Oct
01
2019
Week 5 provided plenty of excitement as several games went to the wire. How did these contests impact this week’s standings? Here’s the latest installment of our ACC Power Rankings. 14. Georgia Tech Last Week: 14 Even though the Jackets outgained Temple, Tech never had a chance in this game. The Jackets converted only 2 …
Sep
26
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. The Virginia Cavaliers are not expected to beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this weekend in South Bend, Indiana. Losing this game does not own the power to redefine the Cavaliers’ season. The main goal for 2019 is to win the ACC Coastal. …
Sep
24
2019
Week 4 wasn’t as bad as week 3. However, the ACC didn’t fare as well as it needed to. The league suffered a loss to the Sun Belt, and a few games with MAC opponents were tougher than expected. How will these results impact this week’s rankings? Here’s how things look after week 4. 14. …
Sep
17
2019
It was a tough week for the ACC. The league suffered a handful of embarrassing losses, which prompted one publication to say that it should be relegated to Group of Five status. While I think that’s a bit of an overreaction, it’s clear that the league isn’t as deep as it usually is. Here are …
Sep
15
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. QUESTION: Is there any doubt that Virginia is the ACC’s second-best team? Maybe a slight pinch of doubt, but not enough to matter at this point. Everyone in the ACC knew this was high-stakes poker on Saturday night in Charlottesville. Style points didn’t …
Sep
12
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. Florida State might wake up this weekend and play well, renewing a sense that it can compete for a decent bowl bid and forge a respectable season. We don’t know, but we can allow for that possibility. Maybe the Seminoles are late-bloomers in …
Aug
22
2019
It’s weird to talk about the ACC’s Playoff contenders this year. Mostly because there is one team that is so far out ahead of the league that it’s considered a Playoff near-lock, something we have yet to see in the CFP era. Different betting markets have the line on Clemson reaching the CFP anywhere from …
Aug
12
2019
Regardless of what some in the media say, the SEC is not heads and shoulders above everyone else. The league has some great teams and some not-so-great teams. Just like everyone else. Don’t get me wrong: the SEC is a strong conference. Alabama finished the 2018 regular season as the No. 1 team in the …
Jul
24
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. This is already Virginia’s year. A basketball school won its first college basketball national championship. When 2019 is remembered in Charlottesville, it will be recalled with great fondness. The wins over Purdue, Auburn and Texas Tech were all “Where were you when?” moments …
Jun
22
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Is Virginia’s 2019 basketball title like Clemson’s 2016 football title? This is a very interesting question to wrestle with, for so many reasons. It is a cross-sport comparison. It involves two programs which have substantially changed their …
Apr
15
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Is Virginia now a basketball blue-blood? I wrote about the revocation of blue-blood status last week at College Basketball Today, so it is good to visit the other side of this topic: When does a blue-blood get …
Apr
09
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. No one needs any explanation or recollection of the many times and many ways in which college basketball people — within or outside the ACC — knocked the playing style and overall aesthetic of the Virginia Cavaliers over the years. We have gone …
Apr
09
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. Let me be very clear about this: Fans of a conference should not be expected to root for fellow conference members. SEC fans do that a lot, and Big Ten fans are usually very good about NOT doing that. If you want to …
Apr
09
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. We joke about this all the time on #CollegeSportsTwitter, but behind the jokes lies a basic truth: Maryland did not win a title for the Big Ten in 2002. It won a title for the ACC. That is not a Big Ten memory. …
Apr
07
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Will Virginia win It All? When I made my picks at the start of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, I thought Virginia would make the Final Four. When the Final Four arrived, I thought Virginia — which I …
Apr
04
2019
Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek. The Virginia Cavaliers — players, coaches, trainers, support staff — are necessarily and completely focused on the Final Four in Minneapolis. They should be. Why would they not be? It’s all business for a team in search of making more history and redefining …