A bad loss, but we’re still in good shape.
Posted at 11:30 am on Monday, February 19th, 2007 by VinceGoing into the weekend I was hoping the subject of this post would be about the domination of North Carolina teams by our Virginia Tech men’s basketball team. Before Sunday, our Hokies were 4-1 against teams from the state just to our south. Wake Forest came to Cassell back in December and lost to the Hokies, 63-60. Then came that magical week in January where Virginia Tech beat Duke in Cameron and then-#1 UNC a week later in Blacksburg. Two and a half weeks later the reeling Wolfpack of North Carolina State visited the Hokies in Blacksburg and ruined our perfection versus North Carolina teams.
All was not lost, however, because the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team started this week with what I consider their finest road win in the history of the program. By beating North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the Hokies became only the 5th team to beat both Duke and UNC on their home floors since 1980. Yesterday was supposed to be our continued domination over North Carolina teams. We were supposed to be 5-1 against Wake Forest, Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State. We were supposed to be tied for the lead in the ACC following the game. We were supposed to be on our way to a 4-seed or higher in the NCAA Tournament.
Well, we were supposed to be according to the hype. I said it to myself after the road loss to Florida State. I said it to myself after the first loss to NC State. And I said it to myself after yesterday’s buttkicking in Raleigh:
Welcome to the ACC.
It’s our third year in the conference, but like it or not, we are still the new kids on the block. We’re still learning how to be consistently successful in this basketball conference. We’re still learning that the parity in this league is similar to the NFL – anyone can win during any given week.
Instead of going into why the ACC is best basketball conference in college basketball, as I’m going to dedicate a large post to that in the next few days, I’m going to leave you with a little reset.
We are presently all alone in 4th place with a 8-4 record in conference. We’re one game behind Virginia (9-3) and UNC (9-3) and a half game behind Boston College (9-4). We are 2 games ahead of both Duke (7-6) and Maryland (6-6) in the loss column. As has been mentioned before, the key to success in this league is to win your home games and split your road games. The Hokies are still executing that rule with a 4-1 record at home and a 4-3 record on the road. If we split our last 4 games – 3 of which are at home – we will finish the regular season at 10-6 and in no less than 4th place. If we finish in 4th place or better, we’ll earn a 1st round bye in the ACC tournament and will be a lock for the NCAA tournament.
Yesterday’s loss hurt our NCAA seeding, our chances at the 1st place seed in the ACC Tourney, and our ego. That said, I still like our chances for the postseason. It’s been a fun season so far, and I expect the roller coaster ride will continue.