A first point of focus for the media types after #22 Virginia’s narrow 56-54 win over Northeastern was the 11-day break for final exams.
Coach Tony Bennett wasn’t having it.
Bennett did cop to injury issues – freshman guard Elijah Gertrude was limited during the exam break, and starting shooting guard Andrew Rohde didn’t practice at all with a foot injury.
“I think we played a good team that’s very well-coached and tough-minded. I think we weren’t ready the way we needed to be, and that that showed,” Bennett said, having addressed the injury issues.
As to the issue with exams: “I didn’t go here. I don’t pretend to, the drain is real on them for finals on that. But we practiced well. I think there’s a little rust on guys that had to sit out. But you know, I don’t know, maybe I’m too old and too far removed from finals and exams, but when you tip the ball up, you come ready to play. And if that almost cost us, not the finals, but not being ready.”
Was it good to get a game like this under the belt?
This, to me, is the topic of the day – because it is good to get game reps in pressure situations.
“I thought that was important because, you know, the last few games, well, not Texas A&M, but after that, we’ve had a nice lead, and it was a little, you know, I don’t know what the right word is, but it was just, there was some separation, you kind of could play and a little more easy. And this was hard,” Bennett said.
Even that Texas A&M game that Bennett referenced as having been tighter, it wasn’t – Virginia won that one by double-digits, and really didn’t face much game pressure down the stretch.
The three-point win over Florida in Week 1 was another one that had the ‘Hoos largely playing from ahead.
The only other game that felt somewhat like this one was West Virginia before Thanksgiving, and even that one didn’t present the upset stomach that fans felt on Saturday.
Northeastern led by six at the half, and opened the second half on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 13, and for a quick minute, it felt like the Huskies were going to run the Cavaliers out of their own gym.
“We had every possession matter defensively and offensively. There was legitimate game pressure. Guys had to step up when a mistake was made. You felt it. You knew they were a play away from, you know, opening the thing up. And so um, I just think there’s incredible value in that. We haven’t had a game like that,” Bennett said.
“Against Wisconsin, they just separated from us, we cut it to five, I remember that game they separated. We had a situation in our scrimmage, but that’s a long time ago, where we were kind of got our doors blown off early and then fought to get back. But you need that, and so I’m thankful for it. The film will reveal some things, and we just kind of keep moving forward and play obviously an excellent team next up,” Bennett said.
X’s and O’s: What can Bennett and staff fix?
First, on the offensive side: Virginia shot 41.5 percent, was 2-of-14 from three, was 11-of-22 on shots at the rim.
This was a team that was connecting on 39.3 percent from three and 59.4 percent at the rim coming in.
Doing the math: if UVA hits those marks on Saturday, that’s 3.5 more threes and two more twos, so, 13, 14 more points.
The other guys aren’t going to just give them to you.
“I didn’t think we were accepting the challenge of how physical we needed to be on offense, setting cuts up and good hard screens, we kind of stood, and you know, at this time a year against better competition, it doesn’t come easy. You gotta have that mindset,” Bennett said.
Coach tried to shake things up in terms of approach; nothing seemed to work, though.
“We’ve got a few base offenses that you sort of spin the dial and see which ones work. They did a good job guarding our first offense that, you know, it was, it was OK. I didn’t think we ran it hard. The second half, we just gave some ball screens to reset the game, but got a little more movement off the ball screen, played off the screens and tried to make them chase us,” Bennet said,
“I thought that help loosen them up a little bit, as opposed to going against a set defense all the time, or just trying to make one-on-one plays, or kind of rely on the ball screen, like we did down the stretch. But I thought that helped us, and we did, because of that, touch the paint and made some plays off of that.”
Virginia was marginally better on offense in the second half – shooting 44.4 percent, scoring 1.143 points per possession, but keep in mind, this Northeastern team isn’t good defensively.
Coming in, the Huskies ranked 317th nationally, allowing 1.110 points per possession to opponents.
On the defensive end, Virginia struggled all game figuring out how to defend 6’7” center Chris Doherty, who scored 12 points on 6-of-10 shooting, had nine rebounds and dished out five assists.
Northeastern ran its offense through Doherty, much the same as Wisconsin ran its offense through its center, 7-footer Steven Crowl.
“How they run their stuff and how they use Doherty kind of as like, you know, a center, but a point center that kind of backs down, and his stuff was good,” Bennett said. “You know, we went to trap the post early because we weren’t sure if we could guard him, and boy, they just, they had that floor space, boom, made a couple threes, and we were unsound defensively for stretches of the first half and then a little bit in the second half.”
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Chris Graham
