The Virginia basketball team earned a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament bracket revealed on Sunday. The Cavaliers will travel to Orlando for a South Region game against No. 13 seed Furman on Thursday.
UVA will make its ninth NCAA Tournament appearance of the Tony Bennett era and its 25th trip overall. The Cavaliers won the National Championship in 2019 and advanced to the Final Four in 1981 and 1984. After missing the field for the first time since 2014 last season, Bennett said you always appreciate a spot in the bracket.
"Very much so - you never take that for granted," Bennett said. "As a player when I played at Green Bay, I remember the excitement of getting called for the NIT and then when we won our conference to the NCAA and my last year we thought we were going to the NCAA Tournament and we got left out. So you understand all of that. I told our guys you remember last year, we weren't expecting to be called and just the difference in the feeling and the excitement."
The winner of the Virginia and Furman game will meet the winner between No. 5 seed San Diego State and No. 12 seed College of Charleston on Saturday. Whoever advances from the pod will head to Louisville the following weekend for a Sweet 16 game.
Emerging from the quartet of teams will be a challenge as all four teams have won at least 25 games this season.
The Hoos finished 25-7 with a share of the ACC Regular Season Championship and they advanced to the ACC Tournament title game as well. Furman enters the field at 27-7 as the Southern Conference Champions. It's the school's first appearance since 1980, but the roster features an experienced group with 8 players that are at least juniors.
San Diego State posted a 27-6 record this season as the Mountain West Champions in both the regular season and conference tournament. Charleston registered a 31-3 record this season and won the Colonial Athletic Association. The Cougars won games this season against Virginia Tech, ODU, Hampton, and William & Mary from the state.
Bennett said there are many good teams across college basketball and you have to be ready to play regardless of your opponent or the seed line.
"There's so much parity and everyone's good," Bennett said. "You look at that board and you see it and every year it seems like the seedings and numbers aren't as significant, but who's playing well, who's healthy, all that stuff comes into play. You get excited to play and you're going to have to play well to advance."
Virginia, of course, knows that as well as anyone. The Hoos lost in the 2018 NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed to No. 16 seed UMBC, but then returned the next year to win the 2019 National Championship. Many times on that journey, Bennett referenced the idea of that adversity buying a ticket to somewhere you couldn't have gotten any other way. The story made far-reaching connections around sports.
That included a young coach and his team in South Carolina. Furman coach Bob Richey said Sunday that his team this year had drawn on the Hoos' story as a source of guidance. The Paladins lost 64-63 in the 2022 Southern Conference Championship game on a Chattanooga buzzer beater in overtime that David Jean-Baptiste made from nearly halfcourt with two defenders by his side. That ripped the conference's bid to the NCAA Tournament out of their hands and ripped their hearts at at the same time.
"Lot of respect for our opponent. Tony Bennett is somebody that I admire in a lot of different ways," Richey said. "I think it's going to be a great storyline for the media in a lot of ways just because we talked a little bit about their journey and the ticket of adversity being able to get you somewhere you couldn't have gone without it. And really as we went on our journey this last year, we drew on that some. I've watched him for years. His values, the person he is, being a man of faith, and being an unbelievable basketball coach, I've looked up to him in a lot of ways. A lot of our defense, we've pulled from a lot of the different things that they do. We're honored to be in that game and we're honored to be in the tournament. We're excited about it, we're ready to get back to practice, and we look forward to the challenge."
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!