The Virginia basketball team put together an 11-4 record overall and a 3-2 mark in the ACC during the 15-game stretch from the Syracuse opener to the Syracuse rematch at John Paul Jones Arena. Along the way, there has been a lot of ups and downs for the Cavaliers.

The Hoos have struggled with shooting and creating offense. They’ve had trouble cracking zones at times, including in the most recent loss to Cuse on Saturday. They have had issues with turnovers. The injury bug hit when Braxton Key missed time and is still wearing a protective cast/splint on his left wrist.

One thing that has remained strong for the most part has been the defense. The Cavaliers keep themselves in games despite the inconsistency elsewhere thanks to slowing down or shutting down opponents on defense. That’s not surprising with Tony Bennett as coach. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim reminded basketball fans of that on Saturday.

“Tony Bennett is a great guy. As I’ve said for many years, he’s the best defensive coach I’ve ever seen,” Boeheim said. “His teams play the best defense. We’ve played against some good ones. John Thompson was pretty good. Bobby Knight was pretty good, defensively. I can go down the list of other guys, but he’s better defensively than all of those guys are. That’s my opinion, having the experience of playing against all those other guys many times. It’s very hard to get shots against them. He’s a tremendous basketball coach.”

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