Wahoo Wire

After Wednesday night’s mind numbing beat down at the hands of the Seminoles, I wanted to slap several people in the arena up the side of the head.  Booing?  Really?  You’re going to boo this team?  If I went back in time just a month ago…one month, that’s it…and laid out this resume, 9 out of 10 Virginia basketball fans would be happy with it.  Ready?  Here it is: 5-6 in the ACC with wins against two ranked opponents and two road wins on Tobacco Road.

Why would they be happy with that?  Well, one month ago, the team was entering ACC play and some were not even predicting three or four wins for them.  One month ago, a national ranking seemed ridiculous to talk about and a bid to the Big Dance seemed even more absurd.  One month ago, most fans (including myself) were just hoping they’d remain competitive in games.

Now, with five games to go in the season, people are booing and questioning the coach’s ability?

Don't press this!

Everybody needs to take a step back, and calm down.  Let’s look at how far this team has come and then decide if you want to boo and moan.

The team won just 10 games last year and only 4 in conference.  They were beaten by double digits in half of their conference games (eight) and only beat one ranked team (Clemson) all season.  They ranked dead last in offense AND defense and then they returned basically the whole team for the next year.

So far, they’ve eclipsed their win totals from last year (14 wins total, 5 in conference), have only three double digit conference losses so far (two of the other three were in OT), have knocked off three ranked teams (NOT including UNC who were Top 5 preseason), and have the third best scoring defense in the league.

(Major side not here about that Carolina game: yes I know they are on a down year and are losing to everyone…but we didn’t just beat them, we absolutely crushed them on their home floor.  Here’s a list of teams that didn’t do that to them this year: #11 Michigan State, #25 Georgia Tech, and #6 Duke.  If you want to take it further, #2 Kentucky couldn’t do it at their place, #10 Ohio State and #5 Syracuse couldn’t do it on a neutral floor, and #15 Texas couldn’t do it in front of 100,000 people.  We gave Roy Williams his worst home loss at UNC after not having beaten them in six years.  That was a huge win.  Side note over.)

And, again, this is the same team! Sure Jontel Evans has stepped up big, but he definitely hasn’t replaced the points generated by Mamadi Diane.  It’s essentially the same guys.

This team is playing exactly how I predicted but people are starting to press the panic button.  Why?  The Icarus Theory (yes I just made it up but it totally makes sense).  It’s when a team succeeds too soon and sets the minimum bar too high for them to get over consistently.  We saw it after 2006-2007 when Singletary and Reynolds nearly led us to the Sweet Sixteen and we could be seeing it again with this season.

This team played out of their minds after the massive snowstorm in December ripping off eight wins in a row and 10 out of 12.  Before that, they were 4-4 with some disappointing losses and no one was talking about them.  If they had continued playing like that (winning every other game with the occasional two in a row), they would have ended up with the same record at this point in the season but fans would be fine with it.

By shooting out of the gate and getting everyone’s hopes up (flying too close to the sun in Icarus’ case), this team that has several major flaws set itself up for massive failure in the eyes of the casual fan (which is the vast majority here at UVa…it’s true, don’t whine).

And, honestly, if you look at this four game skid beyond just the fact that they’re L’s, it really isn’t that bad.  Or at the very least, it’s understandable.

First loss: Home against Wake Forest

Wake is freaking tall…like they have three 7-footers and we have one.  This poses a major problem for us because Sylven makes his living on driving and getting to the line.  How do you solve this problem?  Shoot well, especially with a big man, and get them in foul trouble.  Sadly, the latter strategy is nearly impossible when Wake can throw four guys out there who are above 6-10.  We fouled two of their trees out and still had to contend with two more.

The other solution is more complex because you need big guys to shoot well so you can space the floor for Sylven’s driving game, but you also need to be able to play defense against them on the other end.  That’s what really killed us because Sherrill could not bang with Aminu and Woods when he needed to (he also failed to shoot like himself which only compounded the problem).

Same goes for Mike Scott.  He came out firing and had 10 or 12 points in the first eight minutes of the game.  But he couldn’t match the physicality of Wake on the other end, picked up early fouls, and lost his rhythm.

Despite all of these problems, we still went to overtime and had a chance to win it but Sherrill’s shooting woes continued and we finished just short.

Second loss: Away against Virginia Tech

Another close loss that got away on a ridiculous Jeff Allen three pointer with under 2 minutes to play.  Tech played great defense and we didn’t shoot well (if we don’t shoot well, we lose).  For me, any game that comes down to the last few minutes isn’t a bad loss, especially since we went to OT against them the first time as well.

Third loss: Away against Maryland

I have a hard time defending this one because I didn’t get a chance to see the game.  From looking at the stats though, it’s clear that Maryland shot the ball out of their collective mind.  Whether this was because of bad defense (i.e. the shots were all layups) or luck (threes and contested jumpers), I don’t know but remember, they did the same thing to us at their place last season and we rocked them in our house.

Fourth loss: Home to Florida State

Fatigue, fatigue, and more fatigue.  That is what caused this one.  Three games in five days is the type of schedule professionals have; these guys are not used to it and they did not respond well at all.  Shots were forced up with tired legs, passes were missed, and defensive intensity was sorely lacking at points.  With a few days off and concentration restored, I bet you we’d win that game if we played them again.

Inflated expectations are the only thing that’s different about this team from a month ago and that is killing people’s perception of this season.  There is no shame in an NIT bid for this team after last year.  Heck, if the guys win four of their last five with Duke being one of them, I think we have a good enough resume to be seriously on the bubble.

I warned about expectations when we fired Leitao and hired Bennett last April because in this era of instant gratification, people overreact way too fast and our basketball program has suffered because of it.

If people don’t step back and realize that we aren’t a power program who gets brought to the Promised Land by NBA-bound one-and-dones, Bennett will meet the same fate as Leitao and basketball will be terrible here for years to come.  It took Bennett and his father a full four seasons to get the Wazzou Cougars to the Sweet Sixteen.  He knows it isn’t going to happen overnight and he’s said as much throughout the season.  Students and other fans should wake up and realize it too or else the atmosphere at JPJ will stink once more and we’ll be headed back down the road to basketball obscurity.

Here’s my point: based on how we played out of conference, I predicted seven wins for this team and they’re right on pace for that.  This season is not a failure, so fans need to not treat it as such.  Come to the last two home games and cheer for these guys who have endured an abysmal 08-09 season, a coaching change, a great run, and a fall back to earth.

They’re getting better and that’s really all we should expect from them.