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As the difficulty of its schedule continues to increase, second-ranked Virginia seems to continue to get stronger. The Cavaliers escaped Durham with their first win at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 1995 after a 65-63 win over No. 4 Duke on Saturday. That win followed a dominating 61-36 win over then-No. 18 Clemson.
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Wednesday night, Virginia (20-1, 9-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) continues a strenuous stretch with a showdown against Louisville (16-5, 6-2) at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va.
The Cardinals are the closest team to the Cavaliers in the conference standings and enter the contest 2 1/2 games back. Louisville beat Wake Forest 96-77 on Saturday to rebound nicely from a three-point loss to Miami last week.
Virginia owns a 13-0 record at home this season and has been about as dominant as you can get in conference play. The Cavaliers have won four straight games against Louisville and are 10-4 all-time against the Cardinals. First-year Louisville interim head coach David Padgett will get his first shot at the Cavaliers.
"We're playing well, and that's the most important thing," Padgett said. "Being in second place after eight games is good, but it's more about where you finish."
The Cavaliers get only a slight reprieve from a stretch in which they played five of seven on the road. They will host Louisville before going on the road for two straight outside of Charlottesville.
"I'm thankful, I really am," Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said of his team's success this season. "We're just trying to get better, and that's the way you do it. You just kind of take it one game at a time."
A win would give Virginia its 10th conference victory before the month of February. The Cavaliers are off to their best ACC start since 1980-81 when they started 12-0.
Kyle Guy continued his strong sophomore campaign with 17 points in Virginia's win over Duke. Guy currently leads the Cavaliers in scoring at 15.2 points per game and is shooting 41 percent from beyond the 3-point line.
"We were born for this and built for this," Guy said after his team's win over Duke. "This is what we worked for. That was going through my mind in the last final seconds of the game."
Louisville has failed to score at least 60 points in any of their six meetings with the Cavaliers since joining the ACC, and the Cardinals fell to Virginia twice last season. Virginia currently leads the country in scoring defense, allowing (52.1), and the Cavaliers have not allowed any opponent to reach the 70-point plateau this season.
Deng Adel paces the Louisville offense in scoring, averaging 15.6 points per game this season. Quentin Snider (13.1 points per game) and V.J. King (9.2) led the Cardinals in their win over Wake Forest by scoring 15 points apiece.
Virginia boasts the nation's third-longest active winning streak at 12 games, and it's their longest winning streak since winning their first 19 games during the 2014-15 season.
The two teams meet again on March 1 in Louisville.
