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The Plus/Minus: Virginia Chokes Late, Falls in OT to NC State

Poor foul-shooting down the stretch dooms Virginia to overtime where DJ Burns took over for NC State as the Wolfpack won 73-65

Val Prochaska

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Chokes Late, Falls in OT to NC State
The Plus/Minus: Virginia Chokes Late, Falls in OT to NC State /
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Virginia saw its ACC Tournament run come to an abrupt end and puts its NCAA Tournament hopes on life support with a 73-65 overtime loss to NC State in the semifinals of the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament on Friday night in Washington, D.C. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down the loss. 

Minus

In 44 BCE, Julius Caesar fell at the Curia of Pompey, stabbed 23 times by Roman Senators including his friend Brutus. On Friday the Ides of March claimed another victim – the Virginia Cavaliers – but these wounds were self-inflicted. If Virginia wasn’t the better team, they surely had the two best players on the court in Reece Beekman and Isaac McKneely and the Cavs were firmly in control with a five-point lead with 1:11 remaining. And yet they lost.

Minus

Let’s start with the free-throw shooting. The Cavaliers were 6/11, or more correctly, Beekman and McKneely were 6/11. Can’t blame Ryan Dunn or Blake Buchanan or Jordan Minor for this. Virginia’s two best players, Beekman who shoots a reasonable 74% at the line, and McKneely who is actually good at the line at 85%, combined for a 54% night.

Beekman, who with about a minute and a half left, got baseline and slammed it home for the 57-52 lead:

Twenty seconds later Beekman stepped in front of Burns for the steal, whereupon Burns grabbed him in what would be ruled a Flagrant 1 foul. That meant two free throws and the ball back. The game should have been over at that point, except that Beekman missed both free throws.

Another twenty seconds later, Beekman found himself at the line for a one and one. Reece converted the first but missed the second. It’s now a six-point lead. Dunn fouled Casey Morsell needlessly – it was deep three late in the clock – and Morsell actually made all of his. Andrew Rohde and Morsell traded missed threes, with McKneely grabbing the rebound and he was quickly fouled. He went to the line with 5.3 seconds left. Of course he missed the front end of the one-and-one. The ball was flared out to State’s Michael O’Connell who made the miracle three to send the game into overtime.

Minus

Source:  ESPN.com

Virginia vacated the box as McKneely was missing his free throw. There was only 5.3 seconds left, Virginia had fouls to give, and State was out of timeouts. Furthermore, State had four players at the lane so Virginia would have plenty of time to defend should State get the rebound. It ought to be a truism by now that the best way to defend the last second heave is defend the ball as deep as possible. If Minor and Murray had been in the lane, they could have slowed the outlet pass down. Half a second delay even, and Virginia would be playing in the ACC Tournament Final. Have today’s coaches really not seen Grant Hill to Christian Laettner? This was simply inexcusable.

Minus

For the season, Virginia is shooting 63.7% from the line. There are only seven schools that shoot the ball worse. You haven’t heard of most them: Canisius, Western Michigan, Western Illinois and some school called Saint Francis. This has been a season-long problem and Tony Bennett has addressed it numerous times saying that the team’s doing everything they can to get better. I suspect this is a lie, because if it were true, the entire freakin’ team would be shooting underhand, a la Rick Barry. But heck, if coaches cannot learn the lessons of Hill-to-Laettner, I doubt they’ll be able to go back further for the lessons of Barry and Wilt Chamberlain.

Minus

The final self-inflicted wound was allowing DJ Burns to post-up Jordan Minor and not send him any help. Look, Minor is a beast and his emergence mid-season changed this team’s trajectory, but Burns is Shaquille O’Neal large. With nimble feet and great vision. He’s a good passer out of the post, so it made some sense to let Minor try to stop him. Virginia only doubled him twice, I think, and it was a reasonable tactical move. Except that it wasn’t working. The refs let Burns get away with a couple of forearm shoves early and Ben Middlebrooks had a whale of a first half and so Burns was fully rested down the stretch. Burns was 8/11 from the floor overall but made his last five in a row. He was a perfect 3/3 in overtime. Burns had figured out Minor. Minor needed help and there was none forthcoming.

Plus

Isaac McKneely injured his ankle earlier in the week and he was “sore” for Thursday’s game against Boston College. It showed, to be frank. But on Friday he was at his best, scoring a game-high 23 points while going 5/9 from deep.

Plus

Reece Beekman, free throw woes aside, had his usual excellent game scoring 17 points to go along with 11 assists. Furthermore, he harried NC State’s leading scorer, DJ Horne, into a 2/9 and 0/5 from deep kind of night. To be honest, before this season, I never saw Beekman as a pro. He was fair-to-average from deep, at best, and he wasn’t as strong as he needed to be at the rim. His growth this year has been a lot of fun to watch and I’m fully convinced he’ll play in the NBA.

Up Next: Who knows. In the NET regime, margin of victory matters and six 20-point losses loom large. UVa finished as the 3-seed in the ACC tournament. That ought to be enough, but it is conceivable that NET darlings Clemson and Pittsburgh get the third and fourth ACC invites to March Madness and Virginia is left playing in the NIT. That would leave Reece Beekman without an NCAA tourney victory to his name. And that would be the deepest cut delivered to Virginia by the Ides of March.

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Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for seven years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

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