For some reason, Memphis coach Penny Hardaway played UVA Basketball for the first 20 minutes on Wednesday night – measured, precise, largely halfcourt basketball.
Go figure, it didn’t work – the Cavaliers led 30-21 at the break, and seemed poised for the upset of the 21st-ranked Tigers.
Hardaway unleashed the hounds of hell on the ‘Hoos in the second half, pressing full court after makes and misses, utilizing halfcourt traps to get Virginia out of its offensive sets.
The stratagem turned the nine-point halftime deficit into as much as a nine-point second-half lead before UVA was able to right the ship.
Ron Sanchez’s steering corrections came too late in what turned into a 64-62 Virginia loss.
This was improvement for the ‘Hoos (6-5), who were outphysicaled in their double-digit losses to Tennessee, St. John’s and Florida earlier in the season.
Don’t get me wrong – Memphis (10-2) was much more physical and demonstrably more athletic in this one.
It was the clash of styles, and I think the final outcome came down to the experience level of the head coaches – Hardaway won the chess match with his gambit with the pressure on D, while Sanchez was painfully slow to counter.
The one noticeable change that we saw strategy-wise from the Virginia side came in the game-planning.
Sanchez all but scrapped the ineffective mover/blocker in favor of an offense heavy with ball screens, dribble handoffs and an emphasis on spacing that gave everybody room to operate in the paint.
It was effective in the first half, no doubt at least in part because it’s unlikely that Hardaway and his staff had prepped for what Virginia was doing.
The Cavaliers led by as many as 11 in the opening 20 minutes, and went into the break up 30-21, hitting on most of the cylinders on offense, and holding Memphis to 8-of-28 (28.6 percent) shooting, 2-of-14 from three.
The more aggressive approach in the second half from Hardaway on the defensive end also manifested itself on the offensive end with more attacks at the rim – Memphis had just seven shots at the rim in the first half, but took 14 shots at the rim in the second half.
A stretch of four possessions that ended with layups fueled a 10-2 Memphis run that put the Tigers up five on a bucket by PJ Haggerty with 11:15 to go.
Memphis would lead by as many as nine, but Virginia finally got its moorings, chipping away at the lead with a couple of threes from Elijah Saunders, an and-one three-point play from Taine Murray, and a little bit of luck – the Tigers had a couple of misses at the free throw line in the final minute to keep the door open.
But after a tip-in by Jacob Cofie with nine seconds left that cut the lead to two, at 62-60, Haggerty, who finished with 27 points, connected on both ends of a two-shot foul to stretch the lead back out to four.
Dai Dai Ames scored in the lane with less than a second to go, but it would obviously not be enough.
Podcast: Chris Graham breaks down UVA Basketball loss
Turning point
An odd call on a driving layup attempt by Ames with 11:15 to go may have been decisive, scoreboard-wise.
Ames nearly lost an arm on the drive to the rim, but no foul was called.
After the miss, Haggerty came down with the rebound, and tripped over Ames, who was called for the foul.
The refs conferred, then decided to change the foul call to Saunders.
After another conference, the zebras turned to the replay desk, watched the video of the play several times, talked amongst themselves, decided that the call on the floor, a common foul, was confirmed, thought about it some more, and eventually assessed Ames with a deadball technical foul, apparently thinking he had intentionally tripped Haggerty.
Because Memphis was in the bonus, Haggerty was sent to the line for a one-and-one, sinking the first, missing the second, and then got to shoot both shots of a two-shot technical foul.
Forget that Ames was the victim of a second-degree assault on his drive to the rim.
Memphis was gifted three points.
Credit to the Virginia kids here, because the three points turned a five-point Memphis lead into an eight-point Memphis lead.
It felt at the time that Memphis was about to blow the game open.
They won by two, with the three gifted free throws in their pocket.
Game Notes
Saunders had 15 points, 10 in the second half.
Murray had 14, on 5-of-9 shooting, including a Trey Murphy III-style flush in the first half.
Andrew Rohde looked out of place – he had five points, but also five turnovers, and they were the bad kind, throwing passes into the third row, past guys who weren’t expecting the ball to come their way, just ugly, unathletic-looking stuff.
Cofie, who started, had six points and four rebounds in 14 foul-plagued minutes.
Sanchez totally whiffed on a key situation involving Cofie, who picked up his third foul at the 19:09 mark, with UVA up 32-21.
Sanchez, for reasons that made sense to him, and only him, didn’t even think about subbing for Cofie, who then picked up foul #4 seven seconds later.
He left with the score at 32-22 ‘Hoos. He returned at the 7:12 mark with the score at 50-44 Memphis.
The other rookie-coach move from Sanchez came with his move to sub out Ames at the 18:16 mark after Ames had missed an early shot-clock jumper.
This was when Memphis was ramping up its defensive pressure, and Virginia needed ballhandlers on the floor as the counter.
Ames subbed out with UVA up 32-25.
Virginia didn’t score from the floor over the next three and a half minutes before he subbed back in.
Ames had an awful counting-numbers night – 2-of-11 shooting, though with four assists, and no turnovers.
It strains the concept of common sense to send a message to your primary ballhandler for three and a half minutes in the face of an onslaught, but that’s what happened.
Highlights: UVA Basketball upset bid comes up short
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