The Virginia basketball team battled back and forth with Wake Forest on Saturday, but a late-game surge from the Demon Deacons handed the Hoos a loss. The Double Bonus is back for a closer look at the Cavaliers.

Beat The Cheat

For much of the contest, Wake Forest chose to ‘cheat’ or go under the continuous off-ball screening action that UVA presents in its ‘sides’ motion offense. For newer readers, to cheat or go under a screen simply means that the defender does not follow the cutting offensive player around the same side of the screen but instead goes around the opposite side of the screen to try to arrive where the offensive player is going. It’s something that I’ve watched closely this year because some teams used it early in the season with some effectiveness. Plus, one of the main counters to this defensive strategy is to pop behind the screen along the 3-point line and Virginia’s 3-point shooting this season is streaky at best.

The Demon Deacons showed the ‘cheat’ choice for dealing with screens immediately. Then it continued for much of the afternoon. The Hoos scored on their first possession by taking advantage of this type of screen defense. Francisco Caffaro set a pin down screen for Kihei Clark and Wake’s Daivien Williamson shot through the opening on the top side of Caffaro. Clark secured the ball, caught Williamson with bad closeout footwork, and drove to the baseline. That brought Dallas Walton over in help defense to stop the drive and Clark dropped a pass off to Caffaro in front of the rim for an easy bucket.

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