Three takeaways from Virginia’s putrid wins over Louisville and Notre Dame

You expected, at some point, that Virginia would wake up. Realize.

Realize that Virginia is good, pretty good, quite good, good enough to occupy the nation’s No. 7 ranking and the top spot in the ACC. Realize that Louisville is bad, really bad, terribly bad, bad enough to be floundering at 3-23 overall and 1-14 in the ACC. Realize that Notre Dame is also bad, also really bad, also terribly bad, bad enough to be floundering at 10-17 overall and 2-14 in the ACC.

Alas. The Cardinals and the Fighting Irish, in a stomach-churning three-day span, each pushed the Hoos to the brink of disaster. Virginia eked it out against Louisville, 61–58, and against Notre Dame, 57–55, after a fraught couple hours.

Some weird stuff happened. A flat ball in the Louisville game sparked the reincarnation of Deflategate. Neither team in the Notre Dame game exceeded 40% shooting. Weird stuff.

But a beacon penetrates the smog. 

Virginia did, after all, win both games, improving to 21-4 and, with a little help from those pesky neighbors in Blacksburg, seizing the top spot in the ACC. Kihei Clark broke Virginia’s all-time assists record. And the selection committee, in its Saturday morning seeding forecast, tagged Virginia with a No. 3 seed.

Here are three takeaways from a turbulent stretch.

Two extremes of guard play

Kihei’s contributions this season have been colossal. So much so that fans have chattered about retiring his number. He has averaged 15 points over his last three games—15 efficient points—and has shouldered, on his little frame, the burden of the team.

But Reece Beekman? Stumbling through the snow. Against Duke: 4 points on 2-11 shooting. Against Louisville: 3 points on 0-6 shooting. Against Notre Dame: 11 points on 4-12 shooting.

Beekman is sinking into a bog. Kihei is swimming gracefully through an ocean.

Beekman is supposed to be the scorer, the NBA Draft prospect, the explosive star. Kihei is supposed to be the facilitator, the veteran, the thorn in opponents’ sides. But Beekman’s failings, and the failings of others, have forced Kihei to assume a more prominent role as a scorer.

Which is to the detriment of Virginia’s offense. 

The little dude has stepped up in a big way. He’s precise, he’s efficient, he’s huge. 

But he can’t do it alone. 

A thin supporting cast and Bennett’s confusing reticence

Jayden Gardner has played well. Ben Vander Plas has played well. Armaan Franklin has played well. 

They’ve been good. Not great. 

And they’re all Virginia has. It’s Clark, it’s Beekman, and then it’s the above trio. Maybe throw in Isaac McKneely, who’s been dependable in a limited role. But that’s it. Six guys.

Kadin Shedrick has vanished, frustratingly and painfully and somewhat inexplicably. So has Francisco Caffaro, now a veritable ghost.

But what of Ryan Dunn? In fleeting moments, Dunn assumes an aura equivalent to that of De’Andre Hunter. He leaps. He prances. He flexes. His +/- is almost always positive.

His playing time, though, is meager. Six minutes against Louisville. Ten against Notre Dame. Bennett uses Dunn sparingly.

There are, of course, ways to explain Bennett’s reluctance to play the explosive first year. In Dunn’s two games playing more than 20 minutes—25 against Virginia Tech, 30 the next game against Wake Forest—he scored a combined 8 points on 7 shots. Not promising.

Still, Dunn has shown flashes. And he might be the one to jolt a thin rotation.

So. Does Virginia suck?

I’m inclined to answer in the affirmative. 

Louisville sucks. Notre Dame sucks. Strip away the No. 7 ranking and the stellar record and judge Virginia on its play this week and the Hoos looked like an ACC bottom-feeder, indistinguishable from the bumbling squads in South Bend and at the Yum! Center.

But that’s only half the equation. Every other ranked team that’s supposed to sweep through weak opposition like a tidal wave through a village of sticks has also failed to do so. College basketball has, as the smart TV pundits love to say, entered an era of parity.

So I’m not sure Virginia is any worse than everyone else. Every team gets an amnesty period. Look at UConn, losing four out of five games at one point this season. Or—more recently—Tennessee, losing three out of four. Or Alabama, losing by 24 points to Oklahoma. And those are just off the top of my head.

Every team has stumbled through a sticky period. So Virginia absolutely can fix things before the postseason.

 If a sour taste is polluting Wahoo mouths, there’s still plenty of time to consume breath mints.

Image – Virginia Athletics