11 Game Nonconference Schedule: 8 Opponents Known. At Virginia for B1G/ACC Challenge. NOT Part of Gavitt Games this Year
- Thread starter Franisdaman
- Start date
What's interesting is ESPN in their story today continues to have Virginia in their Preseason Top 25, so this could be a huge road win opportunity.
As you will see in their projected starting lineup, they had a couple key additions from the transfer portal.
#23 Virginia Cavaliers
Previous: 23With Trey Murphy III steadily rising up draft boards as the offseason progressed, it was always difficult to see him returning to Charlottesville for another season. Murphy made it official a couple of weeks ago that he was keeping his name in the NBA draft, and he's now looking like a first-round pick. Unfortunately for Tony Bennett, Murphy's departure leaves the Cavaliers with a limited amount of proven talent on the roster. Seven players have left since the end of the season, and five players are back -- with only two averaging more than 2.5 points last season. And although transfers Armaan Franklin and Jayden Gardner should make immediate impacts, Virginia isn't bringing in any freshmen who played high school basketball on American soil -- although our NBA draft expert Jonathan Givony is high on Igor Milicic, considering him one of the best European prospects entering college basketball next season. Bennett will need Milicic to make an impact, while also finding some interior production from the likes of Francisco Caffaro and Kadin Shedrick.
Projected starting lineup:
Kihei Clark (9.5 PPG, 4.5 APG)
Reece Beekman (4.7 PPG)
Armaan Franklin (11.4 PPG at Indiana)
Jayden Gardner (18.3 PPG at East Carolina)
Francisco Caffaro (1.2 PPG)
LINK to Story:
Texas, Oregon moving up in Way-Too-Early Top 25 college basketball rankings for 2021-22
The Longhorns and Ducks have realistic Final Four aspirations after loading up on transfers.
I believe the only team we beat that finished the regular season ranked last year was Ohio State. That stat sounds great, but when you look closer at the actual wins, it was more of a fluke than anything last year (we beat a lot of ranked teams at the time we played them and they proved over the year they were not top 25 teams). And that’s before the B1G’s pathetic showing in the NCAA Tournament
In his latest Bracketology, Lunardi has Iowa as an 8 seed playing #9 seed Virginia
LINK: https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/s...ology-projecting-2022-march-madness-men-field
LINK: https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/s...ology-projecting-2022-march-madness-men-field
Gary Parrish in his latest Preseason Top 25 and 1 has Virginia at #24.
He says this:
Trey Murphy will remain in the NBA Draft, which means Virginia is losing its top three scorers. But Kihei Clark will provide Tony Bennett with an experienced point guard capable of keeping the Cavaliers near the top of the ACC, and the addition of East Carolina transfer Jayden Gardner could be a big boost.
Link: https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/rankings/top25/
#245 in Ken Pom's last release. Finished 8th in the Big Sky.
