After taking down Duke in a big home victory on Saturday night, the 22nd-ranked Hoos return to action for their final road game of the season, against Miami. The Hurricanes are in the midst of a very rough season. They’ve probably been the only ACC team that Virginia fans haven’t taken note of this season.
And why should any Wahoo fan have noticed them prior to now? They haven’t beaten anybody remotely good since the beginning of December (Illinois), and obviously haven’t been on the other side of the court from the Hoos thus far.
So there’s going to be a lot of catching up to do on as the game unfolds. But I’m here to make that catching up a little bit easier, with four reasons that the resurgent Hoos take their seventh in a row, and two why Miami punctures their bubble.
Why Virginia wins
1. The defense will stifle Miami
At present, Virginia stakes claim to the second most efficient defense in the country. They lie only behind the consensus best team in the country, Kansas, in that category. Said defense is fresh off of holding Duke to their least amount of points in three years, and least by 13 this season.
Miami’s no Duke, and should struggle mightily. I say “should” because the Hurricanes have a couple of explosive players on their roster (more on that later) that could deal serious damage. And they are a respectable 65th in offensive efficiency. But at the end of the day, the Hurricanes don’t have enough firepower to get it done.
Sure, Chris Lykes, Dejan Vasiljevic, and Kameron McGusty are good players that score a fair amount of points per game. But the rest of the Miami team consists of subpar scorers and lackluster rebounders.
Nobody else scores more than 7.6 points per game, and only two players average more than 4.5 rebounds, both of whom average less than 6. If all holds to the way it has been, Miami will find it very difficult to score.
2. Kihei Clark is better than Chris Lykes
In the battle of the undersized point guards, it’s advantage Kihei. He’s turned himself into a better player than his opposing number. Now, this is not to take anything away from Lykes, because he’s still a fantastic player. But he’s a fantastic player on a bad team, and as such takes a lot of shots.
Kihei is a fantastic player on a team with four or five other legitimate scoring options, so doesn’t have to do as much, hence the fact that Lykes scores more. And Lykes only averages 2.5 assists per game, whereas Kihei is 3rd in the ACC with 6.
The simple truth is that Lykes is considered as better by many because he scores more. Yet there is so much more to the game than scoring.
An oft-mentioned basketball cliché is that the best players make the players around them better. Kihei Clark is the epitome of that saying, and it is what separates him from the player that he’ll be going toe to toe with.
3. Virginia’s big men are too much for the Canes
Early in the season, some labeled Mamadi Diakite, Braxton Key, and Jay Huff as the “new big three.” But then Key got injured and Huff disappeared for a while, and it all went up in smoke. While short-lived, that period provided a glimpse of how good the Hoos could be with those three firing on all cylinders.
Now they’re back, and they’re all playing the best ball of their careers. The three combined for 43 points, 22 rebounds, and 13 blocks (10 coming from Huff) against Duke. That’s pretty damn incredible, and may well be too much for Miami to handle.
And it will almost definitely be too much on the other side of the ball. The three players that Miami has who are taller than 6-foot-8 and play legitimate minutes all average less than 7 points per game. And as already mentioned, somehow none of them pull down more than 5.9 boards per game. It’ll be surprising if those players are able to handle the large Hoos.
4. Hoos are hot
I said the same thing before the Duke game, and I’ll say it again now: Virginia is one of the best teams in college basketball at the moment. Their record speaks for itself, with six wins in a row, and 10 of 11. Very few teams can say the same.
The Hoos were also hot from deep, or at least they were for a while before the Virginia Tech game. Canning 58% of treys against Boston College was proof that the Louisville fireworks can be replicated… Or at least almost replicated.
But now Virginia is due for another big three-point shooting night. They had a couple of dismal shooting performances against Duke, Tech, and a mediocre one against Pitt. Maybe they can do something to light up the far reaches of the Watsco Center that always seem to be so deep in shadow.
Why Miami will win
1. They have some explosive players
This version of Miami is not a consistent team. They scored 85 points against BC a few weeks ago, but their last game yielded a mere 57 points against Georgia Tech. But that axe cuts both ways.
Miami has been inconsistent, yes. But inconsistent means that they are still capable of big nights, and they just don’t do it every time.
A few players embody this, chief among them Chris Lykes. He’s exceeded 20 points on five occasions, including 28 at a sneaky-good Illinois team, and 27 on the road against Clemson. Chris Lykes at his best has the potential to take down the Virginia defense.
Dejan Vasiljevic also comes to mind. He’s not as prolific a scorer as Lykes, but when he gets hot from three, he gets hot. Vasiljevic routinely scores in the 18-19 point range, but those are also mixed in with a host of single-digit outings. He’s in a rough stretch, and is due for a big night that could sink the Hoos.
2. It’s an ACC road game
Anything can happen when on the road in what is college basketball’s historically best conference. Take Duke for example. They’ve lost four times on the road in-conference, and only once on their home court. Those road losses? Clemson, Wake, NC State (by 22), and of course Virginia. Two of those are to bad teams, and losing by 22 to anybody is just bad.
It puts into perspective the treachery of going on the road in the ACC. And I’m not even going to talk about what’s been going on for B1G road teams this year. The truth of the matter is that playing games in an unfamiliar building, with unfamiliar lighting, hostile fans, and cramped locker rooms is always going to be tough, no matter the opponent.
It may even prove to be so tough that Virginia could drop their first game in the last seven. But they’re certainly not going down without a fight.
Virginia at Miami tips at 9:00 ET on ACCN.