Three ACC games Sunday and while two were not particularly interesting, VCU at Virginia was.
Well in some ways it was: both teams shot 29.5% for the game and Virginia took 30 foul shots (they made 26).
What it was was a game between two of four solid programs in Virginia (Virginia Tech and Radford are the other two). There was a time when the entire state was more or less a basketball wasteland. Virginia and VCU had occasional good teams but not much sustained success.
It’s very different now.
Tony Bennett has Virginia as a Top Ten program pretty much every season, post-season aside, VCU has prospered since Mack McCarthy coached in Richmond - Jeff Capel followed him, then Anthony Grant, then Shaka Smart and the Final Four, Will Wade and now Mike Rhoads, who is promising too.