Virginia, as it has been doing lately, fell behind a not good at all Notre Dame team by double-digits coming out of the gate.
And Tony Bennett, whose team has two Quad 1 wins and has been ranked in the Top 25 a couple of times this season, had no answers.
None.
We’re past it being time to worry. That 76-54 loss that you just watched, to a sub-.500 Notre Dame team that lost by 20 at home to The Citadel before Christmas, just made the case that this Virginia team is nowhere near NCAA Tournament-worthy.
Exhibit 1: that early 13-0 hole, which was the third such big early deficit UVA (10-3, 1-1 ACC) has dug for itself in its last four games.
Shockingly, the closest the game would get from there was (gulp!) eight, and that was relatively early, after a Ryan Dunn layup with 9:04 to go in the first half.
The Irish (6-7, 1-1 ACC) led by as many as 19 in the first half, 41-24 at halftime, and was only at risk of losing its double-digit lead twice thereafter – a 7-0 Virginia run out of the locker room cut the lead to 10, and a quick 5-0 flurry got it back to 10 with 12:39 to go.
Notre Dame responded to that second mini-run with a 15-2 barrage in which it held the ‘Hoos to one make from the field over a five-minute stretch.
This is three beatdowns now – by a pair of decent teams, Wisconsin and Memphis, and this just not good Notre Dame group.
We’re beyond going back to the drawing board at this stage; there are no reinforcements coming, and everything Bennett has been trying lately has not been working.
In Saturday’s loss, aside from Reece Beekman (15 points, 5-of-15 FG) and Dunn (13 points, 6-of-9 FG), Bennett got next to nothing from his regulars.
Isaac McKneely, continuing his recent slide, had seven points on 2-of-7 shooting, 1-of-3 from three, in 33 minutes of running off screens and largely just not shooting shots.
The other starting guard, Andrew Rohde, had five points, on 2-of-8 shooting, 1-of-4 from three.
Even Beekman, with that team-high 15 points, needed 15 shots to get them, and he had five turnovers – and didn’t do his normal shutdown job on Notre Dame point guard Markus Burton, who had 15 points (6-of-10 FG) and eight assists for the Irish.
The Irish shot 69.6 percent from the field in the first half, making 7-of-10 from three, and though they cooled off in the second half, still finished at 51.0 percent (26-of-51) and were 11-of-23 (47.8 percent) from three.
Coming in, Notre Dame had been shooting 39.4 percent from the field (349th of the 362 teams in D1) and 26.7 percent from three (350th nationally).
And ND had scored just 45 points in that 20-point home loss to The Citadel on Dec. 19.
Virginia couldn’t get stops, and couldn’t get anything going on the offensive end – again.
The Cavaliers shot 38.2 percent (21-of-55) and was just 2-of-11 from three – and even worse, only made eight of their 27 two-point jumpers.
The 30,000-foot view of the UVA offense: guys running off screens would get the ball with a sliver of daylight, but instead of taking the open look, would pass it off to the next guy with a sliver of daylight, who would do the same thing until somebody had to eventually shoot the ball with the shot clock running down.
I’d suggest that having this group of guys reluctant to pull the trigger on open shots run 90-plus percent of its offense in the halfcourt, when it’s clear that the mindset just isn’t there to be consistently good in the halfcourt sets that Bennett prefers, isn’t going to work going forward – that maybe Bennett might consider encouraging his guys to look for more opportunities in transition, to get shots before opponents can set up their D.
But that’s not the way Bennett wants to play basketball.
He won a national championship five years ago playing the game his way.
This group might struggle to get to .500 in the ACC, if it continues playing the way it has the past couple of weeks.
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Chris Graham
