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Laurynas Mikalauskas pulled down 6 rebounds against Northwestern. |
Northwestern Athletics Director Mark Murphy must have drawn the short straw. Had to. How else could the Wildcats’ men’s basketball team have ended up with Virginia in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge? After the Cavaliers’ first loss of the season no less.
UVa, last season’s ACC regular season co-champion, hammered Northwestern, which finished second to last in the Big Ten last season, on Tuesday night in the John Paul Jones Arena by 42 points. That represents the largest margin of defeat in the history of the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge. The 94-52 victory helped Virginia rebound from its first defeat, a disappointing 14-point setback to Seton Hall on Saturday.
“One of the things that we talked to the team a little bit about is the team’s ability to bounce back. I don’t think anybody around here is too happy about what happened on Saturday, and once we got back into the gym and started talking about it, looking at it, our focus was on that next day, that next game,” Cavalier coach Dave Leitao said. “You couldn’t do anything about it. I want the guys to understand our ability to bounce back, and I think it happened in the first half.”
Virginia bounced back thanks to a balanced effort. Seven players scored at least eight points. Six players had at least four rebounds. Five players had at least two assists. Leading the way against the Wildcats were a trio of hot-shooting guards. Mamadi Diane poured in 22 points on the strength of a career-high six 3-pointers; he added 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 block as well. Calvin Baker scored a UVa career-high 16 points thanks to an impressive 6 of 6 night from the floor.
And, of course, Sean Singletary added 14 points, the 29th straight game he has reached double figures – that’s the longest streak in the ACC. Singletary also had a career-high 10 assists, becoming the first Cav since J.R. Reynolds (against Virginia Tech in 2006) to crack the double figures column in that category. That passing effort moved Singletary in to sixth place on Virginia’s all-time assists list; he now has 433 helpers, surpassing John Johnson’s 426 on the charts.
“Sean’s always an unselfish player, we fortunately were making shots today and that got his assists up,” Baker said.
Baker is right. Much of the Singletary’s passing success came courtesy of the sharp shooting from Baker and Diane as well as others. After all, Baker and Diane combined to make 10 of the 13 3-pointers they took; Baker was 4 of 4 while Diane was 6 of 9.
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Calvin Baker scored 16 points, the most in his UVa career, by making all 6 shots he took. |
That put a lot of pressure on Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone because Baker and Diane (and in some cases Singletary, who had 3 treys of his own) were often lined up in the soft spots of the defense. Baker was often opposite of Singletary at the top, splitting the odd-man front (the first 1 in 1-3-1). Diane, meanwhile, was frequently floating along the baseline and corners, a spot that exposes the back end of the defense (the second 1 in 1-3-1).
Throw in solid outings from the players – for 25 minutes, it was either Laurynas Mikalauskas (7 points, 6 rebounds) or Mike Scott (8 points, 4 rebounds) – roaming the middle of the offense to occupy the middle man on defense and screen the baseline defender as well and you have an impressive offensive showing. That’s why Virginia shot 61.3% in the first half and 51.6% for the game. That included a 16-of-32 shooting night from 3-point land.
“We tried to simulate the 1-3-1 in practice, but they were a lot more aggressive up top so it left a lot of openings in the corner and then on the wings,” Diane said. “Especially on drives, they were a lot more aggressive on the ball, wherever the ball was, so they left openings.”
“Needless to say, down by forty points, we were never really in the game. Virginia is a great three-point shooting team, and we just were not able to do anything about it,” Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said. “We played one-three-one defense a lot, and that does open up some shots around the corner. It seemed like they knocked down everything. We were not able to mount anything. Singletary was distributing well and running things. He did not take as many shots as he normally does, but he seemed to be getting the ball in the right place.”
Unfortunately for Carmody, it may have helped that UVa saw a 1-3-1 against Vermont earlier this season. The Hoos struggled a little bit with that defensive look early against the Catamounts, but eventually exposed their zone as well. For the Wildcats, unlike Vermont, the defense was their defense of choice and not a rhythm-changer.
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Sean Singletary dished out a career-high 10 assists Tuesday night. |
The Cavaliers took full advantage.
“That helped, but as games go on you get older and more mature as a team and you grow together,” Singletary said. “We didn’t play great defense at the beginning of the Vermont game and we came out playing real good defense against Northwestern. Like I said, the defense fuels the offense.”
Virginia’s defense did put together a good evening, particularly considering the lackluster performance against Seton Hall on that end of the floor. UVa held Northwestern to 35.7% shooting, including 29.0% in the second half. The Hoos also kept the Wildcats from generating many second shots on the offensive end (another category they struggled with against Seton Hall), holding the visitors to just 8 offensive rebounds.
Leitao knows his team must get better, calling his team as he often does a work in progress, but he was pleased with the effort on defense Tuesday.
“Obviously, we’re not there yet, we’ve got to make some specific improvements on the defensive end, but I thought we guarded their offense on a one day preparation pretty well … they got a minimum amount of backdoor cuts, or post-ups, things that they try to do pretty well,” Leitao said. “Our bench and our quickness gave us some advantages, and obviously we were able to get out to a lead, maintain it, and sustain ourselves throughout the game.”
Statistics | UVa Athletic Media Relations Notes
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