You're wrong. The Heels had a six hour turn around advantage, which is huge on a short turn. They had another half day of travel advantage. That's a ten hour rest advantage out of 48...HUGE DIFFERENCE. And then a game with Miami is nothing like the the emotional toll that a Duke game is for Virginia. This was predictable, and predicted.
Thank you, UVA.
Very gutty UVA performance. Did it all turn on that Coby White shot that missed leaving his fingertips by a nanosecond?
Congrats, UVA fans. Way to fight back Hoos!
So pleased for UVA tonight. Great effort to stay the course.
And even more pleased with how our Devils are rounding into form and their mental toughness.
But, I write mainly because talk of frisbees and the Hoos on this thread triggered one of my favorite Cameron memories. Cold, gray day in early 1979. They let us into Cameron at least two hours before tip-off. The frisbees were flying across the court as we anticipated our Devils putting it to the lesser Hoos. Angst followed, however, as Duke trailed the entire game, until . . . Jim Suddath stroked a sweet jumper from the right corner with about 15 seconds left to finally move us ahead — the final points scored in a 64-63 Duke victory. The euphoria we felt as we tumbled out of Cameron was then multiplied as we discovered that it had started snowing while we were inside and had dropped right much snow. Campus was alive with raucous students traying and snowball fights late into the night. Truly a magical experience. LGD
I remain so impressed with DeAndre Hunter. He has an NBA level game. That midrange jumper is smooth as silk and he has a quick first step when driving against a bigger defender. He will be a force as a small forward in the NBA. He has added a good 3 point stroke, too. Guy also is such a stud to me. He can flat out rip it and has a nice midrange game and can finish around the rim. He had a great reverse layup tonight where he used the rim to shield off a defender behind him. Gutsy performance from Jerome, too, who was getting treatment on his back on the sidelines during the game. I still think Virginia is good enough to win it all.
White for UNC impressed me but no one else. Maye had a terrible game shooting but did grab 11 boards.
Live ball turnovers were a problem for UVA vs UNC as well. There was one baffling stretch in the 2nd half in which UVA turned it over or forced up horrible shots on offense on 5 out of 6 possessions. Once the ball gets out of Guy or Jerome's hands it can get pretty dicey. I guess Clark is pretty good withe ball, but he had a real headscratcher vs UNC too. It did seem that UVA was willing to shoot the ball earlier in the shot clock vs UNC, so maybe Bennett is opening up to that.
UVa almost totally melted down at that point and almost let it get way out of hand. It was a Duke hangover without a doubt. To their credit, they hit some clutch shots, got a little lucky with another ankle injury to the cheats and the three pointer being disallowed...and won a brutally difficult and impressive win. (to clarify on the 3 pointer being waved, it was the right call...just a delicious rush of air out of the heel's emotional balloon the way it happened).
This is an odd comparison, but this quote for some reason made me think of the block that Rob Gronkowski had on a Colts DB maybe two seasons ago where Gronk said afterward “I threw him out of the club” (or something to that effect). Zion’s sheer physicality completely disrupted the play beyond what anyone else could reasonably be expected to do. He was on the OTHER side of the key when the ball was passed to the corner. And he ejected the shot from the club.
I wasn’t listening to Bilas; I was at the game. And if you don’t think Johnson’s injury hurt UNC’s chances of winning, I don’t know which game you were watching. He went out at a crucial time when UNC had momentum. And when he came back in he wasn’t the same player he had been prior to getting hurt. So what exactly are you trying to say?