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Coach Dave Leitao’s team is 2-0 on the season. |
It took less than 2 minutes for the Virginia basketball team to establish a 10-point lead against Morgan State on Sunday. While the double-digit margin was scarcely threatened, the Cavaliers didn’t dazzle from start to finish – there were more than enough missed free throws, turnovers, and defensive breakdowns to make sure of that.
Still, the Cavaliers pocketed a convincing 85-66 victory as they started the building and development process needed in early season games. Every scholarship player available – Tunji Soroye and Solomon Tat sat out with injuries – logged minutes and UVa coach Dave Leitao got a chance to try a variety of line-ups.
“You don’t specifically say ‘Oh, we’re playing Morgan State, maybe I can get guys different looks,’” Leitao said. “Early in the season, everybody is playing more people, especially young people, to see what they look like under the lights and in game conditions. Obviously, if they perform well, it will give them a better opportunity to play more and if they don’t, maybe they don’t get as many minutes later on.”
With that in mind, many of the miscues witnessed by the 11,005 people in attendance Sunday should be expected. That doesn’t mean Leitao has to like the sloppiness, though.
And why would he? Missing 14 free throws, committing 19 turnovers, and allowing 46% 3-point shooting in the second half will usually get a coach fired up. That’s probably why he broke a clipboard in a huddle and got on the team afterward in the locker room.
“The thing is we play in spurts and we can’t do that. We have to play hard for 40 minutes,” said J.R. Reynolds, who had 17 points and 4 assists. “The first seven minutes, that’s how we have to play the whole game and until we get there then we’re going to have to keep working hard.”
Perhaps the most frustrating part of the afternoon for Leitao was the 3-point defense. The Cavaliers lost track of shooters far too often and Morgan State hit enough of the long-range shots to keep the score mildly interesting (the lead fell to 13 in the final 5 minutes). In total, 33 of the visitors’ 66 points came from beyond the arch.
The Cavaliers seemed slow to rotate out of defensive help position in many of those cases or they lost the shooter in transition defense. While some of that came from a scouting report decision to help extensively on drives and then recover to force extra passes, giving up 11 3-pointers and 38 percent shooting from downtown is not an acceptable defensive scenario. Those two areas, which also appeared, though far less often, against Arizona will get teams beat against better competition.
“I was trying to force the next pass and the next pass. When you help on defense, you’ve got to help in a certain area. If you don’t, then you’ve got to play help defense and then you’ve got to play recover defense,” Leitao said. “If you’re positioned correctly, then you’re already in help position and then all you’ve got to do is get back to your man.”
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Will Harris dunks for two of his 16 points on Sunday. |
“We did that early, and that gave us the opportunity to get out to the shooters a little bit quicker. The last portion of the first half and all of the second half, they got too deep in their drives and so we could not help and then recover,” Leitao continued. “There was too much room too cover. Their guy got the ball with an open shot. We fed them with confidence, and they started making them.”
Of course, much of the learning process at this point in a season is directed toward the newcomers. Other than Tat, all the other fresh faces played against MSU. Will Harris , who has made an earlier than expected return from surgery to remove bone spurs, had the most impressive day of the group as he mostly picked up time at the small forward position. Statistically, Harris’ line was impressive with 16 points and 8 rebounds.
Harris also drew a large round of applause with 2:55 remaining in the game and the Hoos leading 78-60. Just moments after Leitao spent a timeout breaking his diagram board in frustration about the defensive effort, Harris locked up his man at the top of the key in man-to-man defense.
That led to a Morgan State timeout and an enthusiastic Harris. He clapped his hands loudly and verbally pumped himself up on the way to the sidelines. The crowd approved with noticeable applause.
“In every huddle, coach issues a challenge to everybody and he was telling us the whole game that we have to stop that play that they run,” Harris said. “Out of the timeout, he was like you have to guard him and I just tried to take upon myself to get a stop and try to fire up the team a little bit so we could finish strong.”
The newcomers in action also included freshman Jerome Meyinsse , who checked in for 7 minutes. The wiry post player was considered a potential redshirt candidate because of his age (17) and size (230 pounds). Injuries to other players factor into the situation, but mostly his showing in practice brought him to the floor this quickly.
“It was related to Jerome’s performances in practice,” Leitao said. “I think he’s getting better. He’s smart and he’s becoming more and more aggressive. I looked at it and we talked about it. … To see if he’s going to continue to improve, obviously you’re going to have to look at it in games.”
Virginia returns to action on Wednesday at 7 p.m. against UNC Asheville. That game is also in the John Paul Jones Arena.
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