The Plus/Minus: Virginia Crumbles Against Louisville

Although Virginia kept it close in the first half, Louisville overwhelmed the Cavaliers in the second half and had a comfortable 70-50 win in Charlottesville.

Virginia Athletics

The Virginia Cavaliers have dominated Louisville since the Cards have entered the ACC.  Didn’t matter whether it was Rick Pitino, Chris Mack, or Kenny Payne at the helm.  New coach Pat Kelsey has this year’s iteration firing on all cylinders and Louisville beat up on Virginia all day.

Minus

At this point, Virginia only has one avenue for winning a game against quality competition and that is to get hot from deep.  It worked against Villanova and again in a stirring comeback last time out vs NC State.  On the night, the Hoos were just 5/26 from beyond the arc.  That’s how many 3s Virginia needs to be shooting, but 19% just isn’t going to cut it.

Minus

Louisville pounded Virginia on the glass, particularly on the offensive end, registering 14 total offensive boards.  Virginia had 19 defensive rebounds, which means that the Cards got second chances on 42% of their missed shots.  That’s too many.

Plus

Andrew Rohde had a solid game, scoring (believe it or not) a game-high 16 points.  He was 6/12 from the field, 2/5 from the three-point range and 2/2 from the line.  He had three assists, three steals and just a single turnover.  But…

Minus

Virginia always played slowly under Tony Bennett, and they are still just as deliberate under head coach Ron Sanchez, but the Cavs are downright ponderous with Rohde as point guard.  He’s playing out of position, and doing it bravely, but Louisville’s ball movement with Chucky Hepburn as their point guard was the difference of the game.  Every Virginia defender can stay between their man and the basket, but once the ball left the hands of a Cardinal, it was being whipped around at a pace that Virginia couldn’t catch up to.

Minus

Jacob Cofie drew the unenviable task of guarding Aboubacar Traore when he was in the game and it was no contest.  Traore scored 15 points in 16 minutes and grabbed eight rebounds, three of them offensive.  In the middle of the second period, Virginia had clawed back to within four following a Rohde three, and Traore on back-to-back possessions slipped backdoor on Cofie for rim-rocking slams.  It was a large crowd at the JPJ considering that it’s still winter break and the crowd had just gotten back into the game following Rohde’s three.  Traore silenced them pretty much for good.

Read More: Matt's Five Takeaways

Minus

With 12 minutes remaining in the first half, Virgina was in the bonus, but would not take another free throw in the half.  Similarly, Louisville was in the bonus at about that point in the second half, and they got six more free throws, all of which they canned.  Virginia has only Elijah Saunders who can possibly force defensive fouls, but on the day, he didn’t shoot any free throws.

Minus

Rohde had 16 points, Saunders had 12 and Isaac McKneely had 11.  The rest of the team had nine.  That’s how you get to 50 points.  This was a collective failure across the board.

Minus

The athletic department didn’t cover themselves in glory, either.  There’s exactly one twitter highlight on their page.  Virginia lost, to be sure, but it was close in the first half, McKneely had a pair of logo threes, Rohde had a nifty recovery on a busted possession to score at the halftime buzzer and Saunders had a vicious slam on a fast break.  Whoever is handling Virginia social media gave up on the men long before the game got out of hand.

Next Up:  Welcome to the ACC, Cal.  Virginia travels to the West Coast next Wednesday, January 8th.  Game time is 11:00pm EST.  We knew this day was coming…

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