Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Finishes Strong vs Wake Forest

After a sloppy first half, the Virginia Cavaliers caught fire from deep and knocked off Wake Forest 69-46.

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletic

The series between these two schools is decidedly lopsided in favor of Virginia – 71-11 – but Wake Forest has knocked off Virginia in the first round of the ACC Tournament for three years in a row.  Which streak was going to prevail in the first ACC game of the new year?

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  The first half was as sloppy as they come as the two teams combined for 24 total turnovers, which was considerably higher than the number of made baskets for the two teams.  Virginia shrugged off a sluggish second quarter to win going away.

Plus

After going just 2/9 from beyond the arc in the first half, Virginia turned it around, shooting 8/16 from deep to pull away.  It could have been better as Latasha Lattimore had a pair of long-range twos where her twos were just on the line.  The ball movement for the most part was exquisite and most of the shots were wide open. 

Breona Hurd led the way going 3/4 en route to 15 points off the bench.

Plus

Actually, that was pretty much the ball game there.  Hurd, who has been growing into her off-the-bench role, had 15 points while the Wake bench contributed just a single point for the cause.

Minus

The quarter break in women’s basketball is the most jarring break in all of sports.  After jumping out to an 18-5 first quarter lead, Virginia followed up by scoring just seven points in the second frame.  Virginia was out-rebounded in the 2nd quarter and had not a single assist for their troubles.  Led by Raegyn Conley’s trio of threes, Wake closed the half down just two points, 25-23.

Plus

And for the first three minutes of the third quarter, Wake still kept it closer, getting to within a single point at 27-26.  Over the next four and a half minutes Edessa Noyan, Paris Clark, Latasha Lattimore, Hurd and Kymora Johnson all drained threes.  And for good measure, Olivia McGhee converted an and-1.  Virginia was up 46-31 and the game was effectively over.

Minus

If you were counting in that previous paragraph, that was six Cavaliers who scored in that streak.  With Yonta Vaughn still out, that is pretty much Coach Agugua-Hamilton’s total rotation.  Taylor Lauterbach was out with illness and RyLee Grays, Payton Dunbar and Casey Valenti-Paea combined for just 13 total minutes.  In a blow-out win.  Coach Mox has been trending this way for five or six games now, but this still feels strange to me given that her first two years here, Mox went 10-11 deep into her bench.  This team is really thin right now.

Plus

Free throw shooting has been abysmal for the Cavaliers this season, but Virginia went 11/13 on the night from the charity stripe.

Read More: Matt's Five Takeaways

Plus

After deploying Lattimore at the top of the 3 – 2 zone for the past five games, Coach Mox decided to drop her down low and put McGhee at the top of the zone.  McGhee is mobile and has good length and she was disruptive all game but Wake found holes in the center of the zone all game long.  Now, this Wake team is not good – they shot 30% for the game, 22% from three and 40% from the line – but a better team could have really punished Virginia.  One of the advantages of a short bench is that the women should be getting more familiar with the zone and each other in a shorter time frame, but this zone is still very much a work in progress.

Plus

RyLee Grays with the hustle play of the night:

Plus

Kymora Johnson is fast, like really fast.

Next Up: Virginia has a week off before heading to Clemson to take on the Tigers on Thursday, January 9th. Game time is 7:00pm and the game will be on ACC Network Extra.

Happy New Year all! And thanks for reading. This is worth the watch.

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Published
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.