Five Takeaways From Virginia's 70-50 Loss to Louisville

Matt Newton | Jan 5, 2025

Virginia Athletics

Virginia went cold from three-point range and struggled on both ends of the floor down the stretch as the Cavaliers (8-6, 1-2 ACC) suffered a 70-50 loss to Louisville (10-5, 3-1 ACC) in their first game of 2025 on Saturday evening at John Paul Jones Arena. Here are our five key takeaways from UVA's loss, which was the first time the Cavaliers had ever lost to Louisville at John Paul Jones Arena.

Virginia collapses down the stretch

There were stretches of Saturday's game where the Cavaliers were going punch-for-punch with the Cardinals. A three-pointer from Andrew Rohde made it a four-point game with 15 minutes left in the first half, but that was the closest UVA ever got, as Louisville outscored Virginia 29-13 over the last 15 minutes of regulation. While the Virginia defense had been playing fairly well up to that point, the Cavaliers had too many breakdowns and gave up way too many open looks for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, the other end of the floor was the much bigger issue for Virginia.

Hoos go ice cold from beyond the arc

Virginia came into the game ranked 27th in the country in three-point shooting, converting at 38.5% as a team. Against Louisville on Saturday, the Cavaliers went a dismal 5/26 from beyond the arc. Isaac McKneely and Andrew Rohde went a combined 5/12 from three, which isn't bad, but the rest of the team shot 0/14. There were a couple of three-point attempts that rimmed out and UVA missed a few open shots, but the Cavaliers struggled mightily to generate open looks against Louisville and it showed in the final perimeter shooting numbers.

Read more: Val's Plus/Minus breakdown of the game.

Louisville shows Virginia how to use Isaac McKneely with Reyne Smith

Part of Louisville's ability to pull away in this game was the sharpshooting of Reyne Smith. UVA knew Smith was Louisville's best three-point shooter and yet Smith continued to make the Cavaliers pay for losing track of him off of screens. Smith drained five three-pointers and most of them were open looks. Virginia needs to take a hard look at the tape from this one and replicate what Louisville was doing with Reyne Smith for Isaac McKneely. As a side note, Smith and the Louisville bench scored 34 points as compared to just two points for the Virginia bench.

Louisville demolishes Virginia on the glass

The Cardinals won the rebounding battle 42-25 and had 14 offensive rebounds to UVA's six. The Cavaliers were fortunate that Louisville only scored 10 second-chance points. There was an obvious gap in athleticism between these two teams, but more concerningly, there was an evident gap in the levels of energy, aggressiveness, and desire with which the Cardinals pursued rebounds that the Hoos simply couldn't, or wouldn't match.

Virginia's playmaking problem is getting worse

We've talked at length about UVA's point guard situation and the lack of depth this team has in terms of ball-handlers and offensive facilitators. Dai Dai Ames is UVA's best ball-handler, but in the last two games, he has played just nine and ten minutes, respectively. He was 0/2 from the floor and scored zero points against Louisville. Andrew Rohde played a good game and he deserves some recognition for his efforts, recording 16 points, three assists, and three steals. But when Andrew Rohde is the team's primary, and in some ways, only offensive playmaker, that underscores some of the fundamental offensive flaws this team is facing right now.

Up next, Virginia heads west for a pair of games in California, starting with a late-night contest at Cal on Wednesday at 11pm ET (ESPNU).

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