'Hoos Embrace NCAA Challenge
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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE – About 30 minutes before the NCAA tournament field was revealed Sunday evening, Virginia junior Kyle Guy stood outside the home locker at John Paul Jones Arena and acknowledged the inevitable.
No matter what seed the Cavaliers received or in which regional they were placed, Guy knew, they would face questions about what happened to them last year.
Want to bring up UVA’s historic loss to UMBC in last year’s NCAA tournament? Fire away, the All-ACC guard said.
“That’s basically what I’m trying to do, just hit it head on,” Guy said. “I don’t really care what anybody thinks. They can ask what they want. They can say what they want. I still got love for them, and I’m still going to play my game.”
Ten minutes into CBS’ selection show Sunday night, the Wahoos learned they’d been awarded one of the tournament’s four No. 1 seeds for the fourth time in the past six seasons. UVA (29-3), the top seed in the South Region, will meet No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb (23-11) at approximately 3:10 p.m. Friday at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, S.C.
The winner will face No. 8 seed Mississippi or No. 9 seed Oklahoma in the second round Sunday.
Virginia is in its 10th season under head coach Tony Bennett. This is the Cavaliers’ sixth straight trip to the NCAA tournament, a program record.
To be a No. 1 seed “doesn’t guarantee you anything, as we know,” Bennett said on a teleconference Sunday night, “but it certainly means it was a heck of a season, and now you get ready to go play against teams that are all playing well.”
Last year in Charlotte, N.C., as the basketball world knows, Virginia became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament, falling to UMBC in the first round.
From that moment, associate head coach Jason Williford said Sunday, the ‘Hoos became part of history. “So every year at this time it’s going to be a circus, it’s going to be crazy. We’re going to have to answer those questions. You gotta go through it. It’s nothing we’ve run from.”
Bennett agreed. “I think that kind of comes with the territory [because of] what happened last year. We certainly have talked about it, and that’s been the case all year, whether it’s fans or media bringing it up. You answer questions when you get asked, but there’s not a whole lot [more] to say about it. I think it’s been dealt with. It really is time to play.”
The ‘Hoos entered last year’s NCAAs as ACC tournament champions. Their run in the conference tourney didn’t last as long this year. Top-seeded Virginia fell 69-59 to fourth-seeded Florida State in the ACC semifinals Friday night in Charlotte.
That ended the Cavaliers’ nine-game winning streak. Before returning to Charlottesville on Saturday, they watched film of the loss to FSU, which shot 56.5 percent from the floor and outrebounded Virginia 35-20.
“It was very evident that we got out-toughed, out-rebounded, out-hustled,” Guy said Sunday. “All the little things that we take pride in, I think they just did a better job of. And they wanted it more.”
The Seminoles “were good, and we got away from our identity defensively,” Williford said. “And so we gotta be better at helping each other, we gotta be better on the ball. Some of our ball-screen defense was just not good, the rotations and the weakside stuff.
“There’s no need to overreact, but we gotta be ready to defend harder, defend better. I think offensively this group has different weapons and people we can go to, but defensively we gotta kind of get back to some old-school Virginia defensive principles.”
Gardner-Webb, which is located in Boiling Springs, N.C., earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by winning the Big South tournament last weekend.
The fourth-seeded Runnin’ Bulldogs upset top-seeded Radford 76-65 in the championship game, on the Highlanders’ court. DJ Laster, a 6-6, 230-pound senior, made 14 of 17 shots from the floor and scored 32 points to lead Gardner-Webb, which is headed to the NCAA tournament for the first time since moving up to Division I in 2000.
The Runnin’ Bulldogs have won 11 of their past 13 games. They lost in early November to VCU and Virginia Tech, teams UVA defeated during the regular season, but they won at Georgia Tech and at Wake Forest in December.
“Looking at their offensive numbers and defensive numbers, I know obviously Gardner-Webb is very good,” Bennett said. “There’s certainly great respect for them.”
For the Cavaliers, who shared the ACC regular-season title with North Carolina, this will be their second game in Columbia in about three months. Virginia defeated South Carolina 69-52 at Colonial Life Arena on Dec. 19.
Seven teams from the ACC earned invitations to the NCAA tournament. Three were awarded No. 1 seeds: Virginia (South), ACC tournament champion Duke (East) and North Carolina (Midwest).
“To get a share of the regular-season conference championship, in a league that has three number ones, that obviously tells you the quality of the league,” Bennett said. “I think the ACC obviously is represented well in this tournament and hopefully it does very well, too.”
The Cavaliers had hoped to be traveling home from Charlotte on Sunday. Coming back a day earlier gave them extra time to get mentally and physically prepared for the NCAAs.
“You get to watch film. You get to see what went wrong,” Williford said. “You get to recalibrate and focus on some of the internal things, the self-scout stuff that we like to do, and just be ready, whoever the opponent is going to be.”
Before gathering to watch the selection show Sunday evening, the ‘Hoos went through a short but spirited practice on the main court at JPJ.
During a five-on-five period, redshirt sophomore forward De’Andre Hunter, who last week was named ACC Defensive Player of the Year, stole a pass and dribbled in for a thunderous dunk.
“That’s what I’m talking about right there, Dre,” Bennett said.