Virginia will return to the cozy confines of John Paul Jones Arena Wednesday night to host NC State after dropping two road games last week. The Hoos are in search of a win to right the ship after the pair of tough losses, and the Wolfpack will provide an ample opportunity to get one.
The loss to Duke also means that Virginia has dropped off Florida State’s pace in the ACC title race. The Hoos will have to win their remaining three games and hope that the Seminoles drop one of their last four.
A win against NC State would be the start of that streak, and it would help build momentum heading into the conference and national tournaments.
The first meeting
The two teams first met at the beginning of February in Raleigh, Virginia pulling off the 64-57 victory. The Hoos led for most of the game, but the two teams traded blows down the stretch until the visitors ultimately prevailed by virtue of good free throw shooting.
Virginia’s trio of forwards picked up the scoring duties in that one, combining for 48 of the 64 points. Sam Hauser and Trey Murphy both went for 18, while Jay Huff recorded 12.
The starting guards also played well, Kihei Clark and Reece Beekman combining for 16 points and seven assists. The bench, however, was a collective 0-4 from the field with zero points. Four guys came off the bench in that game, but only for a combined 22 minutes.
That is not a recipe for success, and it is further complicated by Tomas Woldetensae’s continued COVID-induced absence. Ideally somebody will get involved off the bench this time around.
On the other side, NC State was led by Jericole Hellems, who went for 23 points. He was the only State player to reach double figures, though DJ Funderburk and Manny Bates did go for nine apiece.
Per the first game’s example, neutralizing bigs such as Hellems and Funderburk is key to shutting down the NC State offense. And on the other end of the court, feeding Virginia’s own forwards is the easiest path to points.
What NC State has done since then
The Wolfpack are a respectable 3-2 in the three weeks since they first faced off against the Hoos. Comfortable wins over Boston College and Wake Forest were nice, albeit not that impressive. Similarly, the losses to Syracuse and Duke were unfortunate, yet unsurprising.
The one result that stands out is last Wednesday’s one-point road victory over Pitt. The Panthers have lost a slew of close games over the last month, but despite the soiled resume Jeff Capel possesses an extremely potent basketball team.
The win NC State managed to steal from Pittsburgh is a nice feather in the cap of a team that has put together a decent string of games.
NC State has not embarked on a rampage the way Duke has, but they’ve won a couple in a row and that could give them an edge over a Wahoo team that has lost two in a row.
The prediction
After predicting a relatively comfortable Virginia win over Duke, I’m hesitant to pull the trigger on an easy win again. There are simply too many variables at play to be certain of anything in college hoops these days.
That said, it’s tough to imagine anything but a Wahoo victory. Feel free to come back here if the Hoos lose and give me crap for it, but I’m betting on Tony Bennett to pull his guys together and hop back over to the win column.
The loss aside, there wasn’t much wrong with Virgnia’s performance against Duke. They failed to close the game out, but still managed to go toe-to-toe in Cameron Indoor against a Blue Devil team that recent games have shown is currently playing very good basketball.
If there’s one thing that has become synonymous with Virginia basketball under Tony Bennett (besides, you know, winning) it’s resilience. Take your pick of the endless supply of Bennett quotes, or just hark back to the national title that came a year after the worst loss in college basketball history (yes, worse than Chaminade).
Recovering from two losses isn’t quite as difficult as the improbable turnaround of a couple years ago. And really, the losses should light a fire under this team to help them close out the regular season well.
Virginia is undefeated in JPJ this season, and odds are that this won’t be the game to ruin that streak.
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