Virginia got Cameron-slammed last night, which happens sometimes when you play Duke at home: constantly laboring under twelve point deficits, unable to keep pace with aggressive man-to-man defense, and then completely losing the pace late in the game as Duke went to the hoop repeatedly on alley-oops and other teabagging shots you only dare attempt over an outmatched foe at home.

The Cameron Crazies™ chanting “air ball” were enough to make a Virginia student want the world to shut the fuck up.

It’s one and oh for the Hapsburgs of college hoops in conference play–but how did they actually look? Singler still looks a season or two in the weight room away from being a dominating interior presence. With no competition from Virginia in the middle, he could tip-in and knock around with the thump of a much bigger player. When he goes up against the Dejuan Blairs of the world (and yes, there aren’t many), he’ll get outrebounded by a 20-5 margin as he did in Duke’s loss to Pitt. They still look like a team without a low post presence and an over-reliance on the three, even though they can hit them from parking lots out in Cary blindfolded.

The formula looks like it remains the same: stop the three, and make Duke beat you from inside. Virginia can’t do it–they have a very, very long season ahead of them–but someone(s) in the ACC can and will. On the upside, the defense they’ve shown thus far has been aggressive and consistent, even with Virginia’s collapse making it difficulty to parse out whether the Cavs were sloppy or Duke was out-hustling them.