Cavalier Ball

Entering ACC play, the Virginia Cavaliers looked like a team that was NIT bound. They had home losses to VCU and Wisconsin, losing in dreadful fashion to Wisconsin, 48-38 in a game that set basketball back to the peach basket. They had also lost at UWGB, while not a horriic loss, it's a loss an ACC team shouldn't have. They topped all of that by losing by 35 to Tennessee in Knoxville, giving up an un-Cavalier like 87 points while scoring a Cavalier-like 52.

Well, 2/3 of the way through ACC play, Virginia sits in 2nd place with only one loss, that coming at Duke in a game they could have won. Sitting at 12-1, Virginia has Syracuse at home and could share a regular-season ACC title or maybe win it outright.

As one might expect, Virginia is all about defense. They have the nation's 15th best defensive effective fg% at 44.1%. Teams should a dreadful 41.5% from 2, 5th best in the nation. They force their share of turnovers with a turnover % of 19.6%, 105th. On top of suffocating defense, you don't get many 2nd chance points. Their defensive rebounding % is 25.1%, 3rd best. They also don't foul very much. All-in-all, they're a pain in the backside to try and run offense against as evidenced by their 4th overall rating in adjusted defense.

They are not as strong on the offensive end but still rate 49th in adjusted offense, so they are efficient enough. They scoff at tempo, averaging 62 possessions per game. That puts them at 340th in the land. They have an effective fg% of 49.8% which is okay. They're decent at not turning it over, with the nations 94th best turnover %. They also do an okay job getting misses. Their offensive rebounding % is 35.1%, 60 th best. They are terrible at the FT line, shooting only 65.5%. That's 310th in the nation. They're Tony Bennett's team and he's his dad as a coach.

Entering the season, their best player was expected to be senior guard, Jon Harris. His scoring is down nearly 5 ppg and is only shooting 64% from the charity stripe. They've been getting contributions from quite a variety of players with the best coming from sophomore guard Malcolm Brogdon who has probably become their go-to-guy. He score 12.3 ppg and gets 5.8 boards per game. Brogdon shoots 39% from distance.

I'm a bit biased against Virinia because they're a root canal to watch at times but in conference play, they've been beyond effective. The ACC has become a slow-tempo league and it suits Virginia just fine. At the very least, I think they share the regular season title. March will be about matchups. They certainly have a team capable of winning a few games. But if they meet a team that shoots it well against them, they could get run out of the gym like Florida did to them a few years back.