That was ugly: Five observations from #6 Virginia’s 61-58 win over three-win Louisville

Louisville, playing its best basketball, redux

I tried to tell you!

“Louisville, 3-22 this season,” I wrote on Tuesday, “is, weird as it is to say this, playing its best basketball of the season right now.”

The Cardinals had just put in maybe their best effort of the season in a 93-85 loss at #13 Miami over the weekend, and its last two games at home coming into Wednesday included the team’s only ACC win to this point, a 68-58 victory over equally hopeless Georgia Tech on Feb. 1, and a near-miss 81-78 loss to FSU on Feb. 4.

For the bulk of the first half, Louisville played like the ranked team, leading by as many as nine with five minutes to go, before a 12-0 UVA run sent the Cavaliers into the break up 29-26.

Louisville did in that first 15 minutes what most opponents have not been able to do to Virginia – keep the guards out of the paint.

With UVA just 3-of-7 on shots at the rim, the offense was just 7-of-23 from the field before the half-closing run, which was fueled by defense that the ‘Hoos were able to turn into offense.

Virginia, by and large, controlled the second half, leading by as many as 10 with five minutes to go, but credit to Louisville for hanging around, notably holding UVA without a bucket in the final 3:06.

As shocking as a Louisville upset win would have been, it didn’t materialize.

And as much as you want to feel like the wheels are coming off, Virginia has won 10 of its last 11, and is still tied for first in the ACC.

Even the program measuring stick team, the 2019 national champ, had a near-miss against an overmatched Notre Dame team in what played out to a 60-54 win in mid-February.

Good teams win when they’re not at their best.

That said, yeah, this was Virginia not at its best.

Something was up with Beekman

Reece Beekman played 34 minutes, and looked at times to be laboring – but he can look at times to be laboring and not necessarily be laboring, if that makes sense.

There may have been something to his looks of discomfort tonight.

Beekman had three points, all at the line – he was 0-of-6 from the floor, 0-of-4 from three, and had two assists and two turnovers.

This after a similarly subpar effort in the win over Duke on Saturday – four points on 2-of-11 shooting.

Beeks did have seven assists and didn’t have a turnover in that one in 41 minutes.

The 0-of-4 from three is possibly a telltale sign – not the misses as much as the fact that he jacked up four threes.

Wednesday was the fourth time this season that Beekman attempted four or more threes.

Just reading tea leaves, but he wasn’t effective finishing at the rim in the win over Duke, and he didn’t really try much in the paint tonight.

Hope he’s OK, and if he is, somebody needs to tell him to attack more.

Odd statline of the night: Kihei Clark

Counting numbers-wise, Clark had a nice game – 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting, six assists, one turnover, in 31 minutes.

He also had the team’s worst plus/minus – at -6.

Clark subbed out at the 7:26 mark of the first half with Virginia down six, ahead of the 12-0 run to close out the half that sent the ‘Hoos to the locker room up three.

He played all but 55 seconds of the second half.

Vander Plas left a few out there

Ben Vander Plas had a double-double – 10 points and 11 rebounds – but he was just 4-of-11 from the floor and 2-of-8 from three, and that last number is the frustrating one.

Vander Plas misfired on too many looks on which he was left wide open because Louisville had game-planned to try to limit the rim runs of Virginia’s guards.

BVP is shooting 41.2 percent from the floor and 30.4 percent from three this season.

Those percentages are going to need to tick up down the stretch for Tony Bennett’s small-ball lineup to continue to work.

Update: iMac still doesn’t shoot it enough

Freshman Isaac McKneely had eight points on four shots again – 3-of-4 shooting from the floor, 2-of-3 from three.

Over his last 11 games, McKneely is averaging a too quiet 8.2 points in 22.2 minutes per game.

In that stretch, iMac is shooting 52.4 percent from three, which would be great if we could get some volume of the kid.

Overall in the last 11, he’s putting the ball up in the direction of the rim 5.6 times per game.

Shoot it more, kid.