Weâve had an enormously successful regular season. Now we have an opportunity to (1) win the ACC Tournament, (2) end the narrative of âVirginia hasnât won a NCAAT tourney game since 2019â, and (3) make the Sweet Sixteen in Odomâs first year.
Letâs do those things!
One thing Iâve found interesting is coaches stellar record in conference tournaments. Iâm surprised he wins so much because I wouldâve thought the constant pressure would wear guys down on the other end in a day by day format⌠I guess the flip side is opponents are often in same situation and if youâre seeded higher they start a day ahead?
Curious to hear if anyone has followed his conference tournament runs that could weight in?
This bears repeating: Tony Bennett teams advanced to the second weekend a grand total of 3 times in his tenure at Virginia. Letâs ease up a bit on the expectations.
This might be unpopular but our season kind of met my expectations once the roster was in place. It exceeded the win total, for sure, but not in the overall play. I said at the outset that we should be a 4-5 seed given the talent and maturity we had on the team (buffered a bit by the fact that these were all new guys playing together - with continuity I would have put us as expecting to be a 2 seed).
March is weird so I donât have many expectations for the tourney itself. I guess we should win the first game at least.
Also anyone who cares about outside criticism needs to work on their inner insecurities. Just root for your team.
Great at VCU - won one, and got to the finals in the other
Utah State - 0 for 2, but lost to eventual natty runner up SDSU the year he had his better team
UMBC - he won one but mostly lost to Vermont (often at UVM fwiw, not a neutral site tourney)
And Vermont really had it rolling when he was at UMBC. 64, 103, 75, 89, 140 in T-Rank over Odomâs 5 years there. (The 140 was the COVID year when the America East only played conference games).
Right I know his trophy numbers but his individual game numbers in conference tournaments are very impressive
In the last 10 tournaments, 4 seeds are 32-8 against 13 seeds. Unfortunately we represent 25% of those 8 lossesâŚ
3 seeds are 37-3 against 14s since 2016.
Havenât followed any of his runs other than last yearâs, but I think his teams are pretty well suited for conference tournament style play.
He plays such a deep bench that when youâre playing teams off a dayâs rest with a rest advantage already and then you go 9 deep with really high level bench guys, it has to feel pretty overwhelming for an opponent.
NC State will be on their second game in 2 days and then right when they think they might get a break here comes Chance, Jacari, and Ugo.. Have fun!
Leads to a nice boost for us imo. If we face Miami in the second round, our legs should be a lot fresher than theirs since most of our guys play about 50% less minutes. They play 5 guys more than 25 minutes.. We play 3, and Sam is only just over that threshold. Dallin plays our most minutes at 28 per game, they have 3 guys playing more than that (4 during conference play).
On the other hand, this is exactly why Iâm not easing up on expectationsâŚ. Itâs time to throw out those results and start a fresh and it starts this year. We have a 27â4 team this year âŚround of 32 is a nonnegotiable and round of 16 should happen. PeriodâŚPoint blank end of story. Or else what has actually changed?
This year is all about cleansing those terrible March madness results since 1995 except for three times reaching the second weekendâŚ
I mean VCU has more madness appearances this century than the Hoos.
Lets change the narrative now or else it lingers like rotting vegetables in the back of your fridge and makes your other food taste terrible.
Yeah itâs a tough dance. Odom is owed the long range view of tournament performance over multiple years - but we as a fan base have also experienced notably bad tournament performance in aggregate, even accounting for the title.
CTB is a legend, but he ranks dead last in performance over seed expectation since 2000. Part of that is driven by regular season excellence, but a lot of it was the approach/style that was susceptible to tournament underperformance (and has been spoken ad nauseam here).
I would love this 30+ win year to be capped with a meaningful second weekend, where we have a shot to give a great team a game. These guys deserve it, so hope it happens!
I wouldnât say this, as none of us are impacted personally by the coach or players. This is pretty much the stock market in which we are at the whim of the performing parties and are mostly bystanders.
With that said- Marketing and Exposure are Real things that do impact the perception and sales of a product. So, when we watch dook sports network, and the coverage that some teams and coaches get, and some of the negative press that TB and team got after 2018, and then after Furman, after Ohio, after Syracuse etc., we can be aware of how our program is perceived.
Marbly mouth Goodman, Seth Davis, Doug Gotthief, Chris Shitola, Rece Davis and other propaganda shills that do have platforms can impact our recruiting and program image for the negative.
This is ludicrous.
Single-elimination tournaments are a crap shoot. Using this metric to determine whether a season is a success or not (ânonnegotiableâ lol) is a foolâs errand.
There is something to be said about history, not to be used as an excuse, but to level-set expectations. I offered the Tony Bennet stat. Hereâs another: a Virginia team has advanced to the second weekend a total of FOUR times since the 1990-91 season. Want to go back further? SIX times since 1983-84. SIX times in FORTY-TWO years. This isnât about throwing out rotten vegetables. Itâs about segments of a fan base having completely unfounded and unwarranted senses of entitlement. Letâs consistently make a second weekendâor do so without 10-15 year gaps between consecutive seasonsâbefore we start declaring efforts to be failures.
Yes, weâre 27-4, ranked 10 in the AP poll, finished second in the ACC. Iâve enjoyed every aspect of this entire season, because this team has found a way to win games just about every time they take the floor. Iâm excited about what they can do in the tournament because of this aspect. But I am also realisticâI donât think weâre as good as some people think we should be. (Those who are basically disgusted with our play weekly.) I think we are who we are. The fact that weâve won 27 games is an unmitigated delight and speaks volumes of the team Coach Odom and colleagues created from scratch and of the heart and effort of the players on the floor to will the team to victory game after game. This team could easily be 20-11 and, honestly, thatâd still be fairly impressive given what the program faced after last year. And would one be describing a 20-11 team as needing to advance to the second weekend, only the seventh team in nearly half a century to do so, to be considered a success?
Yada yadaâing the national title is CRAZY work
If 27-4 and showing that we can be a force in the new CBB world isnât a successful season, then thatâs on you, imaginary straw man.
Enjoy the journey.
Full disclosure: I havenât read the entirety of the successful season debate and have no intention of reading it.
Based on a couple Danny stat specials, I now see the path for victories. 
Apparently weâre undefeated when shooting 30% from three. And weâre undefeated in games where Chance is âonâ.
Off topic. I just watch the Sleepers podcast give their winners and losers of the season. Greg Wadell, âMy next one is Virginia! Let me remind you where they were. (Blah blah Tony was a good coach but put out boring basketball) goes out and hires a mid-major coach, and he immediately spits out 27-4? Thatâs a great season, manâŚthatâs a great season. AND NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT??? Itâs a good time to be a Virginia basketball fan.â
Someone noticed.
My hot take is the season has been great. But also, if you spend $12-$14 million on a roster and itâs mostly one year guys, then yeah, the bar for outright âsuccessâ is higher. I honestly would consider the season somewhat of a failure if we donât win our first round tourney game. A good season and hugely encouraging for the future, but not one that met the goals that that kind of expenditure and roster management strategy create.
But also whatever. Letâs play the games! Will be a better convo after we see what actually happens.
The thing is I feel like thereâs 25 fan bases that think they are top ten at spending and thereâs no way to know the truth. If we were actually top ten then yes I agree, if we were in the 20s the season is a success already.
Hopefully a moot debate and we crush Liberty.
Itâs amazing to watch a thread devolve when you only have some of the pieces, but can easily guess at the rest.
Some people just canât handle happy.