WASHINGTON — In a tale of two campuses, last winter offered the best of
times in Charlottesville and the worst of times in Blacksburg.
Two college towns that celebrate each other’s pain and shortcomings. Two towns
that look down on each other instead of banding together against Tobacco Road.
Two schools that should be playing their final regular season game against one
another — especially now that Maryland has left the league. Does Virginia-
Louisville March 7 at the KFC Yum Center get your blood boiling? Me neither.
Virginia tries to build off a dream season
The Cavaliers have increased their ACC and overall wins each season under
coach Tony Bennett, but I don’t think anybody thought there was a 30-win, 18-
ACC victory campaign in the Cavaliers last year. It became a weekly bit —
“Virginia is off to its best conference start since…1995…1983…1981” as
the season progressed, wrapping up with the school’s first outright regular
season crown since 1981 and the program’s first ACC tournament title since
1976. Even with their Regional Semifinal loss to Michigan State, last winter
was one they’ll be looking back at for years.
UVa starts the season ranked 9th nationally…and returns seven of their top
nine scorers from last year. While the Cavaliers will miss Akil Mitchell’s
rebounding (a team-high 7.0 boards per game) and Joe Harris’ outside shooting
(paced the team with 72 threes, hitting 40% from outside the arc)…they’ll
miss their leadership as well. Junior guard Malcolm Brogdon looks to build off
a successful first season in orange and blue, but will 6-foot-11 junior Mike
Tobey fill the vacuum left by Mitchell? Can sophomore London Perrantes be the
floor general necessary for an offense that focuses more on quality than
quantity? He’s sitting out the regular season opener (along with junior
forward Evan Nolte) due to a violation of team rules over the summer.
Much was made last winter that Virginia faced Duke, North Carolina and
Syracuse just once during the regular season, but you can only control your
non-league schedule. An ambitious and representative non-conference slate
begins at James Madison November 14 and includes dates with 2014 NCAA
Tournament teams VCU and George Washington. There’s even a December duel with
#25 Harvard. While UVa plays the Blue Devils, Tar Heels and Orange just once
this winter, they do face preseason #8 Louisville twice. Who’s ready for
rivalry week with the Cardinals?
Virginia Tech tries to climb out of the wreckage
The two-year tenure of James Johnson: 22 wins and 41 losses with a 6-30 mark
in the ACC. It was a very difficult situation which began with the surprise
spring firing of Seth Greenberg that had the school scrambling for a coach
during the worst possible time of year to be searching for a coach. Was
Johnson the right guy to guide the Hokies? Ideally, no — but he was the best
choice of a less than ideal candidate pool. It’s tough to pull the plug on a
coach this early. Johnson’s just the fifth ACC men’s basketball coach to last
less than three years, and the first in 40 years. Press Maravich left NC State
to take the LSU job. Jack Murdock was an interim coach at Wake Forest. Frank
Fellows was moved out of Maryland to make room for Lefty Driesell. And Duke’s
Neil McGeachy was unable to survive a 10-16 season that included blowing an 8
point lead in the final 17 seconds at North Carolina.
Buzz
Buzz Williams hopes his success at Marquette will translate as he transitions to the ACC. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
The buzz this fall in Blacksburg? Curly can coach. First-year Hokies coach
Buzz Williams comes to Virginia Tech after posting a 139-69 record over six
years at Marquette, his final season the only year in which he didn’t guide
the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament. Marquette reached the Sweet Sixteen
three straight years, bouncing 3-seed Syracuse in 2011 and 2-seed Miami two
years later. He takes over a program that beat Miami twice last year before
losing by four to the Hurricanes in the ACC Tournament (former UVa assistant
and current Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga had to find that a tiny bit
amusing). To say the Hokies were offensively challenged would be a major
understatement: out of 351 Division I schools, they ranked 296th in assists,
322nd in shooting and 326th in scoring. Just to show that the offense wasn’t
the only offensive aspect of the team, the Hokies ranked 351st — dead last —
in steals.
Adam Smith is the team’s returning leading scorer (11 ppg), but injuries kept
him out of 17 games last winter, effectively ending his sophomore season
January 19. The 6-foot-1 guard gets help from sophomore Devin Wilson at the
point (5 assists per game as a freshman) and Joey Van Zegeren inside — the 6-
foot-10 junior from the Netherlands was second on the team in rebounding and
field goal percentage last year.
Not surprisingly, the Hokies are picked to finish last in the ACC this season.
As befits a program that’s trying to find itself, the schedule doesn’t offer a
lot of heavy lifting — December offers a pair of road tests at Penn State and
West Virginia, with plenty of home games against the likes of VMI, Alabama A&M
and Presbyterian (even though this is basketball, they kind of serve as the
football version of Longwood). Williams doesn’t get the kindest conference
schedule as a welcome from the ACC, as the Hokies will face Virginia and
Syracuse twice while also getting home-and-homes with Miami and Florida State.
The Hokies open the season by welcoming Maryland-Eastern Shore to Cassell
Coliseum November 14.
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