#2 UVA at #4 Duke
- Thread starter jhmossy
- Start date
UVA winning this or most any other game depends on them being allowed a good deal of contact on defense. Since it is in Hansbrough Indoor as opposed to JPJ, I think Duke will win rather easily as K has more influence on the refs in Derm.
Note- this is not a bitch about the refs. Refs call games loosely or tightly, and generally the home team's style heavily influences the way a game is called. This is also the case in Chapel Hill.
Note- this is not a bitch about the refs. Refs call games loosely or tightly, and generally the home team's style heavily influences the way a game is called. This is also the case in Chapel Hill.
Sometimes great offense negates great defense and I think that this might be one of those games. Duke is a tough matchup for UVa, especially at home. Duke 74 UVa 67.
It's about time Duke had an easy conference schedule.
Considering the brutal schedule we’ve had the previous couple years having an “easier” schedule this year seems about right.
Don’t recall you mentioning how Duke got the shaft scheduling wise the past few years?
Please show me data that suggest that UVA gets away with more uncalled fouls than other teams. That's like me saying: "UNC is allowed to go over the back on every play but it never gets called"
Also, please show me another team that shot 0 FTs in a game on its home court this season. Some home court advantage we've got.
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Duke fans have been using the unbalanced schedule argument to suggest why teams like UVA and UNC have been winning the regular season in past seasons. Will you do the same if Duke wins it this year? Because you clearly have the easiest ACC schedule of ALL teams in the ACC. I'm not sure I've heard the media mention the ease of Duke's ACC schedule once this year. It just seems like when Duke wins, it's because they're the best. But when UVA wins, it's because they were gifted an easier schedule.
http://www.playoffstatus.com/accbasketball/accsosag.html
The ACC tournament is what’s important to me. That’s the ACC Champion. I’ve never mentioned SOS in the ACC because it’s unbalsnced. But some, see RR poster above, like to use it when it fits their agenda. You play who the ACC schedules you. I want the ACC Tournament, the real ACC Champion.
That doesn’t answer my question. Isn’t the ACCT also unbalanced since seeds are determined by unbalanced regular season schedules? This isn’t about who the real champion is. We all know the winner of the ACCT is the champion. If Duke were to win the regular season, I highly doubt anyone in the media will chalk it up to imbalanced scheduling like they did when UVA won it.
No not at all. We’re overachieving leaps and bounds this year. If teams are going to be judged as legitimate or not by winning a road game in Cameron against a top 5 team, we’re going to have a lot of illegitimate teams.
Yeah it’s awesome. I also love that it gives UVA a 100% chance at earning a top 4 seed in the ACCT
I really like how it shows the impact of the next game. Like "if FSU wins then..."
Also interesting that while Duke/UVA is probably the best game this weekend, Miami/FSU is by far the game with the most impact on the standings. The "most important game."
The tournament (any tournament) is even more unbalanced than a regular season schedule. Not sure why this is such a difficult concept for people. Duke fans just like to dwell on it because they do better there, which is cool. UNC fans do the same with the regular season. I like winning both or either, which is something it seems most would enjoy celebrating. Both are pretty awesome for the kids who play in your program.
I am an old fogey but I miss the days of playing everyone in your conference twice.Last year Unc had the advantage in conference play due to the unbalanced schedule this year we do.
Yeah, I did enjoy that for sure. The bigger conferences are good in other ways but the schedule isn't what it used to be.
Hm... see, I don't see the tournament as more unbalanced. At least with the tournament, you hold your fate directly (sort of) in your hands... if you beat a team, you move on. With the regular season, you don't even have a chance to always beat the teams ahead of you.
I think the vast majority of fans give the tournament more weight than the regular season. Regular season is nice, but when it comes to crowning a champ... obviously there are flaws in the system, but the tournament is a bit less flawed than the unbalanced schedule.
I could care less about the regular season conference "title" because of unbalanced scheduling. Some of our older fans get pissed about it though, not sure why, the only thing that matters to me is a good seed in the ACC and NCAA tournament.
I'm right there with you. I still love regular season games but I think the only thing that matters for UVA is the postseason. I don't get that excited by a regular season win and I don't get upset by a regular season loss. We've accomplished all of the regular season niceties and even have a postseason championship but we will only be judged nationally by our performance in the NCAA tourney. I still don't think the NCAA tournament is the best way to determine the best team or does an early exit mean you had a bad season but it's a good enough way to determine a champion. Hope UVA can break through sooner rather than later though.
