What Virginia Tech Has ... You Don't Want

In recent years, as Virginia basketball struggled through more than one 4-12 ACC season and only one winning ACC season since 2001, it was a common refrain amongst Hoo Nation that Virginia Basketball doesn't need to be great; it should simply strive for what for what Virginia Tech has. 

It was not necessarily a surprising plea, as it was hard to watch Virginia falter as its arch-rival maintained a surprising level of respectability.  Despite predictions that Tech would wilt in a superior basketball conference, Seth Greenberg's charges have almost always been respectable, only once really bad.  Since joining the ACC in 2004, Tech was 38-42 in ACC play entering this season, and finished no worse than 7-9 in every season but one.  During that same span, the Cavaliers were 31-49, and three times were 5-11 or worse. 

But while I applaud the job Seth Greenberg has done in Blacksburg, you don't want what he's selling.  While Tech has overall been better than Virginia since joining the ACC, the two schools are nonetheless even on the only measure that really matters -- postseason success.  Despite always being respectable, Tech has been to the NCAA Tournament only once as an ACC member.  That was in 2007, when a senior-laden team earned a No. 5 seed, defeated Illinois 54-52 in a first round game that set back offensive basketball fifty years, and then politely folded to mid-major S. Illinois, 63-48.  That same season, however, Virginia also made its only trip to the Dance since Tech's arrival in the ACC.  The Hoos were a No. 4 seed, overwhelmed a supposed upset-special Albany squad, 84-57, and bowed out to a good Tennessee team, 77-74, in a Round 2 game whose outcome likely would have been different if J.R. Reynolds was not injured in the midst of a lights-out performance.  So despite the six-game disaprity in ACC records, its the Cavaliers who have the more impressive NCAA resume during that same span, a 1-1 record that could easily have been better, not a 1-1 record that could easily have been worse. 

Would you prefer 7-9 instead of 4-12?  Of course you would.  But let's not excuse respectable for acceptable.  Respectable is nice, and avoids your program being the butt of bad Washington Post jokes, but it is not the foundation upon which basketball programs survive, at least here at Virginia.  Just ask Jeff Jones, whose teams hovered around .500 in ACC play throughout his career but was canned after a disastrous 3-13 season in 1997-98.  No, you want what Pete Gillen and Dave Leitao tried (unsuccessfully) to build, and what Tony Bennett looks well on his way to establishing -- a national program with an occasional chance at greatness.

Perhaps they'll tolerate seasons of good but not great, interchangeable 7-9 and 9-7 ACC records, and life on the NCAA bubble but more likely headed to the NIT, down in Blacksburg.  But that's never been good enough in Charlottesville, and I hope I never see the day that it is.  Thankfully, I don't think that's what Tony Bennett has in mind either.