Gotta like UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett for scheduling aggressively for 2018-2019.
The Battle 4 Atlantis alone – which, I need to start putting together the promo packs to pay my way to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving, so, get ready, I’m going to be pitching you soon – would have been enough.
The ‘Hoos open that one against Middle Tennessee State, which went 25-8 last season, and was destined for an NCAA bid, until a shocking flameout early in its conference tournament.
Also at B4A: Butler, Dayton, Oklahoma, Stanford, Wisconsin, Florida.
There are NCAA regionals that won’t have that kind of depth.
The challenges don’t end there. Two interesting road games in November and December: at Maryland in the ACC/B1G Challenge (Nov. 28), and at South Carolina, on Dec. 19, the game returning from the exam break.
The game heading into the exam break is VCU (Dec. 9), which is coming off a comedown season in 2017-2018, but played UVA tough in Richmond last fall, losing 76-67 in a game that was tight into the final minutes.
Other fun matchups at JPJ:
- Marshall (Dec. 31), which went 25-11 last season, and beat Wichita State before losing to WVU in the NCAA Tournament.
- George Washington (Nov. 11), also coming off a down year, but, we remember GW beating the ‘Hoos in 2016.
- The opener with Towson on Nov. 6 won’t be a cakewalk. The Tigers won 18 games a year ago, including a 13-point win over, gulp, UMBC. (Maryland, gulp, also beat UMBC last season, by 21.)
- Also don’t overlook: William & Mary (Dec. 22), which won 19 games a year ago.
All told, a nice, challenging schedule, ahead of an ACC slate that includes home-and-homes with Duke, Louisville, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, all of whom are going to be NCAA Tourney teams, plus road games at UNC, Clemson, NC State, Boston College.
A lot of work to do to meet the expectations that will come with being a preseason Top 5 team.
Column by Chris Graham
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