Virginia won two games last week.
Kihei Clark drew a foul on this drive against Boston College. ~ Kris Wright

The Virginia basketball team picked up two more wins as it topped Boston College at home and Pittsburgh on the road last week. That kept the Hoos on track for a double bye in the ACC Tournament and for likely inclusion in the NCAA Tournament field.

The successful week pushed UVA’s recent string to eight wins in its last 10 games, including four straight victories. That left the Cavaliers at 19-7 overall and 11-5 in ACC play with four games left to play. The program has posted eight straight seasons with at least 11 ACC wins. It’s also the ninth straight winning record in ACC play, putting coach Tony Bennett in some elite company. According to reporter David Teel, Bennett is just the fifth coach to accomplish that feat, joining Duke’s Vic Bubas and Mike Krzyzewski and UNC’s Dean Smith and Roy Williams.

The Double Bonus is back for a closer look at the latest wins.

Clark The Creator

Virginia sophomore Kihei Clark is a creator on the court and a conversation creator off of it. One season after UVA lost three starters that were capable ballhandlers and playmakers, much of the burden in those two categories has fallen to Clark. The offense-initiating, decision-making, and late-clock shot-taking duties land on his plate. With the ball in his hands so often, that means all eyes turn to him frequently and that means everything good and bad is up for discussion.

It also means that the extremes are more memorable. For the good: 13 assists against Navy and 10 more against Clemson or maybe the driving finishes against Virginia Tech, FSU, and most recently Boston College at home. For the bad: 9 turnovers at Florida State and 6 more most recently at Pittsburgh or maybe the missed shots in losses to Syracuse and NC State. Whatever it is, Clark’s play creates conversation.

When you get away from the eye-catching moments, though, the body of work continues to be solid. Clark has piled up 157 assists at 6.04 assists per game. That’s the ninth best season in program history so far (he needs 12 more to tie John Crotty for eighth and 43 more to reach a fifth-place tie with Jeff Jones) and third in the ACC by average this season. He’s at 6.2 assists per game in conference games only. Overall, he has 92 turnovers this season for a 3.54 per game average, which ranks last among the ACC players qualified for the assist-to-turnover ratio standings. Clark is tied for eighth in that league category. Clark leads the ACC in minutes at 37.3 per game.

Clark has tallied four games with 3 or fewer assists and every game this season has been a multi-assist game. He has posted five games with 5+ turnovers and he has two games with a single turnover. Rarely do both ends of the spectrum converge in the same game, but when they do, it sparks fan talk. See the Boston College and Pittsburgh games this week, for example.

Against the Eagles, Clark finished with 8 assists and just 2 turnovers - that was both one of his top 5 assist games this season and one of his top 5 for fewest turnovers at the same time. Against the Panthers, he ended up with 3 assists and 6 turnovers, including two really bad turnovers against the Pitt press late in the game - that was both one of his four lowest assist games this season and one of his three highest totals for turnovers at the same time. The two games were polar opposites.

That follows the season-long splits for Clark. He has averaged 6.47 assists and 3.2 turnovers at home vs. 5.45 assists and 4.0 turnovers in road/neutral site games this season. However, if you throw out the non-conference home games against lower level competition (keeping the ACC and South Carolina as nine home games), his home numbers drop to 4.3 assists and 3.7 turnovers so he’s actually better in the road/neutral site games in that view.

Bait The Switch

So what was the difference in the Boston College and Pittsburgh games, in particular late? In part, the defenses chose different tactics. BC switched. Pitt didn’t. Clark carved up the switching defense from the Eagles, but couldn’t create the angles or space needed against the Panthers.

Virginia puts Clark in ball screen situations quite a bit overall (39.8% of his possessions are as a pick-and-roll ballhandler per the Synergy Sports data) and frequently in late clock situations (of his 50 possessions with a short clock of 4 or fewer seconds, at least 27 have been in single-covered pick-and-roll or isolation situations). At least part of the strategy there is to one, try to space the floor, and two, try to create mismatches for the defense. In a lot of cases, the goal is to ‘bait the switch’ and try to get the defense to trade defenders with a big-to-little ball screen often landing a frontcourt player against Clark.

