LOUISVILLE, KY. - Virginia forward Mamadi Diakite knew he had to pick his spots. Against Oregon, flying out of position could spell trouble with the Ducks willing and able to loft passes to the rim for dunks. Diakite and the Hoos struck that balance perfectly en route to a 53-49 win in a defensive battle Thursday night.
“We had to be very disciplined,” Diakite said. “They were moving well and smart. We had to be on the line and be very, very smart. That’s what we did. We weren’t able to go all the time around us, although sometimes they got us.”
Oregon didn’t get many of the easy alley-oops or easy putbacks that helped propel its offense late in the season, though. In fact, the Ducks executed just one over-the-top dunk in the entire game and that came in the first half.
Diakite played a major role in that success without sacrificing the rim protection that’s become a big part of the team’s success on defense recently. He and Jay Huff, for example, really bothered Oklahoma’s interior attack in the round of 32 and the Hoos outscored the Ducks in the paint too, 18-14. Diakite said it was a delicate balance of deciding when to go for blocks.
“Every time that I tried to help, they almost made me pay all the time,” Diakite said.
With that said, however, Diakite still blocked two shots and he kept the Ducks off the offensive glass for the most part too. OU came up with just 6 offensive rebounds. Just one of those went to Kenny Wooten in 37 minutes of action and he only had the one lob catch as well. Wooten had 9 points with 6 rebounds on 4-of-5 shooting against Wisconsin and 11 points with 8 rebounds on 5-of-7 shooting against UC Irvine earlier in the tournament.
Diakite’s two blocks came in the second half. The first turned a shot away in front of the rim. The second saw Diakite rise up to pin the shot on the backboard and then rebound it off the glass all in one motion.
Still, the biggest moment of the second half potentially came a few minutes earlier. De’Andre Hunter drove to the middle with a spin move and missed the attempt when Diakite pulled down an offensive rebound in traffic. A physical battle down low ended up in a jump ball ... and a staring contest.
Diakite went face to face with Oregon’s Ehab Amin. Before the officials could break it up, Amin flopped backward with Diakite in his face and that drew a technical foul whistle. “He was coming in my face. I was like, I’m not going to back down,” Diakite said. Fortunately for the Hoos, when the officials went to the monitor to review the confrontation, they ruled it as a double technical on both players instead.
With a potential momentum-swinging play averted, UVA pulled out the win down the stretch. Before all of that drama unfolded at the monitor, however, Kyle Guy was already busy refocusing his teammate. He quickly pulled Diakite aside and reminded him of what was at stake.
“Kyle was being a good teammate,” Diakite said. “He was telling me ‘I don’t care what happens in the game, be focused, we need you.’ I was still in the game. Whatever happened in those couple of seconds happened, but I was focusing on the game. I wanted to win and I didn’t even want to think about whatever happened. I just turned the page and kept playing.”
Handling The Press
Oregon mixed up its defensive tactics with fullcourt pressure frequently during the game. That included a soft press where not traps occurred and an aggressive press where the Ducks trapped immediately on the inbounds pass.
None of it bothered UVA. The Cavaliers had just 8 turnovers throughout the game and didn’t get sped up out of character either.
“I think we’ve got good guards to handle that,” Virginia guard Kihei Clark said. “Ty and Kyle are really good players. It doesn’t really matter too much what defense they throw at us, but we knew coming in that’s what they would do so we were just being extra ball conscious.”
Clutch Free Throws
When De’Andre Hunter caught an inbounds pass with 13 seconds to go, Oregon still stood within one possession at 50-47 on the scoreboard. That meant Hunter needed to step to the line for a one-and-one free throw with the game hanging in the balance. He calmly knocked down both shots to extend the lead to 5 points and the Hoos put the game away as a result.
Hunter finished with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting (1-6 on 3’s) in the game and only broke into double figures thanks to those two free throws and a wide open layup moments earlier. Before that, he had made 3 of 12 shots with no trips to the free throw line. He said that he knew he was going to make the shots at the stripe.
“I actually was as calm as can be,” Hunter said. “I wasn’t making anything today so I knew once I stepped to the line, they had to go in.”
Shooting Woes
Since opening the postseason against NC State with a 10-of-21 shooting performance from 3-point range, the Cavaliers have cooled off considerably. Over the last four games, they’ve made 29 of 102 3-pointers in games against Florida State, Gardner-Webb, Oklahoma, and Oregon. That’s 28.4% shooting from downtown and far below the team’s season average of 39.6%.
Kyle Guy has been the center of attention on that front. He’s made just 5 of 31 triples in those four games, a low 16.1% success rate. Even with that stretch, he’s shooting 42.7% from 3 this season and 42.6% for his career.
Guy did make two 3-pointers in the second half against Oregon and said he will keep shooting open shots.
“Any time I can get Ty [Jerome] or Kihei [Clark] an assist, I think they always appreciate that,” Guy said with a smile. “So I'm going to keep shooting. I don't really feel like I'm ever out of rhythm. So as long as they have confidence in me, I'll always have confidence in myself.”
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!