The Virginia basketball team wrapped up a three-game road swing with a 74-58 defeat at North Carolina on Saturday. That snapped a seven-game winning streak in the series for the Hoos. The Double Bonus is back for a look inside the game.

Curl Protection

I wrote in an earlier Double Bonus that UVA’s offense this season seems to work best when it is able to get Armaan Franklin or Jayden Gardner into spots around the ACC logo. Lately, the Hoos have leaned heavily on their traditional ‘sides’ motion scheme that is a version of the blocker-mover with two blockers screening and three movers cutting.

One benefit of the ‘sides’ scheme is that it can create natural curls right into the paint area. That’s something Franklin takes advantage of somewhat frequently with his consistent mid-range pull-up game. Of course, there’s a counter to those curls that defenses can use, though. That’s exactly what North Carolina did.

This defensive strategy with in a man-to-man scheme is often called curl protection. The idea is that the screener’s defender sets up in a position above the screener and toward the middle of the paint. It’s essentially a strategy that puts a defender directly into the path of a would-be curler cutting off a screen (you can think of it as a similar to a hedge defender getting in the way of a dribbler). Here’s a screen grab from early in the UVA-UNC game – check out where Armando Bacot is located:

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