Virginia basketball: Cavaliers offense makes them a risky bet in March
Virginia has dominated the ACC basketball conference from start to finish and is currently the No. 1 team in the country. Even still, I’m not sure I’ll have them advancing any farther than the Sweet Sixteen in my projected bracket.
If Tony Bennett won the National Coach of the Year award at the end of the season, I would have no problem with it. After losing the team’s senior leader and top scorer London Perrantes, along with a couple of other contributors transferring out, Virginia came into the season unranked and figured to be closer to the bubble than the top seed line.
Clearly that’s not the case, with Virginia having a 23-2 (12-1) record. The wins over North Carolina and Clemson solidified them as an ACC heavyweight contender, but the road win over Duke put the Cavaliers in the conversation as a national title contender.
They were riding high with a 15 game win streak, with a chance to sweep rival Virginia Tech at home. It didn’t end that way, with the Hokies shocking Virginia with a 61-60 road win in overtime. The loss itself was no means troubling, especially considering that many other ranked teams lost, to much worse competition.
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But what the loss did do was reaffirm the fatal flaw for the Cavaliers – their offense. As a team, Virginia shot just 34% from the field, and went to the line just nine times, good for one free throw attempt every five minutes. The 60 points scored was the seventh time they couldn’t crack at least 61 in the season.
This team doesn’t have any threats in the post, and only have four players that could on any given night score more than a few points on any given night – Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, Devon Hall and De’Andre Hunter off the bench. The three returnees have elevated their offensive games immensely from a year ago, while the freshman Hunter has provided a spark off the bench.
Like last year, Virginia’s scoring offense was ranked around 300, but also similar to a year ago, the scoring defense is No. 1 in the nation, with the 2017-18 squad giving up 56 ppg. But for personally, the end of last season is what still gives me pause about picking this school to go deep in March.
It was the second round of the NCAA tournament, and considering that it was a 4-5 matchup with Florida, Virginia could’ve easily lost. And while the defeat itself wasn’t shocking, managing to score just 39 points in 40 minutes was eye-opening, yet not surprising to some. That’s because it’s been a pattern for Bennett’s Cavs in the NCAA tournament. In the five defeats for Virginia, these were the following point totals for the teams – 45, 59, 54, 62 and 39. That’s an average of 51.8 ppg.
Of course everyone has an off night, but in a single-elimination tournament Virginia’s inability to score has proven deadly for them. Add to it a lack of different ways to create offense outside the guards, and the Cavaliers could be falling short of their ultimate goal of the Final Four.
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Everything being said, the seedings and brackets could play in Virginia’s favor and take them far. But they also could bounce out early, something that people might be picking when filing out their sheets. I very well could be one of them, still haunted by this team’s past issues putting the ball in the bucket.