The old saying goes it's not how you start, it's how you finish. The Virginia men's basketball team came up on the wrong end of that phrase on Saturday. North Carolina erased a 16-point deficit after the first 18 minutes and rallied to win 85-80, handing UVA its first loss of the season at the John Paul Jones Arena in the process.
After back-to-back road wins in the ACC, it was a disappointing result. It's the third time this season that Virginia struggled a little bit after a break of at least seven days. The Hoos managed to win 80-72 against Maryland after exams, but lost to Virginia Tech 95-85 in three overtimes after a holiday break in the schedule.
Cavalier coach Ryan Odom said his team tried to pull out a win against Carolina, but had too many defensive problems to get it done.
"Our guys battled. They did a nice job trying to figure out a way to win the game there," Odom said. "Missed some key free throws, of course, but it was deeper than that. The defensive effort was just not where it needed to be."
The Tar Heels shot 49.2% in the game, the best this season against Virginia. A strong second half fueled the majority of that success as the visitors cranked out 51 points after trailing 43-34 at halftime. Caleb Wilson led UNC with 20 points that included a key shot with 31 seconds to go that made it a two-possession game. Jarin Stevenson poured in 17 points with all of them coming after halftime, while Seth Trimble (16), Luka Bogavac (14), and Derek Dixon (11) were all in double figures as well.
Virginia countered with four players in double digits too. Thijs De Ridder led the Hoos with 20 points and 8 rebounds along with 4 turnovers. Malik Thomas added 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists, while Sam Lewis had 11 points and 6 rebounds. Chance Mallory also scored 11 with 3 assists. Dallin Hall and Ugonna Onyenso both posted 8 points with Hall logging 4 assists as well.
Interestingly, UVA won the rebounding category 42-28, making this the first time it lost this season when winning that category. One reason for that was some costly turnovers. While the Hoos only committed 11 turnovers, the Heels turned those into a 19-2 edge in the points off turnovers column. Virginia had 7 turnovers in the second half on just 34 possessions, a 20.6% turnover rate that was too much to overcome. North Carolina had only 4 turnovers for the game with 17 assists, a line plenty strong enough to overcome the deficit on the boards.
"We took care of the basketball and we were really efficient offensively, scored 51 points in the second half, and we got the stops when we needed to," North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said. "One of the things I kept telling them was in order to win this game when the ball goes up in the air or is on the ground, those 50-50 loose balls gotta be all UNC. Virginia is such a physical, unbelievable team. In the first half, I felt like they kicked our tail. In the second half, I felt like we met the fight."
It's time for some more takeaways from the loss.
Ending Each Half Poorly
There were many times in Saturday's game that things looked good for Virginia to get another win. In fact, the Hoos led with 4 minutes to go in each half. Unfortunately, the Hoos did not close well in either situation and it likely cost them a chance at a victory.
In the first half, UVA and UNC swapped runs in the early going but eventually the Cavaliers took control. They pulled ahead by double figures for much of the first half and held a 37-27 with 3:53 on the clock. By the 2:05 mark, the hosts had built their biggest lead at 43-27 thanks to a 6-0 spurt from a Thijs De Ridder tip-in basket, a Malik Thomas transition 3-pointer, and a Johann Grünloh free throw.
But Carolina managed to slice the deficit back to single digits by intermission. That started with two offensive rebounds on one possession - the Heels had just 8 for the game - that led to a Seth Trimble free throw trip where he split the attempts. After a De Ridder miss, Luka Bogavac made a 3-pointer with 55 seconds to get a run going.
On the ensuing possession, UVA appeared to want a quick-hitter that would create a two-for-one opportunity around the shot clock in the final minute but the play never really got organized and that ended up as an empty possession when Thomas missed a 3-pointer. With the final possession now belonging to the Tar Heels, they managed to knock in another 3 when Derek Dixon made a shot with 5 seconds remaining. That little flurry suddenly had the 16-point lead down to 43-34 at the horn.
"We didn't score a couple of times down the stretch," Odom said. "We didn't execute a play that we were trying to run there at the end of the half with a minute left basically and it turned into a couple of quick baskets for them. We ended up in a switch where we weren't going to switch that one at the end of the half and the kid made us pay with a 3."
In the final moments of the second half, Carolina closed with an advantage again. A De Ridder free throw made it 74-72 with 3:50 on the clock. Notably, however, he made just 1 of 2 attempts on that opportunity, which came into play again later.
On the next UVA possession, a De Ridder turnover led to another empty possession and UNC responded with a traditional 3-point play on the other end when Jarin Stevenson scored on a drive and converted the and-one free throw. The next exchange saw Chance Mallory missed a tough attempt and Trimble turn that into a fastbreak layup with an and-one free throw again. Those 6 points put UNC up 78-74.
De Ridder drew a foul with 2:03 remaining, but he ended up missing both free throws. A team offensive rebound, after a video review, kept the possession with Virginia but De Ridder was whistled for a charge this time when he tried to go to the basket. Moments later, Stevenson canned a 3-pointer and the Cavaliers appeared to be in trouble down 81-74 before a Thomas 3-pointer and a Hall layup got it back to one possession at 81-79. Wilson responded with a tough shot off the glass to make it 83-79 entering the final 30 seconds.
