will not allow those starts that we have had to endure and battle back from some lately. But lets face it, JA contributed nearly nothing last nigh and very little tonight outside of that one incredible block. There is no question we would have been better in both games had Devon Hall gotten those minutes. In 26 minutes in the tourney he was 0-6, didn't score and only for a little bit and very late did he really bring his usual energy. That being said, we didn't have to be much better tonight to win and like I said, i believe we would have been enough better had Hall gotten JA's minutes. Now, would you trade JA playing and hopefully geting back into ithe flow for winning tonight? I say Absolutely no!!! Tony played him enough to strt to get back to himself and he still has 1 or 2 games to work his way back, so the weekend of the Sweet 16 I expect him nearly 100%. Had he played less, or not at all, I am not as sure that would have been the case. I think TB walked a fine line tonight of getting him as many minutes as possible AND giving us a chance to win. We slipped and lost, but still had a chance to win, getting zero from our 1A player. This loss was frustrating sure, but JA getting minutes contributed to that, and IMO, it was well worth it. Let's just focus on the bigger prize, I feel like Tony did just that tonight, and still didn't ignore the small one. I said last year after the Tenn game, Tony had a plan and was learning, so did he for this tourney, just trust and wait. IPWT, when we hit the Fina Four, they should allow you to change to ITWT with no issue!! ( You have given up on Pete, right?)

We have shown lately a lack of ability to close out on the three's and haven't gotten key stops when we need them. We could lose any game but could still beat any team in the tourney. We need a healthy JA and we need to get the sense of urgency back.

I believe that our best chance to beat Kentucky would be in the elite 8 game. No doubt the Kentucky coaching staff would prep some for UVA's defense if we are heading toward each other but they would have to pay more attention to their sweet 16 opponent. If we could meet them in the elite 8 they would have 48 hours to prep for us and that isn't enough time. Obviously they will still be favored, but I like our chances best in that elite 8 spot rather than in the final 4 when they have had a week to prep or in the finals. Besides that, our best hope at this time is the 4th number 1 seed and that has us meeting in the final 4. If I were on the committee, I would try to throw UVA at Kentucky. We still have to win some games to get there.

This post was edited on 3/14 9:53 AM by Newberr

Brogdon went from zero to superman in the last 10 minutes. JA's heart is there but shot is still missing. Nolte was a step slow most of the night on D, still hesitant to pull the trigger. Our bigs weren't very big tonight. Settled for jumpers. Tobey had his worst game since 5th grade. When is the last time he made a shot over 6 ft? Meeks got one rebound from behind Tobey then Tobey fouled him, also his hands caused a couple TO's. Hopefully he can shake this game off because we need him in NCAAT. Shayok needs to spend sometime shooting FT's. He missed important front end of a one and one, then was one of two another time. He did hit a needed 3 pointer.
I love this team, they didn't quit but last couple of games TO's are way to many. Also too nonchalant at the start of games other than FSU. UNC fans are way too obnoxious but got awfully scared those last 2 minutes. I'm confident that we will make a deep run in the NCAAT, I'm still extremely proud of them and very proud to be a hoo. That's all from Greensboro. By the way what is with uvafan disrespecting Brogdon?

Man, was today's game ever a Jamie Lucky special. That guy is a complete mess of a referee.

When Tony Bennett and Leonard Hamilton - two of the most chill coaches in the country - both have to get held back from going after you, you suck at being a ref.

There was no semblance of any sense in the calls today. No consistency. Lots of ticky tack crap. UVA caught the worse end of it, but FSU saw their share of bad calls, too.

The teardrop by Paige. He stops and gets Brogdon sliding, pivots around and drops it in. Atkins is just watching. There is nowhere Paige is going to pass the ball. He looks like he wanted to block the shot but sees Brogdon recovering and allowed him to handle it. Man, Atkins could have blocked that shot with his armpit if he wanted to. Would have taken two points off board and given UVA a second chance to take the lead.

The top four teams other than UVA out of the ACC. Duke, UNC, Louisville, Notre Dame. UVA was 3-1 with a full strength Justin, the lead at the half in the game against Louisville where he got hurt goes in this category. UVA was 0-2 against these teams without him, albeit slim victories for the opponents by the skin of their teeth. These are the types of teams UVA will play from the sweet 16 on up barring big upsets.

So, what this tells me is UVA needs Justin back close to 100 percent to advance far in the tourney. The margin for error against teams with top 20 talent is too slim to expect it not to jump up and bite. I think there is hope. Just an 80 percent Justin probably pushes UVA to a 31-1 record and a berth in today's ACCt final. First two games are about holding serve and maybe getting him to that 80 percent level for the sweet 16 weekend.

So hard to watch that. We are so much better than that and just flat out didn't show it. Disappointing performance. We should not have lost to that UNC team. We're the better team. Period.


But we dust ourselves off and get ready for the Dance. Maybe this loss will leave a bitter taste in our mouths and wake some people up. We need to be on a mission next week. We need to play a full two halves of UVA basketball. We are a great team and need to play like it.

Love this team. Go Hoos!

