Virginia's Loss Opens Doors to Others

I can honestly tell you that I'm not surprised at all at the 78-72 Wake Forest upset of Virginia that deprived the Cavaliers of the ACC regular season championship. I did think it might happen. Really. Somehow Virginia as outright league champions just didn't seem right. They just aren't that good.

But in this, the "I don't want it, you can have it" ACC, a Virginia team with great guards but weaknesses elsewhere found themselves holding the winning lottery ticket, only to forget where they had hidden it. They still haven't found it. It was that agonizing of an afternoon for the Cavaliers.

All Virginia had to do was beat one of the worst teams in the ACC, and the regular season championship would belong to them. Win at Wake Forest, and for the first time since 1981 when Ralph Sampson ruled, the Cavaliers could call themselves the outright regular season ACC champion. But they fumbled it away.

Maybe it was having to play just 40 hours after an emotional win over Virginia Tech, or maybe it was that Wake Forest, in the midst of a losing season, wanted it more on their Senior Day. But in their biggest game of the season, the Cavaliers came up flat. They shot just 35 percent, and were out-rebouded and out-hustled by a Deacon team that's had all kinds of problems all season long.To win a championship, you must win a game like this. Virginia couldn't.

So North Carolina, Boston College and Virginia Tech are eternally grateful. They are singing, "Oh, here's to Wake Forest, a glass of the finest."

Sunday is big in the ACC. Depending on what happens in a league where nothing seems certain anymore, there could end up a four-way tie for first. Or how about this one -- the other three contenders all lose as well and Virginia backs in as sole champion. That's not likely, but in this crazy league, that would be a doozer.

Virginia must be thinking on its quiet trip back to Charlottesville how in their last four conference games, they lost to not just to Wake Forest, but Miami as well. The league's bottom rung did them in.

They had the championship all to themselves, the Cavaliers did. The ACC history book was open and waiting. They let it get away. Now the door is open for others.