As I sat down to rewatch the game tape before writing this, I took out a sheet of paper to jot down things that stood out. Mainly, I was looking for missed opportunities, silly mistakes, or things we do right 9 times out of 10 that we didn't last night. I needed a second sheet of paper. Most of you all ready know this, but Virginia played uncharacteristically bad last night against arch rival Virginia Tech. Credit Seth Greenberg and to Hokies for their gameplan. They were extremely physical with our guys, especially Mike Scott. They were going to do anything possible to slow him down. Before last night, I thought the only person who could stop Mike Scott was Mike Scott. I continue to believe this, as he had 10 of his team's 45 points, while he missed a couple of open shots he hasn't missed all year. Still, the rotation of guys guarding #23 (including Davila, Barksdale, and Raines), bumped up against him and made him work harder than he has all year. What you heard about Duke being a physically weak team is true. They were unable to do what the Hokies frontcourt was able to. However, I don't really think this was the real reason why Virginia lost this game, and more specifically, looked so anemic on offense. Here are a couple of other reasons:
First of all, we just could not shoot the ball all night long. When I watched the game live, it really seemed like VT's physical defense prevented us from getting reasonably open looks. While for a good bit of the game this was the case, a second look at the tape shows that we missed a lot of shots that we should never, ever miss. Obviously, Sammy continued to struggle shooting the ball. He just has looked like a completely different player over the past couple of games. The worst thing about last night's misses was that he was not only missing shots, not only missing open shots, but he was missing open shots badly. One could understand a shooting night like that in cramped and stuffy Cameron Indoor, but at home? In the first half, Zeglinski missed two wide open looks in rhythm from deep. I cannot overemphasize how open these shots were. In the second half, Sam air-balled an only slightly contested jumper with 30 seconds remaining on the shot clock. The worst part of it was that, while he was kicking himself over the poor shot selection, he failed to get back on defense, giving Erick Green an easy transition layup. Also in the second half, Sammy once again missed two wide open threes that weren't even close. In the end, Zeglinski finished 0-7 from the floor, 0-6 from three in 37 minutes. If he did have a stomach bug or flu as many have said, he should not have played 37 minutes, especially given how uncomfortable he looked out there. In the last 5 minutes, you could see how he completely hit a wall. He was basically a liability on defense in addition to his poor shooting. We all love Sammy, especially Tony, but it was a mistake to have him in that long. I don't mean to be overly harsh on the kid. He is an incredibly hard worker, plays fantastic pack-line defense, and is a great veteran leader. I'm in no ways calling for his role on this team to be decreased. He just had one of those nights (and wasn't helped by how he felt physically). It was unfair of Tony to keep him out there. While last night was bad, Sammy will be back soon enough. We're gonna need him, too.
Now Zeglinski was by no means the only person on the team missing shots. The shots that I jotted down were three Mike Scott midrange jumpers, Jesperson's missed wide open three, Evans's 4 missed layups, Akil's missed putback where he had two chances to finish, Brogdon's two missed wide open threes and our many poorly timed missed free throws. Like I said with Zeglinski's misses, I'm not exaggerating when I say wide open. These aren't shots we should hit 50-60% of the time, rather they're ones we hit 80-90% of the time. On these ones, it wasn't anything that VT's defense did to prevent a bucket. These are basically the basketball equivalent of "unforced errors". We won't beat anyone if we miss easy ones like this. I know it sounds simple, but if you're looking for an answer to the question, "How could this game happen?", it comes down to missing these type of shots. Having rewatched the game, we actually did a much better job offensively at creating good looks (we did an especially good job of using screens in the second half) than I had originally thought, but all of that means nothing if you can't finish the open shots you design your offense to create.
Another thing that hurt us, but on a bit smaller scale, was our poor job taking care of the basketball. While we did force more turnovers than we committed ourselves, 12 turnovers in a 47-45 basketball is just unacceptable. The worse part of that was the nature of some of the turnovers. Joe wasn't paying full attention after a rebound mid-second half as he threw the ball to Green right under the basket for an easy layup for two points. Jontel was careless with his dribble and had the ball taken from him a couple of times. Late in the game, after Sammy missed a wide open Mike Scott posting up down low, kicked it to Harris. Joe fed it to Mike, who dribbled it off of his foot when he should have had an easy layup. Very late in the game, we fed to ball to Scott down in the post. As the double team came, Mike tried to hit Brogdon streaking down the lane and airmailed it over his head. These errors, especially the ones late in the game, are just so costly in a 47-45 game. When you not only lose a possession by giving the ball up, but allow them to score off of it on top, you're doing twice the damage in a game like this.
