College Basketball Power 10: Seven of Top 10 Went Down Last Week
By Jeremy Karll
7. Virginia (16-4)
It doesn’t matter in the end that Virginia held multiple double-digit leads over Villanova and led by nine at the half. The Cavaliers couldn’t hold on, despite smothering Villanova’s offense in the first half with their on-ball defense.
Virginia could have had one of the best weeks in college basketball if they held on against Villanova. They already beat 14th-ranked Notre Dame in South Bend by 17 points earlier in the week. Instead, Virginia is left imagining what could have been.
Virginia is still in line for a No. 2 or No. 3 seed with a 16-4 record. Plus, they turned a lot of doubters into believers because of how they played for 35 minutes against Villanova.
Their top-ranked scoring defense looked good enough to possibly be enough to overcome their still dreadful offense that scores just the 13th-most points per game in the ACC.
In fact, Virginia has only topped 80 points once in conference play and has scored fewer than 75 points in each of their past four games.
It’s always a question of where Virginia will get their offense from every game, and that’s not a safe bet come tournament time. Against Villanova, freshman Ty Jerome, who averages three points per game, scored 15 points off the bench.
Having a freshman with a minimal role lead them in scoring is telling of how little consistency they have on offense.
Virginia plays Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Louisville this week.