North Carolina Central (0-0, MEAC) at No. 18 Virginia (0-0, ACC)

The basketball offseason is officially over today, as seasons tip off across the country. In Charlottesville, the 18th-ranked Cavaliers will open the 2022-23 campaign at JPJ against North Carolina Central (9 p.m., RSN), looking to get back to the NCAA Tournament after falling short last season.

Virginia comes into this season with high expectations. Not only have the Hoos landed in the preseason AP Top 25 but they were picked third in the ACC preseason predictions, too. The metrics are high on UVa as well, with the Cavaliers ranked fifth in the preseason KenPom rankings.

They will open their slate with three games at home, playing Monmouth on Friday and Northern Iowa next week before a trip to Las Vegas for a high profile game against Baylor and then another against either UCLA or Illinois.

UVa’s opponent will come to Charlottesville tonight looking to be the second team in as many years to shock the Cavaliers at home in the season opener (Navy). The Eagles have high expectations of their own, picked second behind Norfolk State in the MEAC preseason poll. The Eagles are led by very successful head coach LeVelle Moton, in his 14th year with the program. During that time, hr has a 228-172 record with four trips to the NCAA Tournament, an NIT bid and a conference title when the NCAA Tournament was canceled in 2020. NC Central last made the NCAA Tournament in the 2019 season, when it lost a First Four game to North Dakota State in Dayton.

Obviously as this is the season opener for both teams, there aren’t any reliable numbers to review. We can tell you that the Eagles are 255th in the KenPom rankings heading into the season, after finishing 285th last year. NC Central does have several key players back from last season’s team that went 16-15 and finished 289th nationally in offensive efficiency and 259th in defensive efficiency.

Last year, NCCU didn’t shoot the ball particularly well from the perimeter, making 31 percent of its 3-point attempts. The Eagles also struggled to take care of the basketball, ranking 354th nationally in turnover rate. Conversely, they were quite good at taking the ball away, ranking 23rd nationally in turnovers forced on a per-possession basis. NC Central’s tempo ranked 141st nationally, so they’re in the top half but not exactly racing up and down the court.

NC Central has several returnees that received preseason recognition heading into the 2022-23 season. Junior guard Justin Wright was named to the first-team All-MEAC team in the preseason, heading into his third year with the program. Wright was first-team All-MEAC as a sophomore, despite playing just 26.5 minutes per contest. He led the Eagles in scoring with 13.7 points, and has eight 20+ point scoring efforts. Wright also added 4.3 boards and a pair of assists per game last season.

While Wright leads the backcourt, most of NC Central’s notable talent is in the frontcourt. Central put a pair of players on the second-team All-MEAC this fall, both forwards. Redshirt senior Kirs Monroe transferred to NC Central from Providence last year and scored 10.7 points and grabbed six rebounds per contest. Monroe can be a matchup problem at 6-foot-8, as he can step out and hit 3s. He took 111 shots from deep last season, making 41 of them. He is joined in the “frontcourt” by fellow All-MEAC selection Eric Boone, who is listed at forward despite being just 6-foot-2. Boone averaged 9.7 points per game last year for the Eagles. Finally, NCCU added a 7-footer to an already big lineup in transfer Brendan Medley-Bacon. Joining the program after leaving McNeese State, Medley-Bacon was productive at his previous stop, scoring 9.6 points and hauling in 6 rebounds per contest.

NC Central is an interesting first opponent, and Moton usually has his team prepared to play. The Eagles have more size than most teams from the low-major level, so UVa will need to be ready to out-physical NC Central and win on the boards. And while there might be a few hiccups along the way, this is a game that UVa should be able to handle at home.

It will be interesting to see how UVa’s starting five stacks up and what the rotation looks like to open up the campaign. Those things will change throughout the season, but the rotation in the opener tells us what Tony Bennett thinks of his group after the summer trip to Italy, a bunch of practices, and two closed-door scrimmages.