Butler came away with the 80-73 win over Virginia on Sunday at The Greenbrier, but I don’t know that we should want to read too much into the final result.
This Virginia team, which is built on attacking the rim and getting to the line, is going to struggle when it gets to the rim, but the officials let the other side get away with repeated assault and battery, and limits the attempts at the line.
ICYMI
To wit: the ‘Hoos (5-1) had 29 shot attempts at the rim, and finished the game with 15 (!) free-throw attempts.
Butler (5-1) had 25 shots at the rim, 29 free-throw attempts.
Another way to look at the numbers:
- Virginia was called for 20 personal fouls; Butler got to the line for 29 free-throw attempts.
- Butler was whistled for 19 fouls; Virginia had the 15 free-throw attempts.
There’s a reason Ryan Odom was assessed with a technical foul with 10:08 to go.
He won’t say it postgame, because he won’t way to have coached this game for free, but the game officials today – Tim Comer (ranked 103rd among the 200 refs who have worked D1 games this year, per KenPom), Tim Clougherty (61st) and AJ Desai (22nd) – let’s hope we don’t see them together again, because, mawhgawd, they were bad.
Credit, I guess, to Butler – getting served home cooking doesn’t guarantee a result.
Still got to go out and make shots.
UVA only led for 23 seconds, a brief, brief stretch early in the second half.
What undid the Cavaliers
- Poor shooting (again) from three: 8-of-27 (29.6 percent). For the season, Virginia is shooting 34.7 percent from three.
- Surprise … rebounding: Butler outrebounded the ‘Hoos, 49-38.
- Couldn’t get stops: Butler averaged 1.212 points per possession. The Virginia D, through six games, ranks 84th nationally, allowing 1.021 points per possession. That’s not going to be nearly good enough.
Individual
- Malik Thomas had a season-high 24 points, 16 in the second half, but missed a pair of free throws with 3:16 to go, with the ‘Hoos down six.
- Jacari White had a season-high 14: 5-of-7 from the floor, 4-of-6 from three. The Jacarmy wasn’t there, but I’m sure they were still going bonkers.
- Chance Mallory needs to be the starter at the point: this is his team already. Today: 11 points, six rebounds, three assists in 34 minutes. He would have had 20 if the goofballs with whistles were doing their jobs.
- Thijs de Ridder had his first off-night: 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting (1-of-3 at the line) and five rebounds in 30 minutes.
- Oddest statline maybe of all-time: Ugonna Onyenso had two points (1-of-6 FG), seven rebounds, eight blocks.
- Weird thing for me to note: on my live game blog, during the TV timeout at the 14:52 mark of the second half, I wrote a blistering critique of Johann Grunloh’s game to this point in his early UVA career. I didn’t notice this watching live, but Grunloh (two points, seven boards) checked out at the 14:52 media timeout, having played 17 of the game’s first 25 minutes, and did not check back in. Is he injured, dealing with a sickness? Does somebody on staff read my stupid live game blog? (I hope it’s not the latter. I don’t know what I’m talking about most of the time.
- Dallin Hall, after back-to-back double-digit games, put up a goose egg while fouling out in 11 minutes. He picked up a couple of extremely chintzy fouls in the first half to get to three, and never got back in the flow after halftime. Today may have been his Wally Pipp moment.
- Elijah Gertrude may be out of the rotation: he got two minutes today, after a DNP on Friday.
Where we are six games in
Still a lot of work to do for Odom and the staff. The offense is productive (1.192 points per possession, 23rd nationally, per KenPom), the defense stinks, and whoever the big-man coach is on the staff needs to put some emergency player-development effort into Grunloh, who has not been to date (8.0 ppg, 7.3 rebounds/g, 50% FG, 1-of-11 3FG) as he was advertised.
The Big Three with this group is de Ridder (17.5 ppg), Thomas (14.3 ppg) and Mallory (11.3 ppg).
I’d be finding more minutes for Onyenso (7.0 ppg, 5.0 rebounds/g, 3.0 blocked shots/g) at the expense of Grunloh in the frontcourt, and White (8.7 ppg) and Sam Lewis (9.7 ppg) at the expense of Hall in the backcourt.
That, plus Devin Tillis, who four points in 10 minutes today in his second game back from knee surgery, may be your rotation.
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Chris Graham
