It was our best chance of it happening. Do folks here not understand the definition of the word "chance?" It means possibility, not certainty.
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UVA is a 39.6 percent team from 3pt this year. Vs Duke, they shot a blistering 3 of 17, for 17.6%. Though we won by 2 points in that game, the "true" margin of victory was 4 points because we didn't attempt to guard their final shot, resulting in a great look for an incredibly short range jump shot. So we actually won by 4. Ergo, 4 of 17 for UVA in that game, sill less than 25%, probably results in a loss for them. 5 of 17, less than 30%, results in a win. 7 of 17, just below their season average, would have added 12 points. That would have resulted in a 8 point win. They also shot poorly from the FT line. 68% vs their season average of 76%. So, assuming they hit another 3 points from the FT line, that is an 11 point victory from UVA, just if they have an average shooting day.
And 11 points, at the UVA pace, is bordering on a blow out win. That is like us winning by 18 or so.
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And, again, that is if they have an AVERAGE shooting game. If they'd had a good shooting game, Duke could have lost by closer to 20. And contrary to prevailing belief, their poor 3pt shooting was all because of Duke. They blew some wide open looks. Not all of their misses were open, but plenty were.
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See, there's that word: IF. It ties in nicely to the word I used: Chance. I never said we would definitely get blown out (per my quote which you helpfully included). I said that the UVA game, our first without Tre, and featuring a Cam Reddish who'd been too sick to go earlier in the week, offered Duke's best POSSIBILITY (aka CHANCE), not CERTAINTY, of being blown out. And it did. We've been blown out in recent years, but the chance of that happening was relatively low going into each of those games. Vs UVA, which is playing very well on the whole, us without Tre, and with a recovering from illness Cam, was the game with the highest possibility of us getting blown out. Healthy now, going forward, essentially wipes out any chance of us getting blown out going forward, at home or on the road. Not that it can't happen (Zion gets in early and severe FT, while the rest of the team goes cold, and RJ gets dumb on O), but the possibility of that has greatly reduced now.
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I never predicted that we'd lose, much less get blown out. I laid out a very rational argument for why that game was the best chance of Duke getting blown out since 95, a year when the possibility of us getting blown out was very high for certain games (the @ UNC game, which was basically the highlight reel for Stack and Sheed on draft night).
