The Virginia basketball team continued its excellent play at the John Paul Jones Arena on Sunday with a 68-51 victory against NC State. The Hoos own a 45-4 record in ACC play over the last six seasons at the JPJ. While you let that little stat sink in with the Thankfulness pillar, the Double Bonus returns to take a closer look at the latest W.

Inverted Post

One thing the Virginia roster has this year is guard versatility. That comes up the most in conversations about the defense and how often UVA is now switching screens against certain actions (listen to my interview on the Best Seat in the House for example) from opponents. It applies to offense too, though.

Take, for example, an offensive possession past the halfway point of the first half. With a little less than seven minutes remaining, the Hoos inverted their offense to get Devon Hall a touch in a post-up situation. Nigel Johnson initiated the action by passing to Isaiah Wilkins after Hall set a down screen to get him open. Hall then continued across the paint to set a cross-screen for Jack Salt. Wilkins fed Hall, who drew a foul and made both free throws on the play.

This is a tough action for defenses to sort out because most teams don’t want to switch a guard-to-post screening action. If the choice is not to switch, it remains tricky to defend because if the guard defender waits a beat to help out on the post coming off the screen, then that opens up the post-up angle and position for the guard who set the screen initially. In this case, NC State’s defender Lavar Batts tried to just crowd and trail Hall through the screening action, but that also left him at the wrong angle to deny the entry pass.

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