For many years, competitiveness traveled with the Virginia basketball program. UVA would show up on the road and have a chance to win any game almost anywhere. So far this season, the Hoos have left that competitiveness at home.
On Saturday in the ACC road opener, the Cavaliers struggled out of the gates and never recovered in a dismal loss at Notre Dame. The Irish led 13-0 just 4:04 into the game and Virginia never got closer than an 8-point deficit at any point the rest of the way in a 76-54 defeat.
It looked similar to other performances outside of Charlottesville this season. In a game in Fort Myers in November, the Hoos fell behind 18-7 to Wisconsin in front of a Badger-friendly crowd and only briefly made the margin interesting in the second half. A little more than a week ago in Memphis, it was a similar story with an early 13-1 hole that the Hoos did make more competitive before the Tigers erupted again in the second half.
Three games in more difficult environments. Three losses by more than 20 points.
“You don’t necessarily win a game in the first four or five minutes and you don’t necessarily lose a game, but you make it incredibly difficult when you get down like that,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “Memphis we were down 13-1 and we did fight back. Then in this one, it happened. I thought the shots were there early, we missed some shots, but defensively we really had a hard time. Just felt like we were behind the play and didn’t have a lot of tenacity and soundness where it was needed.”
The big hole on the scoreboard this time came courtesy of immediate breakdowns on defense and an inability to match the hosts’ hot start with some offense.
Notre Dame opened the game with back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers from J.R. Konieczny for a 9-point lead just 2:30 into the action. A few moments later Markus Burton got in on the act with a triple of his own and the Irish were suddenly up 13-0. At the same time, UVA started by missing 7 straight shots that included layup attempts from Ryan Dunn and Jake Groves.
While Virginia finally got on the board with a Dunn dunk nearly 5 full minutes into the game, the defense didn’t do anything to help reel the deficit in. Notre Dame scored on three straight possessions to hold off any Cavalier hopes of climbing back into it initially. Then later in the half, the hosts knocked down three more 3’s to help reach 41 points at intermission.
Konieczny went 6-6 in the first half on the way to 17 points and 8 rebounds. Three more Irish players joined him in double figures. Carey Booth also had 17 points, while Burton added 15 and Kebba Njie had 10. All four of those players shot at least 60% from the field with Konieczny finishing 6-8, Booth 6-9, Burton 6-10, and Njie 3-5. In the end, Notre Dame made 51.0% of its shots (26-51) and 47.8% of it’s 3’s (11-23) as hit hammered the Hoos.
The defense was so bad that Bennett even turned to a zone defense again briefly, but even that didn’t prevent some incredibly easy shot attempts on what was easily a disastrous day on that end of the floor.
“Our ball pressure wasn’t great, our ability to keep the ball in front, just a lot of breakdowns,” Bennett said. “Notre Dame did a good job. Obviously hit some tough shots, shot it well. But they had us in rotations and we just had a hard time. Ball screen defense. You can point at everything. To stay connected to a team that gets hot at home, you have to at least make them earn. A few of them they did, but then all of the sudden when there are those disconnections or breakdowns that lead to an easy layup or a forgetful play or a gamble and the game gets separated, we don’t have enough offensive firepower to just say alright we can kind of exchange possessions and we’ll get it going and score in a flurry.”
The Cavaliers certainly didn’t score in a hurry, a flurry, or anything like that in South Bend. They generally thrive on setting up good shots for each other and finding openings in the defense, but they had only 10 assists with 11 turnovers in this outing. Notre Dame chased cutters around screens in the typical Blocker-Mover Sides motion looks to force those players to curl into the paint and make plays, while simultaneously preventing 3-point attempts. The Irish also jammed up the paint and made shots or passes near the rim more difficult.
In short, a lot of flaws that can pop up with UVA times were on full display. The team made just 9 shots in the first half when it fell behind 41-24 at the break. There was some marginal improvement in the early moments of the second half as Virginia made its first 3 shot attempts to trim the deficit to 10 points briefly, but that wasn’t nearly enough to make it a game. The Wahoos shot 38.2% overall (21-55), 18.2% from 3-point range (2-11), and 55.6% (10-18) from the free throw line.
Beekman scored 15 points on 5-15 shooting as he tried to get his team back into it by hunting shots aggressively, but he also had more turnovers than assists (5 vs. 4). Dunn ended up shooting 6 of 9 from the field for 13 points, but foul trouble, defensive breakdowns, and some hesitancy on potential shot attempts reduced his impact. The team didn’t get much production otherwise. Isaac McKneely struggled again with just 7 points on 2-7 shooting, while Andrew Rohde had 5 on 2-8 shooting with only 1 assist. Groves had 4 points on 2-3 shooting.
Between that output on offense and the defensive issues, it amounted to a forgettable performance for the Hoos. They won’t be able to just fly back and forget it, though. Bennett said the only path out of the doldrums that arose in December is to get back to work.
“Take a good look, all of us, look in the mirror and say this has happened now, we’ve gotten beat pretty handily for sure three times and haven’t been able to hang in there,” Bennett said. “Whether it’s a hot team, or a team that’s mature and good and experienced, you’ve just got to find ways. We’ve all got to come together and find ways. It’s going to take a real connected, unified effort. First defensively because when the defense goes, it’s not good and today the defense was gone or they took it from us and we weren’t able to even stay in that game.”
Had a bet with my friend and cleaned up. The bet was would the VA players shot come up short. I would say 80% of the time it happened. It didn’t matter who was shooting or whether it was a free throw. Why was this happening? Were the players tired from the day/night before? A possibility. A better reason in my mind is that the seats are further away from the hoop on the road and the players depth perceptions are off. Look at the film for all the away games and you’ll see it as a common theme. Short, short, short. The coaches need to show the players the data so that they can keep it in the back of their minds when they play away from home. Otherwise it’s going to be a long, long season.
Why not admit what seems so obvious? The packline D is comical against teams that bury 3-pointers. McNeely could not guard his man early, and in an effective man-on-man coverage a better defender may have helped prevent an 0-13 hole. The mid-major transfers we have are good against inferior opponents, but not against major college opponents. Also, UVA is great in a variety of sports, but if it does not spend money like Alabama does in football or Duke does in basketball, it’s going to be hard to keep up with the “Joneses.” IMO, Tony should start some players who are now subs; put the transfers on the bench; make McNeely a sixth man and only use him when he hits his threes; play Buchanan more to give him a chance to develop; and hope everything coalesces by March. Just my opinion.
LOL
This is a very young team with the only true senior being Beekman. Reminds me, of what I call a Joe Harris moment, when we got blown out by Tennessee and the team came together after that game and had good season. When you look at the roster and 6 of the top 7 players are either sophomores or freshman there are going to be games like this. It remains to be seen if this team can find its’ footing but TB has proven to be a player developer so it is up to this roster to believe in themselves and play the way they are capable.
No mention of the final score?
It was a mistake, but maybe it was good to leave it out. LOL. Edited it now.