By Jerry Ratcliffe
The hottest two teams in the ACC will slug it out for second place in the league standings on Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN2) at John Paul Jones Arena when Virginia (23-3, 11-2) hosts Miami (21-5, 10-3).
A sidebar to the huge clash will be a ceremonial court dedication to former UVA coach Tony Bennett at 1:45 (more on that later in this article).
Virginia is on a seven-game winning streak and is 12-1 at home this season, while Miami comes to town riding a four-game winning streak. The Cavaliers are an 8.5-point favorite, according to OddsSharks.
Not only are the two teams on a roll, so are their coaches. Ryan Odom and Jai Lucas are the fastest two first-year ACC coaches to reach 20 regular-season wins since North Carolina’s Bill Guthridge (followed Dean Smith) in 1997-98. Odom did it in 24 games, Lucas in 25.
UVA enters the game in second place in the league standings behind Duke, while Miami would jump into a tie with a win, although would own the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Lucas — formerly an assistant at Duke — and Odom are the obvious choices for ACC Coach of the Year honors at this point. Odom took a UVA team that slipped considerably after Bennett’s shocking retirement just before the start of last season and turned the Cavaliers into a national Top 14 team in the Associated Press Poll. Lucas engineered the biggest turnaround in college basketball this season, taking the bottom-feeding Hurricanes into a 21-win team.
Miami comes to Charlottesville with a chip on its shoulder, with the Hurricanes having been shunned by Top 25 voters. While this is Miami’s first road game against a Top 15 team this season, the Canes are fighting for national respect.
Lucas knows it won’t be easy getting that done at JPJ, which he considers one of the toughest four places to play in the ACC, not to mention the crowd getting fired up with the honoring of Bennett pre-game.
“Virginia, to me, is one of the top four venues to play at in the ACC, behind Cameron, behind North Carolina State, which is always crazy. Virginia’s right there and then Louisville … Carolina also in that breath.
“[UVA] has a basketball tradition, they have fans, they have pride in the university, so it’s always a great crowd of 14,000 and what I’m excited about is our guys have lived in these moments already this year. We’ve been able to win on the road, we’ve been able to win in tough environments, so it shouldn’t be anything that’s shocking to us.”
UVA is No. 16 in the NET, No. 19 by kenpom.com as of Friday afternoon, while Miami is No. 37 in the NET and an eight-seed in Joe Lunardi’s bracketology released Friday morning. Virginia was a four-seed in that same bracket.
The Cavaliers are coming off one of their best performances of the season, blowing out a woeful Georgia Tech team earlier this week, storming to a 59-27 halftime lead.
“They’re really good like a lot of teams in the ACC, but I would say they’re one of the better ones,” Lucas said. “I think they’re one of the best teams that we have played all year. I think they are better than Florida when we played them. Now, Florida’s playing better now, but [Virginia] is better than Florida when we played them.”
The Hurricanes lost to the Gators, 82-68, in mid-November at neutral-site Jacksonville. Florida is presently No. 12 in the AP rankings with a 19-6 record.
Miami boasts four players averaging double figures, led by 6-foot-9 senior forward Malik Reneau, who averages 19.7 points per game. Reneau missed most of the second half of the Canes’ recent win over Virginia Tech due to a headache, but according to Lucas, his leading scorer is feeling better.
Taking up Reneau’s slack against the Hokies was 6-3 senior guard Tre Donaldson, who put up 32 points in that win. He’s averaging 16.4. Another guard, 6-4 junior Tru Washington, averages 11.5, while 6-8 freshman forward Shelton Henderson is putting up 14.3 per outing. Yet another guard, Dante Allen, scores at a 6.8 clip.
The Hurricanes can’t match Virginia’s overall length and are not a good 3-point shooting team, which could be a deciding factor on Saturday, especially if the Cavaliers come out red hot from Bonusphere like they did in Atlanta a couple nights ago. UVA had 10 triples by halftime and finished with 14.
When Odom’s team is shooting like that, they’re practically unbeatable.
UVA has won 8 of its last 9 against the ‘Canes and the last 4 at JPJ.
Fans are encouraged to arrive early and be in their seats in time to view the Bennett court dedication. Bennett put Virginia basketball back on the national college map during his 15-year career as he became the winningest coach in program history.
Bennett was a 4-time ACC Coach of the Year, captured the 2019 National Championship, two ACC Tournament titles, six ACC regular-season titles, and took the Cavaliers to 10 NCAA tournaments in 15 seasons.
Saturday’s ACC Scoreboard
Miami at Virginia, 2 p.m. (ESPN2)
Wake Forest at Virginia Tech, Noon (ACCN)
Florida State at Clemson, Noon (The CW)
North Carolina at Syracuse, 1 p.m. (ABC)
Notre Dame at Pitt, 2 p.m. (ACCN)
Georgia Tech at Louisville, 2:15 p.m. (The CW)
Boston College at SMU, 4 p.m. (ACCN)
Stanford at California, 6 p.m. (ACCN)
Michigan vs. Duke, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN)***
*** — Washington, D.C.