There will still be a 7 seed in Virginia's bracket and it's extremely unlikely that it will be... Virginia
They still are. They need a FF, within the past 30 years, to be more. Winking
Are they? Their lacrosse team has been pretty average the past 6 years. I'm pretty sure they haven't even won an ACC game since 2014, which blows my mind.
Because people don't hang banners for finishing the year ranked #1 going into the NCAAT. For better or worse, this sport celebrates winning tournaments.
Well said. Judging any one team by any one specific game is always going to be a small slice of the picture. But over a long enough period, what you do in the ACCT and NCAAT is how people judge your program.
Obviously for some programs, just getting to the NCAAT on a consistent basis is the first step. Can't be judged on results if you don't have results to judge. But UVA seems to be beyond that now. I would imagine that UVA makes the NCAAT at least 8 out of 10 years as long as TB is there.
Being number one in the rankings is quite different from winning a conference championship, regular season or tourney. I’m not saying we don’t celebrate tourneys. I’m saying it is reasonable to celebrate the regular season conference as well. I’m also saying the unbalanced argument can’t be used since both are unbalanced. It is just an excuse.
The entire format is based on an unbalanced regular season, which becomes even more unbalanced as you proceed.
Yes.
A few points of clarification, though... w/ completely balanced schedules, the regular season is really a better assessment of a team than how they do in a one-and-done conference tournament played on 3-4 consecutive days. The ACC Tournament has always determined the official champion, but since conferences have been able to get unlimited teams into the NCAAT, it hasn't really and truly mattered as much.
Now that conference schedules are unbalanced, it lends some of that weight back to the ACCT. Not all, but some.
Regardless, the regular season is more significant and reflects that when it comes to NCAAT seeding. The imbalanced schedules create a question -- a legitimate question -- about what it truly means. It's also a question that can't really and truly be answered anyway, and which becomes a moot point once we're all focused on the NCAAT.
I don't know which Duke fans you're referring to. Both the significance of the regular season and the influence of schedules' being unbalanced are true. They're not mutually exclusive. They coexist. That fans of the team who wins the regular season would focus on its value (true) and fans of a team who suffered for having a tougher schedule point out the effect of the imbalanced schedule (also true), and that when those roles reverse, the same fans emphasize the other truth isn't proof of hypocrisy.
I don't think it is just fans downplaying it because of having a tough schedule, though at times it is. It is more fans downplaying it because they simply don't win it (even they have similar schedules to other top teams). No doubt different fans put more weight on what their team performs better in. I love both and think both are great.
My argument for the regular season has never been about it being more worthy of recognition, just that it is more indicative of who the best team is. There is certainly an argument for both being a better measurement of who the best team is though. Despite thinking favoring a tournament in that argument is wrong it doesn't mean it can't be made of course. There is no argument for who the official champion is (the tournament). There is no argument against both being unbalanced.
It is all basically just fun stuff to talk about. The only thing I really don't understand is not wanting to recognize either. I'm about recognizing the players who come through program and their accomplishments.
My argument for the regular season has never been about it being more worthy of recognition, just that it is more indicative of who the best team is. There is certainly an argument for both being a better measurement of who the best team is though. Despite thinking favoring a tournament in that argument is wrong it doesn't mean it can't be made of course. There is no argument for who the official champion is (the tournament). There is no argument against both being unbalanced.
It is all basically just fun stuff to talk about. The only thing I really don't understand is not wanting to recognize either. I'm about recognizing the players who come through program and their accomplishments.
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I don't know that I agree that it's indicative of who the best singular team is. If you have one team with a 15-3 record and two teams with a 14-4 record (that maybe played a harder schedule) is there really an indication of which of those teams is the best? I don't think so. I think something like KenPom would be a much better indicator of a singular team.
However, I do think regular seasons are excellent indicators for tiers of teams. You can usually look at the regular season standings and very quickly identify who the top tier teams were, who the middle of the pack teams were, and who the bottom tier teams were.
Good post. In the end, it's just a talking point because champions are determined by tournaments and not regular season standings. Maybe I'm off base but I just feel like the unbalanced schedule argument is less prominent when a blue blood program is at the top of the standings than when a nontraditional power is.
