One, two, three, FOUR times the ball bounced on the rim as Virginia fans held their collective breath. It fell with 0.9 seconds left on the clock, giving Virginia the lead and triggering a shout of elation from those gathered in JPJ.
Boom. Victory. Crisis averted.
The game was tight throughout, a worrying fact given Pitt’s apparent weakness. The Panthers entered the game 2-5, and held the 203rd spot on KenPom. Their list of losses was embarrassing, to say the least; it included The Citadel, Vanderbilt and UMBC.
So it was understandable that Virginia fans began to despair with the game drawing to a close and prospects of victory getting bleak. It was a demoralizing performance, even if the green “W” now stamped next to the game places a thin veneer over that fact.
The old adage “a win is a win” certainly applies here, and we should all be grateful that Virginia’s loss column did not gain another tally. But in terms of what it suggests about the future, the game was predominantly negative. Here are three takeaways.
Virginia is helpless against the zone
With a 30-20 lead with five minutes remaining in the first half, Virginia looked like it was going to pull away to a comfortable victory. A simple coaching maneuver by Pitt’s Jeff Capel made him look brilliant and ensured Virginia’s comfortable victory didn’t happen.
The Panthers switched to a zone in the final five minutes of the first half, stymying Virginia’s offense and preventing it from scoring the rest of the half. Virginia’s offense stagnated, with the glorious ball and player movement of the game’s opening stages vanishing.
Last year’s team also struggled against the zone. It had difficulty getting the ball inside when faced with a zone defense, and the same held true for this year’s team in stretches against Pitt. Having seen Virginia’s ineptitude against this variety of defense, other teams will employ the same method.
Tony Bennett is going to have to scheme up ways of combating the zone.
Three-point shooting a major issue
An inherent vulnerability of all zone defenses is the three-point shot. If you can hit threes, you can thwart pretty much any defense thrown at you.
Unfortunately, nine games in, it’s pretty clear that Virginia does not possess that capability.
Well, some of its players don’t. Namely, Armaan Franklin, the heralded deep shooter who made 42.4% of his three-point tries at Indiana last season, seems to have lost his shot. He’s shooting 23% on threes this year, and missed on all six of his attempts against Pitt.
Reece Beekman’s shot also appears broken. His numbers from beyond the arc are so ghastly that they don’t even bear writing. Seriously, don’t let your kids look at his shooting numbers, lest they suffer nightmares over them.
Kihei Clark, Igor Milicic, Taine Murray, and Kody Stattman have turned into fairly efficient deep shooters. But while efficient, none of them are prolific. Those four—the guys who have been hitting the deep shots—are the ones who should be shooting them more, at least until Franklin rediscovers his three-point shot.
As a team, Virginia shot 19% from three against Pitt, and sits at 32.7% for the season. That number needs to improve.
Shedrick’s foul trouble
This is a more specific point than the wider-scoped criticisms of the above two takeaways, but still important. If we hark back to Jay Huff’s career in Charlottesville, we can recall that Huff struggled to keep from accumulating fouls. It was a notable issue, and one that kept the valuable Huff off the floor at times.
Tony Bennett’s strict policies mean that anytime a player picks up a couple fouls, they are liable to be pulled from the floor as a precaution against fouling out. With the exception of the Houston loss, Shedrick has committed at least three fouls per game, hitting four fouls on four occasions.
His playing time has suffered because of it.
Shedrick has proven himself to be a quality player, far superior to fellow center Francisco Caffaro. Shedrick is the preferable alternative on both ends of the floor, but he’s losing minutes. If he can reign in his fouling, it will allow him to stay on the floor longer, which in turn will benefit the team.
It was in doubt for much of the second half, but in the end Virginia notched win number six. The Hoos are back in action Tuesday at 6:30 with a trip to JMU.
Image – Virginia Athletics