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Women’s Basketball: Virginia reeling with four losses in last five games

Scott Ratcliffe
uva women's basketball
Photo: UVA Athletics

The Virginia women’s basketball team fell for the fourth time in the last five games Thursday against Florida State, but what’s more concerning is how it transpired.

Just like in the loss to North Carolina last week, the Cavaliers (14-5, 3-5 ACC) coughed up a comfortable, double-digit lead in the second half against the Seminoles, and essentially fell apart on both ends of the floor down the stretch.

Foul trouble, turnovers, poor shooting and questionable officiating — including two offensive foul calls against UVA that had all of John Paul Jones Arena enraged — all played a part in the most recent collapse for Amaka Agugua-Hamilton’s team, who travels to take on No. 7 Notre Dame on Sunday (2 p.m., ACC Network).

“Obviously, very disappointing,” Coach Mox said in her opening statement after Thursday’s 77-68 loss. “This game was almost identical to the North Carolina game in terms of the point spread and things like that, but that just hurts a little bit because I thought we made some strides, finishing games and coming together at the end against Boston College.

“I think we have to take care of some of the self-inflicted errors. I told the team this is the third game, I believe, in a row that we’ve had over 20 turnovers, and we just can’t win games like that. We can’t have over 20 turnovers or get outrebounded, even if it is by one, and give up 77 points, so we have got to get better.”

Just like they did against the Tar Heels, the Hoos exploded late in the third quarter against FSU, closing the period on a 15-4 spurt across the final 5:05 to take a 60-50 lead heading into the fourth. Senior forward Camryn Taylor did all she could to put the Cavaliers in a position to win. Taylor scored 10 of her game-high 18 points in the third on 5-of-9 shooting, as her team outscored the Seminoles 23-12 in the quarter, and it looked as though Virginia would be in good shape to start a new winning streak.

“Cam was super aggressive,” Coach Mox said of Taylor, who also notched a double-double with a game-high 10 rebounds. “They couldn’t guard her one-on-one, so we were just trying to isolate her in different actions. She was doing a great job and they tried to go zone and she hit the jump shot, so they went out of zone and they tried to guard us in [man-to-man], and she was just getting to the rim, doing a good job putting pressure on their bigs, and also finishing.”

In the fourth quarter, however, the Hoos made just 2 of their 16 shot attempts (13 percent), were outrebounded 14-10 and committed 8 of their 21 turnovers on the night, and Florida State outscored them by a total tally of 27-8 to pull out the road win.

“We went [man-to-man] and we just couldn’t really guard them, and that rattled us,” Coach Mox admitted. “So when we’re getting scored on, we’re not great on offense because everybody’s trying to think of defense and all this, so I think that’s what went wrong at the end.”

To make matters worse, senior forward Sam Brunelle was ejected in the fourth quarter after getting her leg tangled up with FSU’s Sara Bejedi. As Brunelle tried to get her leg free, she was whistled for what was determined a “fighting foul” with 3:24 left in the contest. Brunelle finished with 11 points, including three 3-pointers, and blocked a career-high 5 shots in the loss.

Despite the struggles, the Cavaliers have hung with just about every one of their conference opponents thus far, and Taylor says as much as it hurts to lose a game like they did against UNC and FSU, the team must have a short memory and get ready for the next challenge.

“Obviously a loss sucks, but we keep our heads high,” said Taylor. “We know this is still, we’re a great team. We do a lot of great things, we’ve just got to put it all together. And I mean, we’re working hard every single day in practice, we’re watching film, we’re getting in the gym extra, doing all we can. I think that just having that same next-game mentality and understanding that every game is going to be a dogfight, so just keeping our heads up, knowing this is a great learning opportunity, and just moving forward.”

Added Coach Mox: “We’re not quite there yet, but we’ve made huge strides and I’m proud of the strides we’ve made. But these [losses] kind of just really sting because we could have closed that out.”

Scott Ratcliffe

Scott Ratcliffe

Scott Ratcliffe has worked as a freelance writer for several publications over the past decade-plus, with a concentration on local and college sports. He is also a writer and editor for his father’s website, JerryRatcliffe.com, dedicated to the coverage of University of Virginia athletics.