Scattershooting: Wahoos can still make NCAAs, Kihei may be coming back, and Mike from Durham

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Scattershooting around the ACC, while noting that Virginia fans would like to nominate Mike Krzyzewski as chairman of the NCAA tournament’s selection committee …

Krzyzewski won over many Cavalier fans with his thoughts after this week’s thriller-diller win over UVA in Charlottesville. Duke pulled out a close win, but afterward Coach K said that it would be a sin if Virginia is not included in the NCAA Tournament. He pointed out that Tony Bennett’s team owned a 3-1 record against Duke and Miami, generally the top two teams in the ACC all season long.

All the analytical sites — such as the flawed NET rankings — disagree with Krzyzewski. Here are Virginia’s ratings via the various groups that rank teams by various methods, as of Friday evening:

• NET: 80
• KenPom: 74
• BPI: 59
• SOR: 62
• Sagarin: 57
• KPI: 65
• Barttorvik: 74
• Avg: 67.2

“There’s no question that Virginia is an NCAA Tournament team,” Krzyzewski said. “[With] so many of these numbers, you have to be careful. You need to give the eye test too. They are playing as well as anyone in our conference right now and have been for about a month.”

I was pleased to learn from colleague Chris Graham that CBS bracketologist Jerry Palm wrote recently that the NCAA Tournament selection committee still operates the way it did when former UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage was a member, then chairman. Littlepage said then that the committee uses the analytics for reference, but not as a determining factor.

With Littlepage, the “eye test” was always an important factor. Throughout the days of Littlepage, preceded by AD Terry Holland and AD Dick Schultz, the eye test was an ingredient, as well a team’s last 10 games, and strength of schedule (a factor that has hurt Virginia this season because the ACC is down), if a team was willing to go on the road against good competition (UVA played Houston and Providence on the road outside the ACC), and how a team might have advanced as the season progressed.

In other words, was a team without key personnel early on due to injuries, or was a team’s roster filled with new personnel, inexperienced players that needed to gel, such as Virginia’s case? Bennett has done a beautiful job of developing this team, which he has described as “the newest team I have coached,” to where it is playing its best basketball over the last month, just as Krzyzewski suggested.

Should Virginia beat Florida State on Saturday afternoon and Louisville a week from tomorrow, the committee can’t possibly overlook the Cavaliers’ progress. A win in Brooklyn would only help, but two would almost be a lock.

(See related FSU-UVA game notebook and podcast on this site).

Kihei: Should I stay or should I go?

Kihei Clark will walk the JPJ floor today as part of the Senior Day pregame ceremonies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s his last game in the building.

Clark, who drew praise from Krzyzewski on Wednesday, has another year of eligibility due to the Covid issues. While Clark told one outlet this week that he hasn’t made a decision about returning, one of our spies believes the point guard is coming back.

During our latest podcast, co-host Chris Graham said that cohort Scott German talked to Kihei’s parents at a recent game and they told German that Kihei has decided to come back for an extra year, and that all those details have been discussed and determined (listen to our podcast for the details).

Around 20 family members were in the stands for the Duke game a few nights ago and are sticking around for Saturday’s game against FSU. How fitting that Clark’s family got to witness his career-high 25 points and career-high six 3-pointers? Afterward, Krzyzewski told Clark that he was one of the best guards in the ACC.

Clark was honored that all those family members would fly over from Hawaii to watch him play.

“It means a lot … they flew here from Hawaii,” Clark said. “To come see me play means everything, to have their love and support.”

Will FSU be healthy?

Florida State has lost eight of its last nine games and has been hobbled by injuries during that span.

ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg said on our podcast two weeks ago that the Seminoles “are sinking faster than the Titanic.”  Two games ago, FSU was down five starters due to injuries, and even though it gained one back (6-foot-4 senior RayQuan Evans, knee) for its last game, the ‘Noles lost at Boston College (71-55).

In that game, Leonard Hamilton’s team committed a season-high 19 turnovers.

Mike from Durham

It was comical that during Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim’s call-in show this week that one of the callers was “Mike from Durham.”

Boeheim smelled it out immediately that the caller was his longtime friend and rival coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Duke and Syracuse battle this weekend, and “Mike from Durham,” said he would like to meet Boeheim and get an autograph.

Boeheim joked that he would meet Mike from Durham but wouldn’t give him an autograph.

Quick hitters …

• One-time Virginia football assistant and former Miami head football coach Al Golden has been hired as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. Golden was the linebackers coach for the Cincinnati Bengals this past season. Golden previously served as an assistant for the Detroit Lions from 2016 through 2019.
• Legendary former UVA lacrosse coach Dom Starsia is on the advisory board and a member of the voting committee for the Professional Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
• Matt Groh, son of former UVA head football coach Al Groh, has been promoted to director of player personnel for the New England Patriots. Groh has been with New England for the past 11 seasons and was college scouting director this past season.
• This nugget from our pal Danny Neckel: Virginia’s Jayden Gardner has made 91 mid-range shots, which leads the ACC and is seventh in the nation.
• Joe Lunardi’s latest brackets have UVA having to leapfrog only five other teams to make it into his field.