The Virginia Cavaliers suffered a major blow in their hopes of overtaking Duke for the top seed in the ACC following their 77-51 loss on Saturday. The loss dropped the Cavaliers to 13-3 in conference, while Duke improved to 15-1. But following the loss, Virginia head coach Ryan Odom admitted that he wasn’t too worried in terms of what this Cavaliers’ team can still do this season, as per Brian Stultz of Duke Wire.
“It’s not the first time I ever lost a game by a significant margin. We lost to Albany one time. I was telling the team after the game, it was like 80-some to 40-something. And that team went on to do something pretty special,” Odom said. “And so I’m not worried about one game. I’m worried about the mindset of our team, and we can’t lose our confidence because we just lost to a really good basketball team.”
Both Virginia and Duke have two games remaining in the regular season. The best the Cavaliers could hope for in terms of conference finish is to end up tied with the Blue Devils in the ACC standings. Which of course would give Duke the top overall seed.
But throughout this season, Virginia has done a strong job in solidifying themselves as arguably the second best team in the ACC. This has been a big turnaround for the Cavaliers in their first season with Odom at the helm as head coach.
The last time Virginia finished with fewer than five losses in a season was back during the 2018-19 season when they went 35-3 en route to winning the national championship under former coach Tony Bennett. The Cavaliers have not advanced past the opening round of the NCAA Tournament since then.
