Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Too Much for SMU

Bouyed by Breona Hurd, the Virginia Cavaliers downed the SMU Mustangs 62 – 51 in one of the uglier games of the year.

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletics

This was not an advertisement for the women’s game.  SMU, aside from Zanai Jones, was woeful and Virginia, for the most part, played down to the level of competition.

Plus

A win is a win, after all.  And you can only beat the teams that are in front of you, but can we stipulate that SMU is bad?  The Mustangs are now 2 – 15 in ACC play and are on a 13-game losing streak.  They played without their two leading scorers, Nya Robertson and Chantae Embry, 18.7 and 11.5 points per game respectively, so there is a reason for their ineptitude.  But it was ugly.  SMU was 1/14 from deep, 36% overall, and 60% from the free throw lane.  They put up a four-point second quarter.  That’s hard to do.

Minus

Virginia wasn’t much better.  The Cavaliers shot 39% from the floor, 5/26 from deep, and 57% from the charity stripe.  Latasha Lattimore, who has shown real signs of improvement in her free throw shooting, reverted to form, going 5/12 from the line.

Positive

Breona Hurd was the proverbial spark off the bench.  After not scoring in the first quarter, she had seven and six points in the second and third frames, leading the team in both periods, and finished with a game-high 16 points on 7/10 shooting.

Positive

Some players are just slow starters.  And for point guards, there is the added responsibility of having to get everyone involved, which may compound the effect for those slow out of the gate.  I’m starting to think that Kymora Johnson is just a slow starter.  She opened up the game by missing her first 10 shots.  She didn’t score her first bucket until there were just five minutes remaining in the game.  And yet she still scored eight points in the final frame en route to an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double.  For good measure she had seven assists and two steals.  In the continued absence of Yonta Vaughn, Johnson is logging heavy minutes – she’s leading the ACC in minutes played – but she gets stronger as the game progresses.  Four straight games now, Mo has played her best basketball in the fourth quarter.  It is pretty amazing that an 11-point, 10-board, 7-assist night would constitute an off night.

Plus

For the first time in ACC play, the little-used Payton Dunbar got extended minutes.  I don’t know why Casey Valenti-Paea only got two minutes, unless there was on-court tweak that I missed, but Dunbar deputized on this night.  She certainly knows her role for she gets to the corner faster than anyone else on the team.  She’s also not afraid to shoot as she took five threes in just nine minutes of playing time.  But she made this one and it was good to see.

Read More: Luke's Takeaways

Plus

Virginia got the win; that’s what matters.  Despite not shooting well themselves, the Hoos held SMU to just 18 points in the first half, the lowest output for any ACC team all year.  SMU didn’t look like a P4 team in the first; some of the shots they threw up, whew, they were ugly.  But Virginia did what they needed to win, and in so doing, are still in the running, however unlikely, for a first round bye in the ACC tournament.  They’ll need some help, like Virginia Tech losing on the road at Clemson.  Virginia will also have to take down North Carolina, also on the road.  But the Tar Heels just got a beat-down from Duke and they could be still be missing Alyssa Ustby, who has missed their last three games.

Highlights:

Up Next:  The ACC regular season concludes with Hoos taking on UNC at Chapel Hill on Sunday, March 2nd at 2:00pm.  The game is on the CW.

More UVA Women's Basketball News & Content

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UVA Women's Basketball Falls to Cal 76-70 | Key Takeaways

Sparked by Mo Johnson's Triple-Double, Virginia Looks to Finish Strong

Published |Modified
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.