Half of you will say the slow starts finally caught up to us. The other half will say, wow, we played terribly but almost pulled it off. You can argue both sides of this, but this loss was really disappointing. Had we just played with the intensity from the start as we showed in the last seven minutes, we would have won easily. The loss also confirms to everyone who is not a Virginia fan that we really are overrated. That may be the magic formula for us in the NCAAs as we tend to do well when no one believes in us, but the trajectory as of late tells me we are getting bounced and getting bounced early. I called this loss early in the 2nd half and hoped I would eat crow, but something is AWFULLY amiss right now and JA is certainly not (understandably so) the answer. Malcolm Brogdon must be on from the start or we will lose before we have the chance to meet Kentucky. Perrantes must also attack...he is friggin' lethal as a scorer! So frustrating when every Hoo fan knows we can do so much better! We really sucked tonight and have for a few weeks! I am not liking the tea leaves! Guess I am not "torn" afterall. :-(

This post was edited on 3/13 9:33 PM by vikinghoos

Transcript courtesy of the ACC:

COACH BENNETT (opening statement): I told the guys at halftime right after the game I said you know they showed great heart and fight to claw their way back into it, to have a chance to maybe tie it or extend the game. So I like that. But what we try to hang our hat on really was porous. It kind of unravelled defensively. You see they shot a percentage at shooting 55%, and the easy looks they got. Then they made some good plays. First, congratulations to Carolina for how charged they were and how ready they were. They really took it at us. But defensively for us to win a game like this, we had to win a much stronger, more sound, solid effort, and we just didn't. So that kind of stings, but we'll grow from it. This is one and done, and the next one is one and done, so you've got to try to get it right.

Q. Malcolm, you knew Carolina was a talented offensive team. But what was it able to do tonight to shoot that percentage that it did?
MALCOLM BROGDON: I just think they set the tone. Like Coach Bennett said, they took it to us, and we played at their pace tonight.

Q. Malcolm, can you talk about the play where you drove down the lane, and I think it was 61-60, how much contact was there?
MALCOLM BROGDON: There was contact, but that's basketball. The refs call some, sometimes they don't, so you've got to play through it.

Q. Anthony, talk about the difficulty you guys had with Carolina's big men?
ANTHONY GILL: I think they're talented. You know, they pride themselves offensive rebounding, and I think that we had some plays tonight where they got some offensive rebounds and kind of took over in some places that we should not have allowed them to score on or capitalize on. I think we have to be better than that and go in and watch film and get better.

Q. Malcolm, you had a lot of shots early in the game that kind of rolled in and rolled out. At some point you started clicking. What changed for you offensively late in the game?
MALCOLM BROGDON: Coach Bennett got into me at halftime and got me going.

Q. Justin Jackson kind of hurt you guys tonight. What was kind of the scouting report on him and the strategy trying to defend him?
ANTHONY GILL: We knew he was a talented player coming into the game. I think that he's very versatile. He can score inside and out, so I think that just getting at him, trying to be physical with him probably would be the key. But I think he took advantage of some things where we had lapses tonight, and he really took advantage of those.

Q. Malcolm, on the possession on the inbounds with six seconds to go on the shot clock, you were on page on those moves right there. Talk a little bit about that play coming out of the timeout, and what was the strategy on that particular play?
MALCOLM BROGDON: To just get a stop. Paige made a good move. I lifted off my feet and he scored.

Q. When you look at the stat sheet and see what Carolina shot for the game, were you amazed that it was even a game at the end like that?
COACH BENNETT: Yeah, they had some careless turnovers, and I thought we got back because of our hustle. We got aggressive, real aggressive and just kind of forced the issue. We've kind of been in that spot the other way when teams just put their head down and go, and Malcolm was very aggressive driving. We got to the free throw line and we're better. But, yeah, that thing could have been separated a lot more. But I think at least our guys responded with a tremendous second half effort. That was kind of nonexistent for most of the first half.

Q. What did you see in Justin today? It looked like his ball handling is still a little bit shaky, but got some good rebounds for you, and had a three point attempt at the end.
COACH BENNETT: Yeah, it ended up he got a decent look at it. It wasn't a designed play for him. He was an option. But, yeah, it's rust. I mean, it's time. How many minutes did he play? He played 14 yesterday, played 12. He looked like a little better defensively, and we're going to need him. So I thought those were important minutes that he got. I wish he could have gotten a bucket to go in whether a free throw or not. But it's part of being out for that long. So he certainly brought some passion and some heart. It was nice to see him. How many rebounds did he have? He had a couple of rebounds. I thought he was a little better today than he was yesterday or tonight than yesterday.

Q. As you look towards Selection Sunday now, I know you don't like to look ahead too much, but do you feel like a No. 1 seed is something that you guys deserve?
COACH BENNETT: Oh, 1 seed, 2 seed, that's not for me to decide. We've just got to get ready to play better than we did in the first half for sure and work at that. But that's not for me at all to worry about. There are so many good teams that you have to play. The parity in college basketball is there so whatever will be will be with that, as they say.

