The Virginia men’s basketball team has struggled with consistency on offense all season long, but it took things to a different level on Tuesday night at James Madison. The Cavaliers, in fact, posted the fewest points for any half in the Tony Bennett era and fell 52-49 to the Dukes as a result.
The loss was the Hoos’ first ever to JMU and dropped them to 6-4 on the season. UVA will have to sit with the setback for a while as it enters an exam break until Dec. 18.
The worst half of the Bennett era came in the first 20 minutes when the Wahoos managed just 14 points. That led to a 10-point hole at halftime and the visitors spent most of their time trying to chip away at the deficit. They managed to pull together a 10-0 run finally that actually pushed the Hoos back into the lead at 45-44 but a yo-yo scoreboard finish saw the Dukes get the last critical bucket and win.
To get an idea of how poor Virginia played in the first half, just take a look at the statistics. The 14 points came on 27.3% shooting as the Hoos made 6 of 22 shots. That included a dismal 7.1% from 3-point range where they were 1-14 before intermission with that lone one coming from Kihei Clark just before the buzzer. To make matters worse, UVA also committed 9 turnovers in the half. From an advanced stats standpoint, that boiled down to 0.467 points per possession and a 30% turnover rate in the opening 20 minutes.
Clark and Jayden Gardner hit 5 of 10 shots in the first half to post 11 of the 14 points, while eight other players combined for 3 points on 1-12 shooting. Virginia had just 6 points in the paint in that half. Strangely enough, the Cavaliers actually jumped out to a 10-2 lead before the offense completely vanished. That allowed JMU to go on a 22-4 half-ending run and left UVA in catch-up mode.
“It’s happened to us a few times. We just couldn’t, we were getting some open looks, couldn’t make shots,” Bennett said. “We said [at halftime] try to touch the paint, try to throw it inside, try to be aggressive. If you have a shot, take it but be a little more attack-oriented, touching it off the drive, off of post feeds, and just fight like crazy defensively. They did that.”
Virginia did claw its way back into the game in the second half with 46.4% shooting and just 2 turnovers. Clark and Gardner added more offense, but they also got some help from Armaan Franklin, Reece Beekman, and Kadin Shedrick in particular. Franklin had 7 points after halftime, though he still struggled shooting, and Beekman added 5 points and 2 assists. Shedrick chipped in 8 points in the second half with 3 blocked shots. Clark finished with 11 points and 3 assists, while Gardner added 12 points and 14 rebounds. Franklin had 9 points and 2 assists overall. Beekman had 5 points and 4 assists.
Better shooting and ball security helped push the Cavaliers to 35 points after intermission with 14 points in the paint. They scored 1.207 points per possession and had just a 6.9% turnover rate in the second half.
In the end, the outcome came down to key baskets in the final four minutes. Franklin gave UVA the lead at 45-44, but Justin Amadi lifted JMU back to the lead with a bucket at the 2:20 mark. Beekman hit 2 free throws to flip the lead again, but Charles Falden made a pull-up jumper to answer again for the hosts. Franklin knocked down a jumper of his own with 1:27 to go and UVA led again at 49-48, but Takal Molson made a twisting shot on the other end to see-saw the lead back in Madison’s favor one more time.
The Dukes held on from there and won despite having no players score in double figures.
“We played certainly well enough defensively to win this game, there’s no question and they did make some tough shots,” Bennett said. “I want to say this – college basketball, what an atmosphere. … A lot of teams won’t come in here and play and that’s their philosophy. This is a good team, this is a good college basketball atmosphere, beautiful building, and a tough environment, but good for our guys. It stings to lose, but our guys battled in the second half. We did bother shots for the most part and certainly had some flaws here and there. That shows, but a better second half and we just keep working towards improvement and prepare us for our conference.”
Franklin is TERRIBLE!!
So are many off-the-cuff emotional judgements.
So many unforced TO. Must cut that out
In the words of my favorite basketball coach: “The sun comes up in the morning”. I believe in Tony. Go Hoos!
Yes, it’s way too early, but it’s hard to see where scoring is going to come from. It’s also hard to see how Coach Bennett’s team-building, close-knit, long-term philosophy can cope with the player shuffling (one-and-done-ers, transfer portals, so-called graduate students, and assorted hoop mercenaries) that dominates the current college basketball season. He has been successful in part because the whole of his team has been greater than the sum of its recruited parts. It doesn’t feel that way this year.
Remember Dec 6, 2014? That’s when the New Jersey Institute of Technology came in and knocked off the 16th ranked Michigan Wolverines, *in Ann Arbor*. Let’s give the team a chance to gel, folks. As he said, it’s the newest team he’s ever coached… a 3-time National COY, Coach Bennett knows what he’s doing. I would bet the house that the team will look night-and-day different by the end of the season.