Home Inside the Numbers: Nice, efficient win for #16 UVA at Boston College
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Inside the Numbers: Nice, efficient win for #16 UVA at Boston College

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uva basketballWe focus on UVA basketball, so let’s start with the defense. How does .831 points per possession grab you?

The Cavs had been giving up 1.054 points per trip to ACC opponents through five games. Just one, Louisville, way back on Dec. 28, had scored less than one point per.

So what Virginia was able to do at Boston College Wednesday night …

Don’t discount it because it was Boston College. The Eagles came in with the ACC’s highest-scoring backcourt, Jerome Robinson and Ky Bowman, putting up a combined 36.6 points per game.

They finished with a combined 16 on 7-of-20 shooting.

And this was a BC team that scored 96 in a home win over Syracuse on New Year’s Day, 82 in a loss at Duke on Jan. 7, and beat N.C. State 74-66 last week.

Basically, as we’ve said in this space before, it’s an ACC road win, don’t look it in the mouth.

 

Less four guard

Here we go again, counting up minutes.

The bigs – Isaiah Wilkins, Jack Salt, Mamadi Diakite and Jared Reuter – combined for 67 minutes. That’s a little more than we’ve seen lately, translating in roughly 13 game minutes of four-guard lineup for the Cavs.

It was because the bigs, by and large, had a collective good night.

Wilkins had another solid night – 11 points and nine rebounds in 25 minutes.

Salt had two points and three rebounds in 18 minutes, scoring the first bucket of the game on a nice post move, then doing little else.

Reuter had six points and three rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench. Diakite had four points and two boards in nine minutes.

 

Big minutes for the frosh guards

Kyle Guy got 25 minutes off the bench, and scored eight points, though he did miss two free throws.

Ty Jerome had maybe his best performance as a Cav, putting up five points and dishing out five assists with just one turnover in 23 minutes.

The best part of Jerome’s solid night was that coach Tony Bennett was able to give London Perrantes what must have felt for him like a night off – just 20 minutes of playing time.

LP had six points on 3-of-9 shooting with four assists and a turnover.

 

Turnovers, lack thereof

Virginia committed just five turnovers on the night, which was key in preventing BC, which likes to play up-tempo – averaging 72 possessions per game coming in – from getting runouts.

The Pack-Line, for its part, forced 16 Eagles turnovers, and UVA turned that into a 26-0 advantage in points off turnovers.

 

Doing the dishes

UVA had 22 assists on 27 made buckets, led by Devon Hall, who had a team-high 13 points and also dished out six assists.

Darius Thompson had four assists (without a turnover) to go with his 10 points in 20 minutes off the bench.

Compiled by Chris Graham

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