Virginia coach Tony Bennett, when his team is struggling, which isn’t often, reflexively points to defense as the culprit, but he seemed to concede after Saturday’s ugly loss at Notre Dame what is obvious to the rest of us.
“We don’t have enough offensive firepower to just say, alright, we can kind of exchange possessions, and we’ll get it going and score in a flurry,” Bennett told reporters after the 76-54 loss, in which Virginia got behind 13-0 early, and never got back within eight points thereafter.
There was a defensive breakdown at the outset, sure – Notre Dame made its first four shots, all from three, and was 8-of-10 from the floor in the opening 10 minutes.
But Virginia didn’t do itself any favors on the other end. The ‘Hoos missed their first seven shots and were 9-of-25 (36 percent) in the first 20 minutes, and went into the locker room down 17.
You’re not going to consistently keep connected allowing the other guys to shoot 69.6 percent in a half, but you can at least be in striking distance if you can get anything from your offense.
“I thought we got pretty good looks early, and you know, that puts, does put pressure on your defense when you’re missing either some clean looks or bunnies, and then, you know, you got to get stops,” Bennett said.
This is going to be an issue for Virginia going forward, unfortunately.
The offense ranks 156th nationally in points per possession, per KenPom, and is too reliant on whether it’s getting good perimeter shooting, which obviously can come and go from night to night.
In Virginia’s three losses, all by 20+ points, the team shot a cumulative 10-of-44 (22.7 percent) from three, and 16-of-61 (26.2 percent) on its two-point jumpers.
In the 10 wins: UVA is shooting 38.7 percent (74-of-191) from three and 45.2 percent (71-of-157) on its two-point jumpers.
If the shots are falling, as in the 84-62 win over Syracuse on Dec. 2, in which Virginia was 12-of-21 (57.1 percent) from three and 9-of-15 (60 percent) from two, it’s all good.
When the numbers are 2-of-11 from three and 8-of-27 from two, you lose to a not good Notre Dame team by 22.
It’s obvious that Virginia has some issues on the defensive end, if only because Bennett has now, twice, gone to a zone for a short stretch to try to get an opponent out of its rhythm.
The equivalent answer on the offensive end – something other than the mover-blocker and inner-third triangle sets that opponents seem to have figured out – isn’t obvious.
You get the idea that the approach is going to continue to be: just run what we run harder, set better screens, run off them better, be prepared to shoot off the catch.
Is that going to be enough?
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Chris Graham