You can see that concept out late in both games. In the Boston College game, UVA brought Jay Huff up to the top of the key area for a ball screen and Clark ended up with Nik Popovic as the defender on a switch. Clark drove and scored with a fake. In the Pittsburgh game, Virginia sent Mamadi Diakite up toward the middle of the floor for the same ball screen, but Pittsburgh faked the switch with Terrell Brown staying for a moment defensively but then retreating. Clark tried to get a shot up over Xavier Johnson, but got blocked.

Even if the ‘bait the switch’ theory doesn’t work, however, the high pick-and-roll play is generally good with Clark. Per the Synergy Sports data, he has scored 82 points on 81 possessions and that 1.012 points per possession rates as “very good” in the 75th percentile nationally. The data doesn’t break down to late clock possessions for the high pick-and-roll play, but since many of those end up in isolation like the Popovic play, it can help to look at that number instead. Of 17 iso possessions with a short shot clock of 4 seconds or less, Clark has scored 0.353 ppp and that rates as “poor” in the 9th percentile per Synergy.

Final Four Minutes

That last piece and this thread starter from poster The Venetian piqued my interest considering the amount of chatter about UVA’s late game offensive possessions, particularly in the Pitt game when just one more basket in the final 2:30 probably would have sealed the win. Clark is scoring poorly in iso short clock situations and UVA is -39 in the final 75 minutes of ACC games (counting overtime) combined per The Venetian’s post.

So maybe instead of the poor 3-point shooting storyline that hovered over a lot of this season, the focus should turn to the shooting numbers in the final four minutes of games? While the Hoos own a 9-5 record in games decided by 7 points or fewer or in overtime, perhaps they could save the stress for the fans and not play so many close games by improving on offense late in games.

Per the Synergy Sports data, Virginia is shooting 33.9% and 18.2% on 3-pointers in the final four minutes of regulation. In overtime, the Hoos are shooting 23.1% overall and 16.7% on 3’s. Combined, that adds up to 32.8% shooting overall (41-125) and 18% on 3’s (9-50). When you trim it down to ACC competition only, the combined numbers add up to 30.7% shooting overall (27-88) and 15.4% on 3’s (6-39).

Compare that to the season’s overall numbers. UVA is shooting 41.4% overall (547 of 1,321) and 30.4% on 3’s (152 of 500). Taking out the final four minutes and overtime numbers from above, the Hoos land at 42.3% overall (506 of 1,196) and 31.8% (143 of 450).

With that said, Virginia does draw more shooting fouls in the final four minutes and overtime. The Wahoos draw shooting foul calls on 19.5% of their possessions in ACC play in the final four minutes and OT vs. 15.2% for the season overall.

How does all of that compare to the final four minutes of the first half? The Cavaliers, after all, don’t shift into “late game” mode as often on those possessions vs. running things normally on offense. Again per Synergy, Virginia is shooting 44.9% overall and 30.2% on 3-pointers in the final four minutes of the first half. The Hoos draw shooting fouls on 3.4% of those possessions. For ACC play only, they are shooting 47% overall (39 of 83) and 35.7% on 3’s (10 of 28) in that time frame. In ACC games, they draw just 3.3% shooting fouls late in the first half.

When compared to the overall numbers, UVA shoots better than its overall season percentage late in the first half, about the same on 3’s, and gets less shooting foul attempts. When looking at the ACC only comparison, there’s a dramatic difference with a +16.3% better overall shooting number and a +20.3% better 3-point shooting number in the first half. There’s a -16.2% difference on shooting fouls called per possession, though.

The comparison of first half vs. second half isn’t ideal, of course. Coaches are less likely to play someone in foul trouble in the final four minutes of the first half vs. the end of the game. Officials may not give as many benefit of the doubt looks to the defense. Players may not have the same intensity. And so on.

Still, with the message boards frequently discussing late game offense this season among all the close games, the data here is something to add to those conversations.