Stanford Ousts Virginia

In an NIT contest designed for television exposure, Virginia’s weaknesses got exposed. Little depth, poor shooting, turnovers, limited inside scoring, average team passing, and dismal road success – all of those season-long themes held true Tuesday night as Stanford dumped the Cavaliers from the NIT, 65-49.

UVa’s Sean Singletary scored 13 points in the NIT loss.

The loss brought down the curtain on a season in which the Cavs surpassed expectations to finish 15-15 with a postseason tournament appearance. Virginia was picked to finish last in the 12-team ACC, but ended up 7th instead.

“I’m sure in the next few days, like every coach whose season comes to an end, I’ll be reflective,” UVa coach Dave Leitao said on the Virginia Sports Network. “We were able to do some things but at the same point and time, you don’t want to have your season to come to an end. I’m disappointed that it is obviously. I think we grew and learned a lot.”

The disappointing end provided another look at why the outside expectations were so low for the Cavaliers this season. And while the effort can’t be faulted, Virginia still shot 36.8 percent (41.5 percent on the season) and committed 15 turnovers with only 10 assists. Those statistics contributed to the Hoos’ 11th road loss of the season.

The things that had bailed UVa out on many occasions this season simply weren’t there Tuesday. The Cavs’ typically strong free-throw shooting went awry in a 6-of-12 effort. The solid defensive presence from wins earlier in the year were again absent in this late-season loss as Stanford shot 49 percent from the field.

Even Virginia’s go-to guards struggled to find much success. Sean Singletary scored 13 points, but made just 6 of 20 shots. He did have 4 assists, but 5 turnovers. J.R. Reynolds shot well early, but couldn’t stay hot. He finished 5-of-12 shooting for 12 points. Reynolds had 1 assist and 3 turnovers.

That meant a very good performance by Laurynas Mikalauskas went virtually unnoticed. He finished with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks.

“Singletary’s a better player than he showed tonight and so is Reynolds. I liken that to fatigue. It’s tough now. They played in the ACC Tournament on Friday and you find out Sunday you’re going to have to come play in northern California so let’s make sure we’re aware of that,” Cardinal coach Trent Johnson said. “I’ve seen them play better. You’re talking about a guy that went for 35 on Gonzaga and he’s an all-ACC first-team guard so [Singletary is] a pretty good player. I don’t want to take anything away from [our defense though because we] did good job of making him work for everything.”

Indeed, UVa labored offensively to produce any shots, much less open looks. Far too often, the Cavaliers were forced to try to break down the defense off the dribble. That played into the hands of Stanford’s swarming team defense as they smothered the driving lanes.

“We weren’t patient enough to make the extra pass and as a result we drove into [traffic],” Leitao said. “When we did put the ball on the floor, we drove into danger zones a lot.”

For the Cavaliers, the offensive struggles have been part of the recurring themes. As the season moved along, teams started to really pressure Reynolds and Singletary both on and off the ball. So even with constant screening and dribble-drive offense, Virginia ended the season with a lot of shots in contested areas or a lot of longer jump shots. In the end, the Hoos simply couldn’t make enough to keep advancing.

“It’s been frustrating all year in that we’ve had to be a little bit unbalanced in our attack. We rely so much on our two guards having to score the ball very well. When you don’t have consistency behind them, as we haven’t had this year, then you need them to continue to make plays,” Leitao said. “Again, we’ve got two guys who are warriors that have done everything we’ve asked of them all year and hopefully in the future we don’t have to count on them to make those kinds of shots.”

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