The Virginia men’s basketball team continued to find its rhythm as it defeated Louisville to extend its current winning streak to four games. That includes back-to-back Saturday road victories.
This week’s win was a dominant performance by the Cavaliers right from the opening tip, resulting in a 69-52 win. Virginia did a great job getting early points in the paint, which forced the Louisville defense to crash and opened up some good looks from 3-point range. Defensively, despite some foul trouble for the big men, the Hoos played a physical game and Louisville had to settle for a lot of low quality shots.
The road victory moves Tony Bennett’s squad to 15-5 on the season and 6-3 in the ACC.
“We just try to move hard, get our guys moving, and read how the defense is playing you,” Bennett said on The CW. “If there’s something good early, great. I thought we had a good variety of some threes, pocket passes at the rim, Ryan [Dunn] had eight field goals and six or seven of them were dunks, so those are some good things for sure. We actually left a few points on the board, missing some easy ones, but again I thought there was a good balance in the first half of movement, purpose, playing together and being connected defensively.”
Dunn’s dunks and other easy baskets came through some strong passing by the Wahoos.
Senior guard Reece Beekman set that tone early. He made a smooth floater at the 16:29 mark. It was his second made basket in the paint and moved the UVA lead to 6-0. Surprisingly, it was Beekman’s last made field goal of the half, but not for a bad reason. He continued to drive to the paint, but Louisville began crashing on him early. It was no issue for Beekman, as he would repeatedly find open teammates for good looks.
First it was Blake Buchanan, who knocked down an easy floater. Then he found Andrew Rohde for a wide open 3. This continued throughout the first half, and frankly the game. Beekman finished with 9 assists, many of them coming after he drove to the paint and drew multiple defenders toward him. That’s his fifth game this month with 6+ assists. He also added 9 points on 3-9 (33.3%) shooting and 5 steals.
“His floor game, his command, and then his ability obviously to guard the ball and then play without the ball, he’s played some really nice games here in our stretch,” Bennett said. “People should take note of that. I’ll always be his biggest fan, but I thought it was really good the way he played off the ball-screen and he can move without it. I think his experience shows.”
With repeated success inside, Virginia made it a point of emphasis to dominate the paint on the offensive end. The Cavaliers scored 30 points in the paint compared to Louisville’s 18 with 12 of those courtesy of six Dunn dunks. The sophomore forward was aggressive when going to the rim. It seemed like every time he got the ball within a few feet of the basket, he emphatically threw it down.
Dunn’s first dunk came about nine minutes in when Jordan Minor threw up a shot as the shot clock was winding down. In a sea of white jerseys, Dunn rose up to grab the miss and slammed it home with two hands. Dunn finished with a career-high 19 points to go along with 11 rebounds. That’s his second straight double-double and the fifth of his career.
The dominance of Beekman and Dunn in the paint led to a strong day shooting the 3 for Virginia. As a team, the Cavaliers finished 8-17 (47.1%) from behind the arc. Rohde, Isaac McKneely, and Jacob Groves all shot the long ball well, going 2-4, 3-4, and 3-4 respectively. McKneely’s third 3-pointer came in the second half as the Cardinals were just starting to build some momentum. Ty-Laur Johnson hit two free throws to move Louisville’s scoring run to 11-0 and cut the Virginia lead to 19. With a defender in his face, McKneely hit a tough 3 to stop the run and put the game out of reach for good.
Overall it was a strong shooting day for Virginia, which finished 27-54 (50.0%) as a team, and 7-10 (70.0%) from the free throw line. The offense did a great job of spreading the Louisville defense out and really dictating the tempo of the game. Rohde finished with 7 points and 4 assists, while McKneely had 9 points and Groves added another 9 points off the bench. The Cavaliers also had 18 total assists, while Louisville had just 5.
“Just come out and play as hard as we can,” Dunn said on The CW about Coach Bennett’s pregame message. “The first half of the year we’ve been getting killed on the defensive end, people were getting what they want, so that’s our emphasis right now just coming out strong. I think we did a good job. Second half we weren’t really that good. They came out and got what they wanted so we have to keep going back to that.”
The Virginia defense was absolutely stifling right from the beginning of the game. Louisville scored its first points at the 14:15 mark from a made free throw, and didn’t have a made field goal until 12:46. The Hoos played aggressive on-ball defense, did not allow much separation, and forced bad shots from the Cardinals. In the first half, Louisville shot just 4-20 (20.0%) from the field and 1-5 (20.0%) from 3-point range. Virginia took a 41-13 lead into the break.
In the second half, Louisville created quite a bit more offense and scored 39 points. A big reason for this was Virginia had to deal with some foul trouble. Louisville’s Brandon Huntley-Hatfield presented some problems for the Hoos as he was able to draw quite a bit of contact. Both Minor and Blake Buchanan had two early fouls, and each picked up their third right at the start of the second half. This allowed Louisville to be more aggressive and attack the rim on offense. The Cardinals shot 11-22 (50.0%) from the field in the second half, as well as 2-6 (33.3%) from 3-point range. In total, Louisville shot 24 free throws, making 19 of them (79.2%).
Ultimately, Virginia overcame the 22 personal fouls and strong Louisville second half. The offensive success was a big reason why, but it wasn’t the only reason. The Cavaliers were able to force 18 Louisville turnovers and scored 24 points of those turnovers, compared to the Cardinals’ 9 points off just 11 UVA turnovers. The endless stream of points off of turnovers can be demoralizing for a team, and we saw that Saturday with Louisville.
“I think we’re doing well,” said Dunn. “Like you said, a whole lot of season left, you still got time to play. We’re gonna play great teams now and we just need to keep going and get back to practice to get ready one game at a time.
It was a good win for Coach Bennett and his team. It’s the second straight win on the road after a really poor start to the season away from home. UVA seems to be playing with more and more confidence each week. Louisville is a team that’s struggling, but Virginia did a good job of asserting dominance early, and not letting the Cardinals stick around. The Hoos have a few days to enjoy the win before a rematch with a Notre Dame team that embarrassed the Cavaliers in South Bend. A win on Wednesday could be a promising sign for this continuously improving team.
“You put yourself in a spot to go after it,” Bennett said. “We’re playing better basketball. We’re just trying to chase quality, that’s what we’ve talked about. I think our practices have become a little more competitive, we simplified in some ways, and you know last game Taine Murray gave us a great lift and Jordan Minor, and this game you just see different ones. We’ll rely on that and keep being competitive and know we got another good one starting Wednesday. In our league there’s not a ton of separation, so you just have to be ready and that’s kind of our approach.”
