Monday’s loss to Florida State had bigger consequences than the embarrassment of being blown out on a national stage. It also got the Seminoles on level terms with Virginia in the ACC loss column, refueling a title race that a Wahoo win could have ended.
Virginia now sits at 11-2 in the conference, closely followed by 8-2 Florida State. In a year in which conference champions will be calculated by win percentage, Virginia still controls their own destiny. But the Noles are hot on their heels, and one slip-up in the final four games could cause the regular-season championship banner to hang in Tallahassee for a second straight year.
The Hoos will kick off the crucial period with a trip to Duke, who has struggled all season but put on a show against Wake in their first game without Jalen Johnson. Whether the loss of Johnson made an impact is a different question, but from a mental standpoint Duke has to be feeling like they have a clean slate without him, and they’ll take that confidence into the game with the Hoos.
Duke might be a tougher test than anticipated, but Virginia should breeze through the following two games. NC State and Miami will both come to Charlottesville, where Virginia is undefeated this season. The Hoos already handled the Pack on the road, and Miami has stumbled to a 3-11 conference record. Those wins should come without too much incident.
And then it’s a trip to Louisville for the traditional season finale. The Cardinals are something of a question mark at this point, having not played a game for 17 days. They’ll get back on the court at North Carolina Saturday, so we’ll see how they shape up after the break.
Virginia could absolutely win all four games to take the ACC crown. One loss, however, and the door is thrown open for a Florida State squad that is clearly waiting to pounce. There’s not much to choose from between the two schedules, the one difference being that Florida State plays an extra game.
Four of their five games will come on the road, but all five opponents are outside the ACC’s top five. Trips to Pittsurgh and North Carolina are no walkovers, though Leonard Hamilton’s group should take care of Miami, Boston College, and Notre Dame.
Barring something totally unexpected, either UVA or FSU will win the regular-season title. Virginia still sits in the driver’s seat, but they may have to be perfect the rest of the way to cross the finish line first.
NCAA Tournament seeding
The other consequence of the FSU loss was a significant drop in Virginia’s NCAA tournament stock. The Hoos still have no quality wins to their name, no marquee victory to validate a high seed.
Their metrics remain solid — ninth in the NET and 10th on KenPom — but the lack of that big win is going to damage Virginia’s seeding on Selection Sunday. The selection committee has a certain amount of boxes that they like to see checked, and Virginia has yet to come through in that area.
That said, the ACC Tournament might give them the chance to nab that elusive top-25 victory. Either way, as it stands the Hoos are likely on the four line. They were the top three-seed prior to the Florida State blowout, but with the other teams recording wins Virginia has likely fallen a few spots.
The importance of getting a three-seed or higher this year cannot be stressed enough. Gonzaga, Baylor, and now Michigan continue to tower over the college hoops world. Avoiding those teams until the Elite Eight (should Virginia make it that far) is crucial, and a three-seed would make sure of that.
It goes without saying that a loss in any of the four remaining regular-season games would be a serious blow to three-seed aspirations. An ACC Tournament loss to Virginia Tech or Florida State might be survivable, but then again it raises the problem of no big wins.
So to summarize that rather gloomy group of paragraphs, there is very little room for error from here on out. Of course, Virginia could definitely run the table, and they might even sneak onto the two line if they do.
But for now, it seems that they are on the outside looking in at a three-seed.
Struggles away from home
All four of Virginia’s losses this season have come at venues not named John Paul Jones Arena. Two of them were at neutral courts, the other two at other ACC arenas.
Virginia’s astounding home record aside (16 wins in a row at JPJ), worries have manifested themselves because of the shakiness on the road.
True road environments are hard to come by this season, and one might argue that they don’t exist in this COVID-world. But whether the traditional road setting is present is moot, because it unquestionably endures to some extent in certain places.
Virginia discovered that the hard way on Monday, the 3,000 Seminole fans packed into the Tucker Center making their presence felt throughout the game. They may not have affected the end result, but tacking on opposing fans to the list of things Virginia had to deal with in that game was certainly not helpful.
And yet, the other ACC road loss came in a fan-less Cassell Coliseum. So is the problem the fans, or simply the added difficulty of playing a game away from home?
While fans may add another layer of frustration, the answer in this case is the latter. It was explained in the mid-season bracket reveal by committee chair Mitch Barnhart that road wins would still be viewed as more impressive than home wins, despite the absence of fans.
This aligns with what we’ve seen out of the Hoos. Wins have proven much harder to come by on the road, and unfortunately the two hardest games still on the schedule (Duke and Louisville) are both away.
Hopefully Virginia can clean up their shaky away performances and pull off the victories.
Image – Virginia Athletics