Inside the Numbers: #5 Virginia holds off Oakland

Containing Kay Felder

Kay Felder came into Tuesday’s game at #5 Virginia as the nation’s second-leading scorer, pouring in 26.6 points per game, and he got his against the Cavs.

Felder ended up with 30 points on the night, but he needed 22 shots from the field to get there, and had just three assists on the game, and none after halftime.

The UVA game plan seemed to be to try to wear the 5’9” point guard down by running waves of defenders at him. London Perrantes and Malcolm Brogdon took on the bulk of the responsibility, with the message to wing defenders being to stay with the Grizzlies’ three-point shooters to prevent penetrate-and-kick looks.

That seemed to work. Felder was 4-of-9 from long range, but his teammates were a combined 4-of-12, with marksman Max Hooper, averaging 4.2 made threes per game at a 44 percent clip from three coming in, finishing a modest 3-fo-8 from behind the arc.

 

Efficient play from the Virginia bigs

You are not going to lose many games when your two biggest contributors in the post shoot a combined 13-for-16.

Anthony Gill was 6-of-8 from the field for a team-high 17 points. Mike Tobey had 16 points off the bench on 7-of-8 shooting.

Tobey, playing with a newfound fire after seeing his minutes dwindle over the past month, also had seven rebounds in 19 minutes on the floor.

 

Another solid night for Wilkins

Isaiah Wilkins scored just four points on 2-of-4 shooting in 25 minutes, but he yanked down a team-high eight rebounds, had three assists, two blocks and two steals.

You don’t like his game? Something is wrong with you.

 

Off-night for Brogdon, still fills up stat sheet

Malcolm Brogdon was just 3-of-14 from the floor, but he was key during the opening stretch of the second half that turned the game in Virginia’s favor.

Brogdon assisted on two threes by Perrantes and drained a pair of threes himself to help turn a one-point halftime deficit into a 44-34 lead at the 14:32 mark.

Brogdon finished with 12 points, a team-high five assists, no turnovers, and one steal in 33 minutes.

 

Geek stats

Virginia scored 1.092 points per possession, down the 1.193 mark that the Cavs had scored coming in. Oakland scored just .879 points per possession, well off its 1.134 ppp season average.

The Grizzlies had averaged 88.4 points per game coming in, so they were 30 points off their season average.

The game played to 66 possessions per team, slightly up from Virginia’s average tempo (62.7 possessions per team per game) and well below Oakland’s normal pace (75.9).

– Compiled by Chris Graham