Virginia coach Tina Thompson said after her team’s latest ACC loss, 77-70 to Syracuse on Tuesday, the team’s 11th in a row in ACC play, that she’s “starting to sound a little bit like a broken record.”
Well, yeah.
Her team is going on two years since its last ACC win – two years! – having lost 24 of its last 27 games overall.
“When it’s been so much time since [we] won a game, that baggage just gets really tough to carry. So, when you put yourself in a position where you’re constantly digging yourself out of the hole, it’s a really, really tough task,” Thompson said after the latest loss, which drops UVA to 3-18 overall, 0-11 in the ACC.
Syracuse (10-12, 3-9 ACC) led by as many as 19, and it was 17 with a minute to go, before the Cavaliers made it look better than it was in garbage time.
Sophomore guard Mir McLean scored a career-high 20 points, with grad student guard Amandine Toi contributing 18. Junior guard Taylor Valladay had a career-high 10 assists.
Naje Murray led the Orange with 24 points, going 8-of-11 overall and 5-of-7 from three-point range. Teisha Hyman scored 13 points with 8 rebounds.
Thompson is now 28-59 as the head coach at Virginia in parts of four seasons since taking over in 2018.
She inherited an NCAA Tournament team from her predecessor, Joanne Boyle, who was 129-99 in her seven seasons.
We all remember Debbie Ryan, 739-324 in 34 seasons before her retirement in 2011, a tenure that included three Finals Fours, 11 ACC regular-season championships and 24 NCAA Tournament appearances.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, that seems so far away now.
Story by Chris Graham
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