JBL | The Quadaily 25, 2028 Season (Day 73): ACC-elcior!
Today is an extremely tired edition of The Quad. We were up late last night engaged in some Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2020 (hey, cross-promotion isn't a bad thing). We were also gripped by the JBL trade involving Alonzo Weaver, and the ripple effect for all teams involved with that trade.
And, of course, we were thinking about what to write for today's column.
The big stories are unfortunate ones, for they involve injuries.
Duke's Tonny Sanders saw his collegiate career end prematurely, due to an ACL tear. Sanders is not a star, by any stretch. He started 21 games his freshman year after starting the year off the bench. He was a serviceable player for Duke after an intiail wave of productivity. and ended up averaging 7.7/4.3/2.3, along with 1.44 steals, and 1.56 blocks, in 24.8 minutes.
Then, he went to the bench for the next two seasons.
As a senior, he regained the starting job, though he hadn't played particularly too well. He averaged 6.5/4.6/1.6/1.56/.88, but was mired in a terrible season-long slump. His shooting sat at 40.7%, and 29.4% from 3, way down from his career marks. His 12.4 PER reflected this, even though he had a 3.5 BPM, which is reasonable, and 1.4 WS (most of which came on the defensive end).
That said, Sanders is a glue guy for Duke. He logged the second-most minutes on the team, behind Travis Pickford. Those minutes, even for a team as talented as Duke, are hard to replace. And, quite frankly, the options to replace Sanders are not favorable. Malik Gaines has posted a 10.5 PER in his 206 minutes, while Quinton Wiley has been worse, posting a 8.7 mark in his 209 minutes. Giovanni Diarra has yet to see time on the court; the same can be said about David Andrews, a deep reserve at the 2.
So, how does Duke go about this? This undoubtedly hurts their team going forward. The only other player to see time at the 3 this year was Wiley, and as we said before, he has been dreadful. Perhaps they see what they have in Andrews, another senior who has only logged four games in his Duke career, all of which came last year.
This is a game-changer for the Blue Devils, the ACC, and the nation.
The injury to PItt's Drew Shepard is more manageable, though more seismic in the interim. Shepard, Pitt's leading scorer (and peripheral candidate for National POTY), suffered an arm injury six minutes into Pitt's game at NC State. He is expected to be out for two weeks, though it could have been a lot worse (the replays are a little ghastly; thankfully no severe damage was done).
Now, if you lose a National POTY candidate, and you're a team that, by convention, should be in contention anyway, you would roll over for two weeks, right? Not Pitt. The Panthers got 14 from BO Dorn, and 13 from Josh Jovanovic, both off the bench. The Wolfpack escaped on Jonathan Battle's jumper at the buzzer, imediately afte rAmadi Adekoya tied it on a jumper of his own. NC State got the win, 78-76, making it another tough-luck loss for Pitt.
Pitt can withstand the loss of Shepard, most likely, because they do have depth in the post, and a team defense that can drag a team into a dogfight. But losing your most consistent offense at a critical time of the season is still reason for alarm. However, Pittsburgh only has two games over the next two weeks--home games against Boston College and a dreadful Virginia Tech squad--so this isn't as bad as it could have been.
However, it is still a scary thing to experience, and Pitt should feel fortunate they are not going through what Duke is at this time.
- We had ended the column early (disclaimer below), but we wanted to write about the Virginia/UNC game for a brief spell.
We thought Virginia would win.
We did not see this result, though.
We are not sure what happened to North Carolina in the final 14+ minutes of their 76-56 loss to Virginia. We are pretty sure that Virginia happened to them. But up until that point, Carolina, while being down for ten minutes straight, had gotten it close again, twice to within two.
And it was that way with 14:53 left. Virginia 48, North Carolina 46.
Virginia then slowly strangled UNC to death.
With 8:03 left, it was 56-47.
With 6:20 left, it was 62-48.
So over nearly nine minutes, Virginia held UNC to a pair of free throws.
With 5:04 left, it was 66-50. Ten minutes, 18-4 run for the Hoos. But the key here is that ten minutes of offensive mediocrity enforced on the Tar Heels by the Cavaliers.
Still, there was potential with 3:19 left, as UNC had cut the deficit to 12, at 68-56. And, well...you see the final score.
Virginia is capable of forcing teams into long stretches of searching for answers on offense. That was best put on display in this game. For UNC to go the final fifteen minutes and score ten points, that is incredibly impressive. UNC had seven turnovers from Miles Busch, an uncommon number in his line. Jackson Swann was held to 7-7-4
As Virginia has done all year, they had four players score in double figures, but nobody had more than 14 (Grant Merek). Their starting lineup took six threes. As a team, they took 11. Granted, they also got to the line a lot (21-30, compared to 14-15 from UNC). But they also forced Carolina into a 17-48 night from the field.
For the boys in Charlottesville, this was a night to go to Miller's and have a celebratory beer. Virginia is the best they have ever been, and they have this no-name, no-nonsense team to thank for it. This might have been the biggest win in team history, and has been a long time coming. Virginia is coming off two straight 23+ win seasons, but this is, far and away, their best season.
Now that expectations are place and pressure is set, it's up to them to continue it.s
(Due to time considerations, we are cutting this one short for the day. We'll have a better, longer piece tomorrow, we think. Due to other life responsibilities picking up--ie teaching--this piece will still be published, but may shift a bit.)
The Quadaily 25, 2028 Seaosn
Day 73
1. Indiana (15-1, 1)
2. Kentucky (16-0, 2)
3. Connecticut (16-2, 3)
4. Virginia (15-1, 7)
5. Duke (13-3, 5)
6. Kansas (13-3, 6)
7. North Carolina (15-4, 4)
8. Southern Cal (13-3, 8)
9. NC State (13-2, 9)
10. Missouri (13-2, 10)
11. Colorado (14-2, 11)
12. Illinois (13-3, 12)
13. Washington (13-3, 13)
14. Arizona (13-4, 14)
15. San Diego State (15-1, 15)
16. Florida (10-4, 16)
17. Purdue (11-4, 17)
18. Maryland (12-3, 20)
19. Utah (11-4, 18)
20. Pittsburgh (12-5, 19)
21. Villanova (12-4, 22)
22. Memphis (12-4, 23)
23. Stanford (12-5, 21)
24. Gonzaga (13-2, 24)
25. Georgetown (11-5, NR)
Next: Iowa State, Syracuse, Ohio State, UNLV, Kansas State
Dropped Out: Ohio State (25)