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Here we go.
The Virginia Cavaliers ran into a team with length, power and athleticism. The Hoos didn’t have answers against Florida State on Friday night in the first of two ACC Tournament semifinals.
Plenty of people will look at how Florida State big-boyed Virginia and think that the Cavaliers are set up for heartbreak in March. I get it. Everyone should be able to see why. Virginia does not have the most imposing athletes. UVA instead depends on its structure and discipline — and on opponents not being able to reliably make 3-pointers — to win a truckload of games, enough to be the top seed at the ACC Tournament in four of the past six seasons. What happens when an opponent plays a smart, integrated, two-way game the way Florida State did? Virginia will have its hands full.
It all makes sense.
However, how much does it mean?
Point No. 1: Virginia had just won the regular-season ACC title (shared with North Carolina) and earned a No. 1 seed in both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments. Virginia was going to be a top seed regardless of what it did at the ACC Tournament. The stakes were not terrifically high.
One could perhaps argue that Virginia had more work to do in order to secure the No. 1 seed in the East Region (with closer proximity to its Sweet 16 site), and thereby avoid a placement in the South Region. However, that No. 1 seed in the East might have been wrapped up when the Hoos beat North Carolina State and avoided falling lower on the 1-68 seed list. Virginia was not playing for something vitally important at this tournament.
Florida State, starting the ACC Tournament as a 4 seed according to many bracketologists, was playing to earn a No. 3 seed, which carries the benefit of avoiding a 1 seed until the Elite Eight. The Noles were hungry and had something to prove, having lost to UVA, North Carolina, and Duke in the regular season. Virginia has done so much good work that a less-than-fully focused performance in the ACC Tournament should not come across as a shock.
The Cavaliers know. Their fans know. Anyone who covers them knows.
This is not the tournament Virginia needed to conquer.
It’s the next one. The N-C-Two-A. The Big Dance. The Big Show. Bracketville, USA. The Field of 68.
The Cavaliers played only two games in Charlotte, not three. They got a taste of their own blood and a reminder of how precarious March can be.
You can cite this game as proof of why Virginia will lose. Others can cite this game as an example of why Virginia should not be concerned at all. Roy Williams and North Carolina turned losing in the ACC semifinals into an art form. In each of Carolina’s three national titles this century, the Tar Heels lost in the ACC semis. They didn’t need to thrive in the conference tournament. They had their eyes on bigger goals.
What is worth taking from this ACC Tournament is that Virginia’s Ty Jerome had a nightmarish shooting performance. He was 7 of his first 32 at the tournament and did not find a way to compensate for that shooting in the final minutes against Florida State. What happens when this team, which possesses several capable shooters, isn’t hitting those jumpers from 3-point land? Will the Cavaliers just shrug their shoulders and lament that it’s not their day, or will they find a Plan B to get to the foul line or force defenses to make fundamental adjustments?
Michigan fought through terrible shooting last year in the NCAA Tournament, hitting only 25 percent of its threes in a four-game sequence which carried the Wolverines to the national championship game. The Maize and Blue were great on defense — enough, at any rate, to exceed their failures and limitations. They shored up every other facet of play so that the flawed jump shooting never took on overly large dimensions.
The laws of the NCAA Tournament generally suggest that quality teams will have at least one scare on the road to the Final Four. How will Virginia respond and react to that moment when it comes? How will this team turn the UMBC nightmare into a positive catalyst this March?
Does this Florida State loss mean much? You can think whatever you want. The real test, the defining challenge, begins next week. Only then will we see if this team has learned the lessons it needed to in March of 2018.
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