Finally, defensive breakdowns and mismatches put the dagger in our chances. With Assane out, we had basically two options. The first option was to keep the same scheme, plugging in Mitchell and Atkins into Sene's minutes. The other option was to go with a four guard look, limiting Atkins and Mitchell's minutes. Against a team like Virginia Tech, who has only two natural low post players in Victor Davila and Cadarian Raines, it's difficult to tell which lineup would be more effective. Early on, Tony went with the conventional lineup, with Mitchell and Scott down low. However, it was the matchups that were confusing. For most of the first half, Mitchell was on Jarrell Eddie. Eddie is a 6'7 SF who has a skill-set not too dissimilar from Paul Jesperson. He's a shooter first with very deep range and excellent touch and a slasher second. While Eddie is further developed than Jesperson, his ability with the ball isn't anywhere near fully developed. I wouldn't exactly call him someone who can create his own shot with the ball in his hands. I certainly wouldn't call him a guy who could work with his back to the basket. So this means Akil priority on defense should have been to step out on him to prevent his biggest weapon: the deep three. Akil struggled to stay out on him in the first half. While Eddie bricked his first three, later in the half, he moved without the ball to get away from the slower Akil. Scott switched and picked him up, but it was too late as Eddie knocked down an open three (which built momentum for Tech as they built a 4 point halftime lead). I don't know why we had Akil on Eddie. It would have made much more sense to put Harris on Eddie and Mitchell on Dorian Finney-Smith (a 6'8 long armed athlete who Akil would have matched up much better with). Later in the game, Tony realized this and went to the 4 guard lineup, with Harris on Eddie. If I recall correctly, Eddie did not score again in the game and Harris did a great job preventing him open looks. Greenberg smartly responded by sitting DFS, going with the lineup of Green, Brown, Hudson, Eddie, and a big man (Davila, Raines, or Barksdale). This caused another matchup problem for the Hoos.
The other mismatch was with Dorenzo Hudson. As I stated in my game preview, I was a bit unsure as to who would guard Hudson. At 6'5 220, the only guys one would think to put on him are Harris, Brogdon, or maybe Jesperson. He saw all three, mainly Harris and Brogdon, and for much of the night, he was not much of a factor. However, late in the game, as Harris was busy with Eddie, Bennett put Zeglinski on Hudson instead of Brogdon. As I said above, at about the 5 minute mark, Sammy hit a visible wall, as his illness had fully caught up with him. He had no chance against the much, much bigger and more athletic Hudson. While against Sammy, Hudson's only real success was the terrible blocking call (and yes, that was a terrible call despite what Hubert Davis thinks), Zeglinski was a noticeable weakness on the defense and others had to leave their guys to help him out. Because of this, we put Malcolm on him, where Hudson got away with a pushoff (I'm not necessarily saying we should've gotten the call but considering the terrible blocking call and the pushoff called on MB in the first half, we might have deserved a break there) and made a tough shot. I don't remember who, but someone failed to help Brogdon out there, as he was one on one with Hudson in a good position.
Finally, on Tech's last position, they came out of the timeout with a lineup of Brown, Green, Hudson, Eddie, Davila. Our lineup was Evans, Zeglinski, Harris, Mitchell, and Scott. It looked like this:
Evans on Green
Zeglinski on Brown
Harris on Eddie
Mitchell on Hudson
Scott on Davila
While I understand the Hudson had just beaten us down low the past two possessions, I disagree with Tony's decision to put the bigger bodied Akil on Hudson instead of Harris or Brogdon. In this situation (44-43 VT with under 30 seconds to play, VT ball), you have to realize that if you give up a 3, you essentially lose the game. And while I pointed out that Hudson, aside from his 4-6 performance against UNC, was not a three point specialist, you can't give him (a 5th year senior) a kill shot like that. I think we should have put Brogdon on him (or Harris and have Brogdon on Eddie) and tell the rest of the team to not let him get in deep. Scott could have sagged off of Davila, Zeglinski off of Brown. You gotta imagine that Greenberg saw that Akil was on Hudson, called the timeout, and drew the play up. Otherwise, it more than likely would have been a play for Green against Jontel. I like my chances a whole lot better on that one. The biggest thing that bugs me is that Akil was one of the few guys who didn't guard Hudson all night. I really think we would have had a great chance to stop them if we had someone else on Dorenzo.
But I'm not the Coach, and I trust his decisions. Hudson made a great shot that he hasn't made most of the year. Green hit some tough contested shots along the way too. But still, while VT played great and deserves the victory, our guys are gonna be kicking themselves when they watch this film. We just can take the little things for granted. If we're missing shots like we were, we can afford to turn the ball over like we did. In games like these every possession is so valuable. Now, we get Boston College back in JPJ. I really don't like this game. We are a much better team than they are, but the 9pm start after a tough loss like this one makes me worry about a dull crowd. Hopefully both the fans and our players realize that we cannot, simply cannot lose to BC.
I'll have a quick preview of the young Eagles team sometime this week. Go Hoos!
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