Q. One, I'm taking it you were a little bit unhappy going off the court at the end of the first half, to put it mildly. Two, is it possible that Justin will get the bandage off his finger next week? Because it seemed to impede his ball handling a lot?
COACH BENNETT: I'm not sure about that. I guess I'm not sure. It would be nice. Yeah, it is a little bit, but he has to protect it at least. What was the timeframe they gave? I don't know if it was five or six weeks that it had to be protected. But we'll certainly look at that. That is to be determined. The first part, yeah, you're right, I wasn't very happy. Did you ask something about that or were you just making an observation?

Q. Yeah, it's very unusual for you not to do the TV timeout thing at halftime?
COACH BENNETT: I didn't do the TV thing. At least you should have one privilege if you're losing. Usually the winning coach, whoever is leading does that interview. So if you're losing you shouldn't have to do the interview, at least that's what I understand. If we were winning, I'd do it, if we were losing, I thought that's how it was. That's one benefit of losing at halftime maybe. I don't know. But what I was so disappointed because that wasn't who we were to start. And again, Carolina came after us. They were charged and just the easy looks they got, we were on our heels, their pressure really bothered us, and we just looked I don't know what the word is. Our guys have been in that spot, so I don't know if we were tight or scared or nonchalant. I don't know. But we'll grow from it, and hopefully be ready when that ball is tipped next game.

Q. Malcolm said you got into him a little bit at halftime. Could you share what you said to motivate him?
COACH BENNETT: I just challenged him. That's kind of locker room stuff. Let our guys know what I thought was acceptable and what wasn't acceptable. That was it.

Q. Down three twice in the last minute. Went for three pointers on both possessions. It was one of those borderline clock was close deals.
COACH BENNETT: Yeah, they got the lay up on the one. But that was two possessions before.
Q. Brogdon missed and Anderson missed.
COACH BENNETT: Right. You're right about that. The one I thought Malcolm had made. He had hit a couple threes, and I thought he had rhythm. What we said is if you can get a clean look, take it because we tried to run that little action that we've run before. He got a pretty good look, and he had made a few, so I was okay with that. But both of them, the other one both had, if we didn't get it, attacks. So it kind of had a three look, clean look, and then it had an attack look behind it for a two, so it kind of had both on that one. The one with Justin, it was actually designed for Malcolm, but they kind of channelled it the other way, and London just attacked it.

Q. Going into tonight, Justin Jackson was a 26% three point shooter. Makes four out of five. Is that just shocking?
COACH BENNETT: No, he's a good player. Someone asked the scouting report on him. He's good. We were really delayed or behind the play. Well, first of all, he moves really well without the ball. He's a McDonald's All American. He's a talented kid, and you could see that. He's been playing well and did a good job yesterday. He got some easy wraps where we had some miscommunication breakdowns and got him going. And some of his shots we had a little too much cushion on him. He can put on the floor, but a little late on our closeouts, little soft on our ball pressure. A player of that ability, those guys get one or two going, and they feel it, and I thought he obviously showed his talent, and I know he's a great young man too. I know that. So he took it to us.

Q. You went Evan back to the four spot tonight, which hadn't happened in a while. That seemed to be a little bit of what sparked your run late. Can you just talk about that decision?
COACH BENNETT: Yeah, we were kind of struggling. Evan's smart. We thought okay, he can maybe get us back. He can stretch it a little more. He's more mobile, can get some catches, and we try to trap the post if they exploit him down low. But we thought maybe in the stretch hit a three or even a little ball handling out there would open it up for some drives from Malcolm, which kind of did start happening. And I thought he did a good job for the most part in that spot. Again, we thought we needed to do something, and it did give us a spark.

What's the likelihood we don't get sent to Charlotte if we don't win the ACCT and Dook, in fact, does?

I assume they'd give Dook the second place #1 seed.

The sports illustrated jinx. Just saw this week's cover and that must be the explanation for the uncharacteristic poor effort I Just hope this game is the only fallout

Our bigs were outplayed tonight. Gill, Atkins and Tobey average 27 points and 18 rebounds per game. Tonight they only had 17 points and 8 rebounds. These 3 also had 7 turnovers. Brogdon nearly single-handedly brought us back in what was perhaps the best half of basketball ever by a UVA player. Also, I thought UNC did a great job of passing the ball against our D to find the open shooter who most often hit the shot. Tough loss. Now we will head west if we keep the #1 seed.

Well we officially get to sweat it out now. We really really need two of Duke, AZ, Nova, and Wisconsin to lose. Regardless of how confident anyone is or what Lunardi says, we are now one of 4 very talented 3 loss teams and Nova has 2 losses in a marginally easier conference. Not enough room in the inn.

I thought we had a slow start, but Duke's may be even worse. I know it is way too early, but wouldn't it be something if Duke lost! What would the NCAA selection committee do then?

Why shoot an off-balance 3 down by 3 with 29 seconds left on a quick possession? The driving the lane was working so great, I didn't understand the change of strategy. I thought that play guaranteed our loss when we could've gotten a high percentage 2 to cut the lead to 1 and maybe even an ole' school 3 with a possible foul.