The Plus/Minus: Virginia Gets Skunked by Tennessee in The Bahamas

Before Anthony Robinson scored four garbage time points, Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier had outscored the entire Virginia team in the second half. Tennessee won going away, 64-42.

Virginia Athletic

In the first true test of the season for Virginia, the Cavaliers failed.  The Virginia defense held… for about a half before an abysmal offensive performance doomed the entire effort.  I’ll try to breakdown what went wrong in this edition of the Plus/Minus.

Plus

Virginia was pretty thoroughly outplayed in the first half, yet thanks to an Andrew Rohde trey at the buzzer, Tennessee went into the locker room holding a one-point 22-21 lead.  Both teams’ defenses were dialed in and it took almost three minutes before either team scored.  Given that the Cavaliers shot less than 30% from the floor (7/24) and right at 20% from three, this was sort of a win.

Minus

Tennessee’s full court pressure caused trouble for Virginia all game long.  In the first five minutes, the Hoos turned the ball over three times.  Head coach Ron Sanchez has continued a Tony Bennett tradition of his using his lead guard as the in-bounder.  London Perrantes, Ty Jerome, Kihei Clark, Reece Beekman, and now Dai Dai Ames.  I’m guessing the thinking is that in the face of pressure, you’d want your best passer making the initial pass.  This has always seemed backwards to me as I’d want my fastest, most surehanded player receiving the ball in the teeth of the pressure.  Sanchez soon realized the error of his ways and brought in Andrew Rohde to make the pass with Ames as the primary target.  While the move worked for the rest of the first half, the Tennessee press came out re-energized for the second half as the Volunteers sprung a 16-3 run to effectively kill the game.

Minus

Virginia lost the turnover battle 18-7.  But most damning was that Tennessee converted those turnovers into 30 points.  Virginia scored just two points off those seven Tennessee TOs.

Minus

Tennessee simply obliterated Virginia on the offensive boards, holding an 18-6 edge.  Tennessee turned those 18 rebounds into 19 points, and honestly, it felt like more.  Virginia scored just five second-chance points.  Which feels about right…  Perhaps the most emblematic play of the game was garbage-time player Bishop Boswell snaring the offensive rebound, while surrounded by Virginia players, and putting the ball in the hole.

Read five takeaways from the game here: Virginia Basketball Falls to Tennessee 64-42 | Key Takeaways

Plus

Virginia did pretty well at the buzzer.  Rohde canned a three at the end of the first half, and Ames and Isaac McKneely hit treys as the shot clock was sounding in the second half.

Minus

The Hoos couldn’t match up physically or athletically with the Volunteers.  With the exception of the battle between diminutive point guards – Ames is 6’ 1” and Tennessee’s Zakai Ziegler is 5’ 9” – every one of Virginia’s counterparts on the other side of the ball was bigger, faster, stronger.  McKneely and Elijah Saunders might have only had a half dozen open looks between them and they were never able to get separation.  McKneely played 36 minutes and got just six shots (1/6 from the floor and 1/3 from deep) while Tennessee’s Lanier took 12 threes and 23 shots overall.  Virginia’s single best chance of scoring is an Isaac McKneely three, but in a game that 22-21 at the half, McKneely took but three of them.  Against a quality team, McKneely couldn’t create his own shot.

Minus

Late in the first half, with the score favoring Tennessee 20-14 Sanchez brought in Ishan Sharma.  It was an ugly game all around:  Tennessee was shooting under 30% from the floor while Virginia was converting at about 20%.  The team needed a jolt.  Maybe freshman sharpshooter Sharma could help.  But Sharma is a freshman and he committed a pair of fouls in about 30 seconds, and Sanchez immediately yanked him. He didn’t return til garbage time and only logged five minutes total.  Sharma is not part of the regular rotation; who cares if he gets tagged for a third, or even fourth, foul?  Because Sanchez blindly followed the two-fouls-and-you’re-out-of-the-first-half rule, Sharma never got the chance to see if he could be that spark that the team so desperately needed.  Plenty of coaches adhere to this philosophy, so Sanchez isn’t alone.  But taking Sharma out was a gutless decision.

Minus

Can we put aside the notion that TJ Power is a “proven three-point shooter,” as I read on one website?  Power has only connected on three from deep this year and he was 0/3 on the night.  That’s not going to move the needle or help with the spacing.

Next Up: Virginia faces St John’s on Friday, November 22nd at 7pm. St John’s is going to come out looking for blood. They held a 18-point lead in regulation over Baylor, and a five-point lead in the second overtime. And yet they lost as Baylor connected on a pair of threes in the closing 10 seconds.

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