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In the world of sports, some things just aren’t supposed to happen.

Lionel Messi is not supposed to miss an open shot on goal. Teams from Cleveland are not supposed to hoist trophies. Virginia Tech is not supposed to make the NCAA Tournament. And basketball players are not supposed to morph into arthritic invertebrates upon touching a ball in the waning seconds of a game.

Virginia’s late-game collapse against Miami on Thursday was no mere choke job; it was a meltdown of epic proportions. It was the stuff of legends. Down by 10 with 40 seconds to play? That would require a comeback beyond the capacity of the Chicago Bulls playing against Charlottesville High’s JV squad.

But somehow, some way, it was not out of the question for a Miami team that seemed to have completely forgotten how to put the ball in the basket. The ice cold ‘Canes missed 17 of their first 19 shots in the second half and had accumulated only 12 points in 19 minutes of play.

Then they scored 10 points in a span of 24 seconds.

Even Jerry Ratcliffe, a reporter for The Daily Progress who has been covering Virginia basketball for decades, admitted he had never seen anything like it. Continue reading Absurdity is reality for Virginia basketball →

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DURHAM, N.C. – About 45 minutes prior to Saturday’s tip-off against Duke, I was doubled over on the side of the highway, ceaselessly puking out what appeared to be the remnants of several vital organs.

If you hadn’t seen what I had so desperately consumed an hour earlier at Subway — some pre-cooked egg whites slapped between a pair of time-worn, brick-hard bread imitators — you might have guessed I was just unreasonably nervous about the daunting task lying before my school’s youthful basketball team.

The Cavaliers had to face Duke that day. Not the Duke of the Greg Paulus/Josh McRoberts variety, mind you, but the one with guys like Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith taking the court. This Duke team was ranked No. 1 in the country. Even worse, this Duke team — along with all its self-righteous fans who view winning as their special right rather than a happy outcome — was pretty angry. Following a bitter road loss to unranked Florida State, the Blue Devils were ready to unleash their anger before thousands of blue-and-white-painted crazies on their home court, where they had won their last 29 games.

Indeed, beating Duke Saturday would be about as easy as convincing Dickie V that Coach K is a mere mortal. Continue reading Lessons from Cameron Indoor →

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Everything was going great. Thousands of white-clad fans yelled happily at their beloved Cavaliers, who were zipping from one end of the field to the other with the ease of fleet-footed cheetahs bounding across the African savannah. Players in navy and orange high-fived each other left and right, reveling in their God-given athletic talents on display against a displaced band of Floridian football players. Under the gentle glare of the October sun, the Cavaliers’ confidence was sky high.

Then the game started.

The Seminoles stormed into Scott Stadium and unleashed a ruthless assault on the ill-prepared Cavaliers, whose shell-shocked fans promptly fled for the exits as their team discovered the searing brutality of a unit spurred by desire and self-belief. On this Saturday, the grass between the goal posts ceased being a football field and welcomed its new identity as a bloodbath. Warriors in golden helmets tore through their enemy’s gossamer lines of defense like cannon balls piercing glass walls, effortlessly pummeling them into the earth if they ever impeded their warpath.

Florida State was a team on a mission. Virginia was but a team on a field. Continue reading A step backward for Virginia football →

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It’s late on a Saturday night, and Mike London sits quietly at home, trying to wake himself from a dream.

His weary mind bristles with the image of himself galloping down the Virginia sideline, inching ever closer to the end zone as the deafening noise around him washes away any trace of fatigue in his 49-year-old legs. Running stride-for-stride alongside him is Chase Minnifield, whose unlikely odyssey across the field, at least from his point of view, has taken up the better part of 10 minutes.

When Minnifield’s gutsy 65-yard interception return is finally brought to a halt, London stops to gaze up at a scoreboard that reflects his team’s sizable fourth-quarter lead. His frenzied players can’t stop jumping up and down; orange-clad men and women in the stands brace themselves for yet another rendition of the Good Ole Song; the Hill remains chock-full of bright ties and sundresses; and perhaps most amazingly of all, the Cavaliers are going to win their first football game of the season.

But no matter how many times he pinches himself, London can’t seem to wake up. Could this be real after all? Continue reading Mike London’s fevered dream sequence springs to life →