Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 1, 1995 TAG: 9503010100
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The 109th Virginia Tech-Virginia basketball game, played Tuesday night at the Richmond Coliseum, was a battle to see who would reach 20 victories first.
The Cavaliers made it, just barely, 63-62, in another of those non-conference hand-wringers no team needs at this time of the season.
As for the perceived clamor for Tech (19-9) and UVa (20-7) to play men's basketball twice every season, again? As tough and draining as Tuesday night's tussle was? Get real.
It isn't going to happen. The Cavaliers already play 16 ACC games, a conference number the Hokies will have beginning next season in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
Tech wants the series to return to the two campuses. That isn't going to happen, either.
What the state rivals who have played every season but one since 1921-22 can and should do is move the game - not from Richmond and Roanoke, but the date.
The Tech-UVa game would be a nice holiday present at neutral sites. It might be easier to peddle those $18 tickets as stocking-stuffers.
These teams could use a respite at this time of the season, not a rivalry. And with a December date, the alumni emotions from the football meeting of November between revitalized programs still would be simmering.
In-state students from both schools could attend the game during the holiday break. It would not clash with conference concerns, as it especially has in the past two years with a spot in the last week of the regular season.
That apparently is where the game is going to stay next season when it returns to the Roanoke Civic Center. It's penciled in for the last Tuesday of February, again.
``From our standpoint, we wouldn't mind playing it earlier,'' said Craig Littlepage, UVa's interim athletic director. ``Where it's played now is OK, because we do have an open space in our conference schedule.''
Because the Hokies have been playing only 12 league games in the expiring Metro Conference, the UVa game has fit into the Tech schedule better. However, Hokies coach Bill Foster has said a December date wasn't his preference.
That could change with the Hokies headed for the A-10, especially if that league continues starting its conference tournament at The Palestra on the first weekend of March.
For all of the talk about how Tuesday night's date was more meaningful to Tech than UVa - and it was because of postseason implications - it still isn't as crucial as the Hokies' home finale Saturday against UNC Charlotte, which already has clinched the top seed in next week's Metro tournament.
That's because the Hokies could afford to lose a non-conference game to 13th-ranked UVa, but likely cannot take a loss to UNCC, go 5-7 in the Metro and still reach the NCAA Tournament.
In the previous 19 Metro seasons, no team with a losing conference record has reached the NCAA with an at-large bid. Only two .500 teams have done so - Memphis State in 1983 and '88.
Tech's chances would have been boosted by beating UVa, which is in the NCAA Tournament, probably with a top-four regional seed. However, the loss doesn't kill the Hokies' hopes.
As for the Cavaliers, Wake Forest's victory at North Carolina just before the Tech-UVa tip-off was more important to coach Jeff Jones' team than the late-season date with a state foe.
Consider that if Maryland and UNC beat Duke, and Wake wins at home over North Carolina State this week, a victory by Virginia over the visiting Terps on Sunday afternoon would create a four-way tie for the ACC regular-season title.
Isn't that larger than a non-conference game that in recent years hasn't even sold out?
The state's biggest college basketball game would be one of greater interest were it not surrounded by more important ones.
Tech and UVa this time of the season?
Really, it's almost March madness.
by CNB