2010-2011 ACC Preview

#11: Virginia

Games against 2010 NCAA Tournament teams: 11
Best non-conference game: Nov. 22 vs. Washington (in Maui)

Projected Starting Five:
C - Assane Sene (Junior)
F - Mike Scott (Senior)
F - James Johnson (Freshman)
G - Mustapha Farrakhan (Senior)
G - Sammy Zeglinski (Junior)

I fully expected to pick Virginia to finish last in the conference, until I saw Wake Forest's returning roster. The Cavaliers got off to a decent start last year in the first year under Tony Bennett, then fell apart at the end of the year. The Cavs lost 9 in a row to end the regular season and ended up benching their best player, Sylvan Landesberg. As expected, Landesberg went to the NBA. The Cavaliers then lost another good player, Jeff Jones, who decided to transfer. And a number of players graduated.

What that leaves Virginia with is one very solid player in Mike Scott. He is good for 20 points and 10 rebounds most nights. Their second best player, Sammy Zeglinski, is injured and will miss the first part of the year. Their other returning players, including Farrakhan and Sene, are really just role players. Virginia does bring in a bunch of freshman, who will be counted on to be impact players immediately.

What I will be looking for this year is to see whether Tony Bennett is able to establish his imprint on this program. His teams at Washington State were known for playing very tough defenses - usually the first to 60 won. That didn't really happen much at Virginia last year, probably because of the personnel that they had.

I will give the Cavaliers credit - they have put together a very challenging non-conference schedule, one of the few teams in the ACC to do so. Virginia will be representing the ACC in Maui this year, where they will have some stiff competition. They also travel to California to play Stanford, and host BCS foes Oregon, Iowa State and LSU. They will certainly take their lumps in November and December but could emerge ready to compete by the time conference play comes around.