Northern Iowa at UVA, Monday at 8pm on ACC Network.
Early Vegas line has Virginia as a 16-point favorite, with the over/under at 127 total points.
Bullet Points on Northern Iowa
-Looks to be a rebuilding year for them. They only return one starter from last season’s Missouri Valley Conference regular season champs.
-They’re coming off a 68-55 loss at Richmond on Friday, their first Division 1 opponent of the season. It was only a 3-ponit game at half. And Northern Iowa went 3-22 from 3. So they’re probably better than that score shows.
-Key players. 6’4 guard Nate Heise (12.0 PPG) is a three-year starter. 5’11 Jr point guard Bowen Born (18.0 PPG) is their leading scorer. And 6’6 junior forward Tytan Anderson (9.5 PPG) had a double-double against Richmond including 5 offensive boards.
-They play small, starting a pair of 6’6 guys up front. A couple bigs come off the bench, but they only combined for 9 minutes against Richmond. We could see a lot of Vander Plas and Gardner together, and it’s another opportunity for Ryan Dunn to get extra time as a small-ball 4.
If I’ve learned one thing about teams that shoot a lot of threes and them going against UVA, it is to NEVER rule them out of the conversation, ever. However, I hope we can continue the strong offense, and provide another great defensive showing against them. BVP and Dunn possibly getting good playing time is always something to be excited for. The hope is that we start out strong, but something nice about this team is that we have seen is that we are somewhat back to the CTB roots of very strong second halves.
Prediction: The game will stay close for about five minutes, then a massive UVA run will occur before a slow climb up to around a 30 point lead.
This one makes me a little nervous- I’m worried that the little guys will just feed it inside all night if we start like last game. Need to deny those entry passes
Just waking up to the awful news. Hard for me to wrap my head around at the moment. Playing games is at the bottom of the priority list right now, but I’d imagine the game is postponed or canceled. Obviously if the suspect is not caught that will be the case. Prayers for the UVA community near and far
Yeah no way the game happens tonight. I cannot imagine the mental state of the players and coaches. If the rumors are true, these are players friends they just lost.
Game officially cancelled it appears. From a strictly basketball standpoint, have to think not postponing this isn’t great for our non con schedule which had few “surefire wins” but feels trivial to even discuss this. Just glad they’re not playing tonight
I’d guess it’s not played and moved to next year. This was probably a ‘buy’ game, which contractually UNI will have to honor. Just doubt the logistics work out for this season once they leave Charlottesville. It’s a lot of money to travel back across the country, not even considering what their upcoming game, practice, school schedule is. Doesn’t really hurt either school to by left w only 29 games this season. I do suspect they play In Vegas. All just conjecture on my part as it’s a good distraction.
I personally think we play Friday unless our players and coaches talk and dont want to. Either way totally understandable as I am not there locally etc
Playing can be cathartic too … it’s where most young athletes feel the most comfortable … and able to forget about the real world for a few minutes…
It was always helpful to me when going through stuff.