This time, Thomas drove and drew a foul to go to the free throw line. He missed the first three throw and Virginia never got back to 2 points against as North Carolina put it away.
Looking back, that means the Tar Heels won the final two minutes of the first half 7-0 and the final four minutes of the second half 13-7.
"In retrospect, it started out pretty well. It was 40-some, 20-some, our guys were playing the game the way it needed to be played at that particular time," Odom said. "The end of the half was a killer, 7-1. Beginning of the second half, another killer. We did not come out with enough fire on the defensive side of the ball to make things harder for them. Once it's free and easy, it's hard to get really good and talented teams out of that mode."
Defensive Crash Out
That mode certainly continued in the second half. Continued actually isn't a strong enough description. That mode erupted in the second half.
North Carolina lit up the Virginia defense after halftime to the tune of 63.3% shooting. The Tar Heels made 19 of 30 shots overall in the second half, which included 5 of 11 3-pointers (45.5%). That means UNC made 14 of 19 2-pointers (73.7%) in the second half! The visitors had 10 layups or dunks after intermission. With those kinds of shooting numbers, it's no surprise that they erased the remainder of the halftime deficit fairly quickly and they had the lead by the 11:57 mark.
A lot of the damage in the second half came in transition. North Carolina had 14 of its 21 fastbreak points after halftime. That helped the Heels' leading scorers get a lot of their production. As part of Caleb Wilson's 20 points, he had a fastbreak dunk, a fastbreak layup, and 2 free throws off a fastbreak foul. Jarin Stevenson scored all of his 17 points in the second half with a fastbreak layup and 2 free throws off a fastbreak foul in the mix.
"Key to the game for us certainly was every time that we missed a shot, I think they were 1.3 points per possession right after that," Odom said. "Throwing it over the top, kicking it ahead, fouls - just our transition defense was not where it needed to be throughout the entire night."
When the Tar Heels weren't taking advantage of fastbreak opportunities, they caused all kinds of problems with ball screens in the second half. Whether it was freeing up guards to attack the paint, popping Stevenson free for open 3's, or finding mismatches near the blocks when Virginia switched defenders, North Carolina had complete control on offense.
The Cavaliers had made a lot of progress defensively over the last several weeks. Since the start of ACC play, no opponent had hit 43.0%+ of its shots and UVA had held five of six to 36.0% or lower shooting. North Carolina was in the same boat at halftime, shooting 35.5% in the first half before the porous second half saw the Virginia defense fall apart.
"The defensive intensity was not where we needed it to be," Odom said. "The communication was lacking and just really, in general, a poor defensive performance overall."
3-Point Slide
UVA managed just 29.6% shooting from 3-point range in the loss. It started off well with a 6-15 (40.0%) first half, the Hoos connected on just 2 of 12 after halftime (16.7%). The breakdown of those 27 attempts: Thijs De Ridder (1-1), Malik Thomas (3-8), Sam Lewis (1-2), Dallin Hall (0-2), Johann Grünloh (1-4), Chance Mallory (1-4), Ugonna Onyenso (0-1), Devin Tillis (1-2), and Jacari White (0-3). Thomas had both of his team's made triples in the second half.
The bigger question now is whether a trend is developing in conference play. Over these seven games, Virginia has fallen below 31.0% shooting from 3-point range four times. That started at Virginia Tech with a 10-45 performance (22.2%) in triple overtime. After a good game at NC State (13-33/39.4%), the Hoos had back-to-back sub-par outings against California (9-29/31.0%) and Stanford (6-22/27.3%). Sparked by Thomas, UVA had two strong showings on the road at Louisville (14-34/41.2%) and SMU (12-31/38.7%) before Saturday's stumble.
Notably, Virginia had fallen below the 31.0% threshold just three times in the season's first 12 games. This seems to be where the Wahoos are feeling the impact of Jacari White's injury the most. He has returned to the lineup over the last three games, but has made 2 of 7 treys (28.6%). Prior to his injury at Maryland that led to wrist surgery and five missed games, White had knocked down 30 of 60 attempts (50.0%) from behind the arc.
Throw in some struggles from Mallory (6-28/21.4%) over the last 9 games and Hall (5-29/17.2%) over the last 7 games and it's easy to see where some of the shooting slide has come from of late. Like White, Mallory and Hall had shot the ball well early in the season. Mallory made 15 of 31 3's for 48.4% in the first 10 games, while Hall made 13 of 31 for 41.9% 3-point shooting in the first 12 games. Lewis, meanwhile, is shooting just 31.3% from 3 (10-32) in conference games after sitting at 40.9% (18-44) in the first 12 non-con games. That's four players going from 40.9%+ in the first 10-12 games all in somewhat of a slump simultaneously right now.
Asked about his team's shot selection on 3-pointers against North Carolina, Odom said it was a mixed evaluation.
"Some of 'em, some of 'em, some were a little big quick, but overall offensively we didn't get them to chase us enough," Odom said. "I thought we were playing pick-and-roll offense and we certainly had some good two-man plays between Dallin and Johann. Dallin gets to the basket, Dallin drops it off. And we missed a couple. Certain teams are going to lock out and play it that way. They did a nice job getting out there when we would get into the paint, they did a nice job getting out. We've got to move a little bit better to create more passing lanes, but ultimately we scored 80 points, we have to defend."
4 Comments