For the third time this season, the Virginia men’s basketball team matched up against a ranked opponent. The first two ended with losses in the Bahamas. The ACC-SEC Challenge tilt with Florida didn’t go much better Wednesday night as the Gators pulled away to an 87-69 win.
In many ways, the latest setback resembled the 64-42 loss to Tennessee and the 80-55 loss to St. John’s last month. UVA (5-3) dealt with a high turnover count again, giving up 15 turnovers that led to 20 Florida points. The Hoos also had trouble defending drives and the 3-point line as the Gators combined 16 layups and dunks with 10 3-pointers on the way to a big scoring night.
On the flipside, Virginia did find more offense in this game even with the high turnover count. The Hoos scored their third highest total of points this season and they managed a solid 1.131 points per possession in the end. Some of that came late in the game with the score mostly decided, though, as they put up 11 points in the final 5:11.
UVA will try to regroup and get back on track during a busy travel week. After staying Wednesday night in Gainesville, the Cavaliers head to Dallas for a game against conference newcomer SMU on Saturday. There are only two short practice days to work on improvement before ACC play opens.
“Coach Sanchez talked about an opportunity to grow as a team, get closer together, and understand that this next game is our first ACC game,” Saunders said on the Virginia Sports radio network. “That’s ultimately what matters [next] is trying to go for an ACC title and put this one behind us and move forward.”
Here are some takeaways from the challenging loss in the Challenge.
Paintball
A lot of times basketball comes down to which team wins the paintball battle. If a team can consistently touch the paint on offense with dribbles and cuts with passes, then it can break down an opposing defense regularly. If a team can’t consistently keep a team out of the paint, on the other hand, then it’s hard to really impose any will defensively.
Unfortunately, Virginia seems to have a paint problem right now. On both ends of the floor. While statistically, things turned out mostly even in the points in the paint category - Florida won 38-34 there - there was a stark difference in how the teams looked. The Gators seemed to be at ease attacking on offense and switching on defense, while the Cavaliers seemed to labor in their efforts to find openings or to prevent clean driving lanes.
When Florida had the ball, Virginia could not contain dribble penetration. The guards would size up a matchup, create some hesitation with dribbles, and then burst past UVA’s defenders. Walter Clayton Jr. rang up the most points with 27 on 10-19 shooting, while Alijah Martin added 16. It wasn’t just a guard thing, either. Alex Condon drove into post-up moves multiple times from the forward slot too on the way to 19 points.
The Hoos lack that cool-down defender they had for so many years at this point so that only compounds the problems. Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier had 26 and RJ Luis Jr. had 18 for St. John’s, while even Holy Cross’ Max Green had 16 points while creating some separation at times with the bounce. So Clayton was just the latest to get in on the act.
Florida’s 87 points were the most allowed by UVA since then-No. 1 Gonzaga rolled up 98 in December of the 2020 season.
UVA, meanwhile, didn’t get into those seams nearly as easily. Dai Dai Ames can break down defenses sometimes and did again in this game, but Andrew Rohde and Isaac McKneely really had problems getting separation or angling off defenders as they used the varying handoffs and on-ball screens within the offense. Taine Murray got to the rim a few times during one second half flurry by attacking bad closeouts, but in general it wasn’t a game where the Hoos repeatedly got the Gators scrambling after paint touches.
McKneely did end up with 12 points, while Murray and Ames chipped in 8 and 7 respectively. Rohde had just 4 points.
A lot of the difference showed up during a critical stretch in the first half. Florida ripped off a 15-0 run that erased a fast start by Virginia, who led 18-9 less than six minutes into the game. After it reached 20-14, however, the Gators swallowed up the Cavalier offense and then got going quickly with a set of back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers. Two of those followed UVA turnovers and the third followed an offensive rebound.
The Ongoing Turnover Problem
Speaking of turnovers, that’s been a consistent problem. Some of it is related to the trouble dribblers have touching the paint, but there are also some careless moments and situations where a player doesn’t strongly secure the ball. The 15 turnovers in this loss shook out as a 24.6% turnover rate, meaning the Hoos essentially turned it over once in every four possessions.
When you see that percentage, it’s kind of crazy that Virginia found its way to 69 points and that 1.131 ppp number above. The Hoos used 3-point shooting (8-21, 38.1%, 24 points) to help with a lot of that as well as an unusual source of points (more on that in moment).
But back to turnovers. All three of UVA’s losses have been by at least 18 points this season and a common thread has been that turnover problem. Florida turned it into 20 points, while Tennessee made 18 Cavaliers turn into 30 points. St. John’s had 18 points off of 16 turnovers. It’s just much harder to get the defense set when you are committing so many live ball turnovers.
Coming into this contest, Virginia had a 19.1% turnover rate that ranked 274th nationally and that’s only going to drop.
Elijah Saunders’ Big Production
With the guards having some trouble, the Hoos got the most production from Elijah Saunders. He finished with a career-high 19 points on 6-12 shooting to go with 5 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. He did have 4 fouls and 1 turnover too as he had some problems on the defensive end.
Still, it was arguably his biggest impact yet even though he’s been in double figures three other times this season too. It certainly was the type of offensive game UVA envisioned for Saunders. He made 3 3-pointers, scored around the rim, made 4-4 free throws and flashed some of the versatility that makes him a potential matchup problem. At 6’8”, 240 pounds, Saunders can post up smaller guys or step away and shoot against other defenders.
Prior to the good line at Florida, Saunders had not made multiple 3’s in a game yet this season. It has also been a little bit of feast or famine in terms of free throw attempts. This is the third game with 4 free throws, but the other five games have featured 1 or fewer. If he can keep getting those two categories going, then that might be a key factor for him in the games ahead.
“This is the reason why we wanted to recruit Elijah,” Virginia interim coach Ron Sanchez said. “I think vs. this level of competition for him to perform like this is definitely something that we expected. He’s had a couple of tough games; tonight, I thought he was physical, he shot the 3, he made some good plays. We put him in position to be successful. Elijah’s a good player. I’m hoping that he can continue to do this and play as well as he did today. We just need other guys to pick up their play.”
An Unusual Category For UVA
Back to the unusual source of points topic from above. Virginia scored 22 second chance points in this game on 13 offensive rebounds. That actually topped Florida’s 10 second chance points on 10 offensive rebounds. The Gators came into the game ranked No. 5 nationally with an offensive rebounding percentage of 40.4%, while UVA sat 332nd in the same category at 20.9%.
While the stat is a little bit jarring given that the Hoos don’t usually attack the offensive glass all that aggressively, it’s important to note that 8 offensive boards and 12 second chance points came in the second half. The Gators led by double digits for the final 13 minutes of that half and they shot 51.7% from the floor, meaning there weren’t that many missed shots for them to grab on their offensive end.
That explanation aside, though, is the question of whether the Hoos stumbled on to something that may help them this season. If this is a team that might continue to struggle to create scoring opportunities in some matchups and one that has not executed transition defensive well yet anyway, does Virginia need to approach the offensive glass differently than years past to help generate points?
It did help in that the second half against the Gators. Blake Buchanan drew a foul on one offensive rebound and UVA scored on the possession. Saunders did the same later and made both free throws. The Cavaliers also scored three times directly on tip-ins in the second half.
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