James Madison 52, Virginia 49
As I watched James Madison put the finishing touches on its somewhat predictable upset of Virginia on Tuesday night at the Dukes’ Atlantic Union Bank Center in Harrisonburg, a few thoughts occurred to me.
First is, more than two years removed from winning the national championship, beating the ‘Hoos is a huge accomplishment for teams.
Clearly, at 6-4 and with losses to Navy by 8 points at home and now JMU (8-2), this is not a vintage Tony Bennett UVa team. But JMU students still rushed the floor as if they had beaten a ranked team. Granted, Virginia being the big boy team in the same state for several years played into that. The Dukes entered the contest 0-11 against the Cavaliers. Still, this is definitely looking like one of the worst Virginia teams in quite a while, but JMU students were celebrating like crazy, even cursing out our coach, the nicest man in the sport. It is actually kind of cool to be the biggest win of the season for a team, to be that hated. That’s real respect from their fan base, despite the disrespectful way in which some of them conducted themselves. I would like for the ‘Hoos to make it more difficult for these teams like Navy and JMU to get these victories. And of course, I’d rather just win these games. But what I’m saying is, if you’re going to lose, it is nice to be relevant and have the other team’s fans really care about what was accomplished.
James Madison entered the game 0-11 against Virginia all time. (Daniel Lin/Daily News-Record)
It’s kind of funny actually because when fans don’t rush the floor, it gives the vibe off that it was just a regular win, that it was expected. A court rush actually brings attention to the fact that you are the lesser team and that is how you think of yourself. It’s like chanting “Overrated!” Why would you diminish your own team’s accomplishment by calling the team you just beat overrated? Rushing the floor is similar. It lends credence to the theory that it is a big win and doesn’t happen all the time for your program. Of course, I’m talking down about court rushing now, but I did the same thing when I was a student during the Dave Leitao years. I remember during his last season when Virginia struggled to 10 wins, Virginia beat No. 12 Clemson, and I was one of the students that hit the floor. After beating Clemson. In basketball.
In 2013, after my time as a student (but I was there in like Row BB at JPJ), UVa beat No. 3 Duke, and students rushed the floor — a victory more worthy of a court rush. That was the infamous court rush when Mike Krzyzewski chastised UVa fans and court storming in general after the game, sounding like the big whiner that he is. Virginia fans have never forgotten what he said.
At some point, Virginia fans stopped rushing the floor. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one of the last court rushes if not the last court rush was after beating Syracuse to win the ACC regular-season title in March 2014. I do kind of recall that transition from being a court storming school to being a school whose fans didn’t storm the court. It was a bit odd but ultimately satisfying knowing we had reached the big time and were just a really good basketball program playing other really good programs when they came to JPJ.
Even though Dukes fans weren’t the nicest with what they were chanting, they actually paid the highest compliment by rushing the court.
Rebuild mode means a return of nostalgic feelings
Another thought I have is this: Folks, we seem to have hit the ground floor. Though we have sort of been there the past two years, we are officially in rebuild mode. I am never going to say never with Bennett, but this team doesn’t look like it will make the NCAA tournament.
In 2019-20, Virginia cobbled together a second-place ACC team, and last year, the Cavaliers won the regular-season championship. Those teams were obviously not as good as the national championship team, but they were still pretty dang good teams. I struggle to envision how this edition of the Cavaliers could pull off either of those feats, though I still think it can be competitive in almost every conference contest. Heck, I am bullish on this team finishing in at least the top third of the ACC. I do think it can still happen. Am I less confident than a week ago? Yes. But just look back at some of the early results of the past two seasons — I doubt we saw great finishes coming from those teams.
But being in this humble state about the program and honestly understanding where it is at right now has made me hungrier for success.
I consider myself a competitive person, but I don’t think I have anything on guys like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Nick Saban, or Bill Belichick. Saban has won what seems like a dozen national championships by now, and that guy is screaming every Saturday at his players and the referees. Seriously, I don’t know if he even enjoys the winning. OK, maybe he cracks a smile when he lifts up the championship trophy, but still, how fast does that guy move on to the next season?
I bring that up because I have to say, after Virginia won the national championship, I think I got a little soft. When it was clear that the 2019-20 team wasn’t as good, a feeling settled on me that said, “Well, whatever happens, I’m OK with it because we won the national championship last season.” I don’t think I am the only fan that sort of gave the team a pass, maybe even the past two seasons, right? You see that sort of talk on the message boards and social media. Trust me, losing still sucks, and winning is still awesome, but it all has been a bit different since the natty, don’t you think? The feeling of losing changed a bit because we do have that crown in our back pocket, and it is nice, isn’t it? But Saban and his ilk wouldn’t be proud of us.
However, now we are getting a little further away from the championship. There’s only one guy left from that title team. And like I said, I doubt this team is even as good as the past two. What does that mean? It means my immediate expectations lower a bit — not the overarching goals for the program but at least the goals of this team and maybe even next year’s team. But this lowering of expectations has the interesting effect of increasing the hunger to be successful. It allows us to be pleasantly surprised with good wins and then want more. It’s been a while since we have been pleasantly surprised by a Bennett team, right?
This team seems to have more in common with Bennett’s first two teams, that went 15-16 and 16-15 respectively, than with the others. It’s going to be hard to recapture that magical feeling of the team building something truly great and especially difficult to get caught up in a season like we all were in 2013-14. That stretch after the Tennessee loss was a special moment in time that came out of nowhere and was surreal. But the state we are in now makes it more possible to feel those types of feelings again.
Duke and North Carolina have had their turns at being not very good. Also, look at Jay Wright at Villanova. His Wildcats reached the Elite Eight in 2005-06 and the Final Four in 2008-09 but went 13-19 in 2011-12 and just 54-45 over three seasons from 2010-13. But Villanova came roaring back, winning NCAA titles in 2015-16 and 2017-18.
Bennett could have a similar career arc to Wright. We are all still confident that this is simply a bump in the road. We have to accept what this team is right now. These opponents better get their hits and court rushes in now. We know reinforcements are coming next year.
It may be our turn to be mediocre, but it’ll make the comeback that much sweeter.
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