Akil Mitchell and the Hoos fell short at Miami.

The Virginia men’s basketball team fought to the final buzzer on Tuesday night, but Miami made a pair of clutch plays in the final seconds to get a 54-50 win. That left the Hoos with back-to-back ACC losses. The “Double Bonus” takes a deeper look at three of the key themes in the match-up with the Hurricanes.

On-Ball Screens

In learning more about the Cavaliers’ defensive scheme over the past several seasons, I’ve been interested in the Pack Line defense vs. on-ball screen offense. That became even more true after watching Florida on-ball screen its way past UVa in the NCAA Tournament last season. Why? It’s a special situation for UVa that essentially manipulates the Pack Line concept of crowding the paint. I liken it to the nickel package in football defense in some ways in that it is outside of the base defense; in fact, coach Tony Bennett and I discussed that very thing last spring in an exclusive one-on-one interview found here in the EDGE archives.

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