Five takeaways from UVA basketball's embarrassing rivalry loss at Virginia Tech - Streaking The Lawn

techsooper.blogspot.com

The Virginia Cavaliers Men’s Basketball team put up a pathetic performance in their 75-41 loss at Virginia Tech. The ‘Hoos were outscored 56-27 in the final 30 minutes of the game. Virginia Tech was energized for this game as always, and they dominated Virginia on both ends of the floor pretty much from the tip. Virginia’s now lost two of their last three games, and they appear to be slumping a bit headed into the most important stretch of the season.

All things considered, the Cavaliers still have 20 wins, and their in sole possession of third place in the ACC. Despite the atrocious loss, there are many reasons for optimism in UVA’s upcoming matchups. For now, here are five takeaways from tonight’s loss against Virginia Tech.

The ‘Hoos come into Cassell sleepwalking

Virginia played their worst first-half of the season, by far. After keeping it close for 10 minutes, Virginia didn’t score for an almost unbelievable 9 straight minutes, and Virginia Tech went on a 20-0 run in that span. Isaac McKneely said it best, “[Virginia] is not necessarily a team that plays well from behind.” He was right, the ‘Hoos dug an insurmountable hole in the first half and they had no chance to come back in the second half.

Even though Tech isn’t a particularly stout defense — they’re ranked 100th overall in KenPom — the Cavaliers couldn’t get anything going in the first half. They played ten different guys and ran several different offenses, but nothing worked. The front court players looked intimidated in the paint, and the guards fell into their all-too-familiar rhythm of chucking end-of-shot-clock mid-range jumpers. Reece Beekman looked fatigued, and he wasn’t finishing around the rim the way he’s done so well the last 10 games.

Simply put, this Virginia team is not strong enough offensively to forfeit double-digit leads before halftime. In the games to come against top offenses UNC and Duke, they will have to execute better in the first half if they want to hang around. It may involve Tony Bennett calling timeouts earlier than he usually does, and he may need to be willing to scrap certain elements of the game plan if they aren’t executing in the first half.

The vaunted Pack Line defense was diced

Mike Young knows how to make defenders’ lives difficult through constant screens and quick-hitting passes. Credit to Young, because tonight the Hokies got just about whatever they wanted on offense. Lynn Kidd dominated in the paint, and Cattoor, Beran, and Nickel poured it in from deep. Tech seemed to always make the correct extra pass, leading to wide open three-point looks and uncontested dunks.

The Hokies had 17 assists, and they turned the ball over just 7 times — including a few in garbage time — against a Virginia squad who forces turnovers at a higher rate than any Bennett-coached team. On the other end, Tech scored 24 points off of turnovers. Winning the turnover battle has kept Virginia in tight games when their offense wasn’t clicking or they were losing the rebounding battle. The Hokies’ guards looked comfortable all night even facing the DPOY Reece Beekman and perhaps the best defender in the nation Ryan Dunn.

This defense is still one of the best in the country, but they can definitely have off nights as a unit. Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn can’t cover up every weakness, and it will be important to see which defensive group shows up against the two best offenses in the conference: UNC and Duke. This may give us a true litmus test indicating where we stand heading into tournament play.

Virginia fails to generate quality three-point looks

When the mover-blocker offense is humming, Virginia’s consistently creating open catch-and-shoot threes. Tonight, the ‘Hoos did not do that. They hit zero threes in the first half, on just 5 attempts, and ended the game an abysmal 2-12 from deep. A little over halfway through the first half, Tony Bennett switched to the Outside Triangle offense in an effort to shake things up, but they still couldn’t get clean shots for Jake Groves, Isaac McKneely, & Co.

A lack of three-point attempts has been a common trend in Virginia’s losses. Virginia made four threes on 14 attempts in their recent loss against Pittsburgh. It’s not just a matter of hitting the magic number of 20 three-point attempts per game, because in order to get to that threshold, they actually need to set up open three-pointers. McKneely’s struggled for much of the season against face guarding and defenders sprinting over top of screens, but he can’t be the team’s only hope from outside.

The ‘Hoos have a select few guys who are excellent from downtown. Instead of relying solely on the ebbs and flows of the motion offense, it’s probably time for Bennett to mix in some new actions and sets designed to get three-point looks for his great shooters. With Isaac McKneely and Jake Groves, there’s an opportunity for some creative on actions (like Zoom) that could get the ball rolling.

I’m not here claiming I have the solutions, but it’s apparent that the combination of mover-blocker and triangle are not supporting consistent offensive production.

The floor is still super low for the Cavaliers

For the first half of the year, the story surrounding this Virginia team was the massive deficit in each of their losses compared to their wins. They were beat soundly five times, with four of the losses coming on the road. Many Virginia fans chalked it up as growing pains for a team that hadn’t played together for too long, and the take seemed correct as Bennett really turned things around in January and early February. Until tonight.

Tonight’s game served as a reminder for what can happen when Virginia puts up a stinker on offense when facing a good scoring team who gets a little hot. It’s happened enough times this year that it’s a legitimate concern in any given game on any given night. At this point, there are only so many times that you can “burn the tape” and get ready for the next game. Clearly, this squad has flaws, and they can be exposed even against mid-tier teams.

While the floor is concerningly low, the ceiling is also quite high. Virginia’s beaten multiple good teams, and they’ve won several ACC games by 20+ points. Nobody should be shocked if the Cavaliers come out looking like a completely different team against UNC on Saturday. Hopefully, Bennett can keep the team’s spirits high, and cite their recent eight-game winning streak as evidence of what they’re capable of when they’re playing good Virginia basketball.

Virginia needs another Quad 1 win

The Cavaliers have just two Quad 1 wins on the season, early in the year against Florida and recently at Clemson. This game could have been their third, but they failed to capitalize in a tough road environment against a Tech team desperate for a win. Virginia has only two guaranteed Quad 1 games remaining (home vs UNC, road vs Duke), though they could get one or two more in the ACC tournament.

Most bracket experts predict Virginia as an 8 or 9 seed right now, and this loss fortunately shouldn’t move the needle to much. However, if they end the season 2-6 in Quad 1, their is a good chance that Virginia fans will be sweating a bit more than they want to on Selection Sunday. The good news is that UVA has four days to prepare for UNC, and the atmosphere should be electric in JPJ at 4:00 on Saturday.

If Virginia beats either Duke or UNC, and takes care of business against Boston College and Georgia Tech, they should be comfortably in the March Madness field. Otherwise, it may take a couple of wins in the ACC tournament to secure a spot in the big dance.

Adblock test (Why?)