Top seed Virginia aims for elusive Final Four
Cavs haven’t reached national semis since ’84
RALEIGH, N.C. — Virginia spent an entire season exceeding all expectations and making a dominant run through the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now the Cavaliers face a new challenge: trying to earn a spot in their first Final Four in more than three decades as the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
The Cavaliers headline the South Region bracket, earning a No. 1seed for the sixth time in program history. It’s the third 1-seed in the past five seasons under coach Tony Bennett, who guided his team to a regional final two years ago but has yet to take the next step: the Final Four.
The pressure will be higher than ever for the Cavaliers (31-2) to do it now.
“I wouldn’t say pressure is the word,” leading scorer Kyle Guy said after Saturday night’s win against North Carolina in the ACC Tournament title game. “But you know, that’s definitely in the back of our minds. We’re just trying to do this for each other.”
Virginia opens play Friday against No. 16 seed UMBC(24-10) in Charlotte in a bracket that features Cincinnati, Tennessee, Arizona and Kentucky — with both sets of Wildcats in the Cavaliers’ top half of the draw.
“I told our players that everyone can play if they’re in there,” Bennett said in a teleconference Sunday after the pairings were released.
If Virginia can make it through the bracket to reach San Antonio, that would add to what has already been a milestone-filled season. The Cavaliers have a program-record win total and are a unanimous No. 1 in the AP Top 25; before this year, the last time they were No. 1 was December 1982 (the poll had just 20 teams then) during Ralph Sampson’s senior season.
Virginia went to a Final Four in 1981 with the 7-foot-4 Sampson, then made an unexpected trip there in 1984 as a 7-seed.
The Cavaliers have their traditional suffocating defense that ranks No. 1 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency (84.4 points allowed per 100 possessions), while the methodicaltempo attack ranks 21st in offensive efficiency (116.5 points per 100 possessions). They were picked to finish sixth in the ACC, but they went on to become the first team since 2000 to win the ACC regular-season race Coach Tony Bennett celebrates after Virginia’s ACC tournament championship win over North Carolina. The Cavaliers have a program-record 31 wins. outright by four games, then followed with the program’s third ACC tournament title to complete a 20-1 slate against league opponents.
The top challenger is Cincinnati (30-4), which got less than an hour to celebrate Sunday’s win against Houston in the American Athletic Conference tournament championship in Orlando before learning its NCAA path. The second-seeded Bearcats open with 15-seed Georgia State (2410) on Friday in Nashville, Tenn.