What: Virginia Cavaliers (10-6, 1-1 ACC) vs. Duke Blue Devils (15-1, 2-1 ACC)
Time: 2:00 pm.
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2011
Place: Cameron Indoor Stadium
TV: ACC Network
Radio: Virginia Sports Radio Network
Spread: Vegas: Virginia +21; Pomeroy: Virginia +23
Last Meeting: March 12, 2010 Virginia 46, Duke 57
Last Time Out: Duke 61, Florida State 66
Series:Duke 112-48
If there's one place you don't want to be in college basketball, it's Cameron Indoor Stadium as a rebound game following a Duke loss. It's already a hostile enough of an environment for the Cavaliers, having lost 13 straight in Durham. This is also the first road game for Virginia in nine games over 41 days.
The cool part about this game is that it will be broadcast in Mandarin Chinese. The terrible part about this game is that Virginia is overmatched and overtalented today against this top-ranked opponent.
But this is the ACC, where it's any team, any day.
Dukes Probable Starters | |||||
| G | Nolan Smith | Sr. | 19.5 ppg | 4.8 rpg | 5.7 apg |
| F | Mason Plumlee | So. | 7.1 ppg | 8.0 rpg | 1.4 apg |
| F | Kyle Singler | Sr. | 18.0 ppg | 6.3 rpg | 1.4 bpg |
| G | Seth Curry | So. | 7.8 ppg | 1.1 rpg | 1.8 apg |
| F | Ryan Kelly | So. | 5.5 ppg | 3.3 rpg | 1.2 apg |
Despite this being Seth Curry's first season playing for Duke, Virginia is already very familiar with this young player. He, after all, was part of a Liberty team that upset Virginia in Dave Leitao's final season at Virginia, 86-82. Mike Scott, Sammy Zeglinski and Mustapha Farrakhan are the only three players left from that Virginia squad.
More notably, however, is that Virginia assistant coaches Ritchie McKay and Brad Soucie had coached him while at Liberty. The Cavalier faithful, of course, hope that that these two coaches will be able to reveal Curry's Achilles' heel this afternoon.
Since 2000, Virginia is 5-3 against reigning NCAA champions (2-2 on the road), including last year's 75-60 win over North Carolina. The Cavaliers' last win in Durham came in a 91-88 double overtime victory in back in 1995.
It will take a miracle for Virginia to pull off today's upset. At the risk of unnecessarily using an overused cliche, do you belieVe in miracles?