Thursday, March 15, 2007
Virginia over Albany not a mortal lock
Cavalier teams prone to upsets
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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After completing the last of my four NCAA men’s basketball tournament brackets, here’s what I really felt about Friday’s South Region first-round game between fourth- seeded Virginia and 13th-seeded Albany:
On bracket No. 1, I had Virginia winning in the first round and losing to Tennessee in the second round.
On bracket No. 2, the Cavaliers won two games.
On bracket No. 3, Albany beat Virginia.
On bracket No. 4, Virginia won two games again.
Basically, if Virginia gets past Albany, I think the chances are pretty good that UVa will get to the region semifinals next week in San Antonio, Texas.
It’s too bad the Fearless Forecasters’ football picks don’t work that way. When I make some of the ridiculous upset picks that always seem to annoy Virginia fans, I’d like this kind of opportunity to hedge my bets.
There’s no question that Albany could beat Virginia on Friday. That’s not a Dave Leitao thing. That’s not a Virginia men’s basketball thing. It’s a Virginia thing.
This year, the Cavaliers already have lost to Western Michigan in football, to South Dakota State in women’s basketball and to Drexel in men’s lacrosse.
If the men’s basketball team lost to Albany today, it wouldn’t even be the biggest upset involving UVa athletic teams in the past month. That would be the loss to unranked Drexel – at home – when the Virginia men’s lacrosse team was ranked No. 1 in the country, defending a national championship and riding a 17-game winning streak.
The question is, if Albany were to beat Virginia today, how would the 2006-2007 season be viewed? Here is a team that has made the NCAA field for the first time in six years, won 20 games, shared the regular-season ACC championship and boasted the ACC coach of the year.
If the Cavaliers finished the season with three straight losses, including a first-round setback to Albany in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, I’m sure they would be viewed in many circles as a fraud or a flop.
That would be unfair to Albany and it might not be fair to Virginia. Consider the game later Friday in Columbus, Ohio, between fifth-seeded Virginia Tech and 12th-seeded Illinois.
Let’s say the Illini upsets the Hokies:
An Illinois victory over Tech would not send shock waves through the college basketball community. The Illini is seeded only one spot higher than Albany, but Illinois is Illinois, an established program. Albany didn’t move up to Division I until the 1999-2000 season.
From my perspective, it’s more pressure for Virginia to be playing Albany than it would to be playing Illinois. Call it the fear of the unknown. How many Virginia players even knew there was an Albany until a week ago?
On the other hand, I’m not a player. Who’s to say the players are giving the subject this much though? Are they really thinking about their legacy?
I’m sure that the UVa staff has given the players a full scouting report on the Great Danes and maybe that’s all they need to know. After all, the Cavaliers had great familiarity with their final last two opponents, Wake Forest and North Carolina, and couldn’t beat those teams.
Maybe ignorance is bliss.
Virginia on three brackets, Albany on one. So, that gives the Cavaliers a 75-percent chance of winning Friday. That sounds about right.
