The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Trip to Bahamas Ends With a Thud

Day 3 of the Discover Puerto Rico Shootout ends poorly as Virginia falls to Wyoming 71-66.

Virginia Athletics

Virginia women's basketball ended their trip to Puerto Rico unceremoniously with a 71-66 loss to Wyoming on Saturday. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down the loss.

Minus

In a departure from the two previous games of the Shootout, games which were back and forth from the opening tip-off, Virginia fell behind early and was constantly chasing this game.  Down by 10 early in the fourth quarter, Virginia clawed back to within three but ultimately couldn’t catch Wyoming.

Minus

Edessa Noyan missed her fifth consecutive game and Latasha Lattimore missed this one.  That left Taylor Lauterbach and RyLee Grays as the two remaining bigs, and though they gave it their all, they were no match down low for Wyoming’s Allyson Fertig who scored 22 points on 8/14 shooting and a 6/8 performance from the line.  Grays fouled out and both she and Lauterbach each only notched four points.  Lauterbach is going to be useful leading the second team, but she’s out of her depth against an Allyson Fertig.

Plus

Kymora Johnson was the best player in the tournament and she was game-high scorer with 26 points on 4/7 shooting from deep and going 6/8 from the line.  She also had nine rebounds and four assists.  She has quite the array of circus shots and she’s the one player I trust on Virginia to make something happen going 1 v 2 to the rim.  It’s taken me a while to appreciate just how fast she is, and I was worried that she might tire down the stretch after playing 39 minutes in the each of the previous two games. I needn’t have worried, Mo had 13 points in the final quarter.  It may well have been the finest 10 minutes of her career.

Minus

66 points, Johnson scored 27 of them…  If anyone had pulled out their calculator (sorry, I’m old, I meant phone…) it would be readily apparent that Mo scored 40% of the team’s points.  She just had no help on the day.  Lattimore missed the game and Paris Clark is still being eased into the full rotation.  Clark was also strangely passive, taking just four shots in 22 minutes.  Breona Hurd had a rough night shooting just 2/8 en route to six points.  Olivia McGhee is proving to be quite mercurial as a shooter, and I don’t mean that in the good way.  She followed up Friday’s 2/10 and 1/5 night against Washington State with a 3/9 and 1/5 performance against Wyoming.  She’s got a pretty shot and she gets great elevation, but she is connecting on just 29% of her threes for the season.  Yonta Vaughn was the only other double-digit scorer going 4/10 overall and 2/5 from deep.

Minus

In the three games of this tournament, playing decent, non-cupcake competition, Virginia went 6/21 (Green Bay), 7/20 (Washington State), and now 7/21 from beyond the 3-point arc.  Guess what?  Virginia is shooting 32% from deep on the season, so these games are perfectly representative of what the Cavaliers can do.  Johnson is scorching the nets at 47% but after her, the next most effective shooter Virginia has got is Vaughn at 33%.

For reference, 32% from deep is the ACC’s 14th best conversion rate.  I’d typically be dismissive of Lauterbach (2/5 on the season) or Lattimore (4/12 on the season) taking more threes, but the points do need to come from somewhere.

Minus

While I am comparing game averages to season averages, the Cavaliers are making 67.5% of their free throws.  Against Wyoming, UVa went 13/19 or 68%.  Free throw shooting has been a strong part of Virginia’s game, even before the arrival of coach Agugua-Hamilton, but Breona Hurd and Latasha Lattimore, who’ve made the most trips to the charity stripe, are connecting on 61% and 51% respectively. 

In a way, all three games turned in Puerto Rico turned on free throws.  Virginia knocked off Green Bay by going 10/11 from the line in the fourth quarter.  A late technical against Coach Mox gave Washington State two free points in a one-point game.  And on this day, Wyoming got 11 more free throws than did Virginia.  Wyoming’s +5 free throw differential was the same as the point spread.  In other words, that was the ballgame.

Up Next:  Virginia hosts Auburn in the second ACC vs SEC Challenge on Thursday, December 5th.   Note the early game time, 6:00pm, and thankfully the game is on the ACC Network.  (Three games of FloSports is enough.)  Auburn was predicted to finish 12th in the SEC media vote, but Bart Torvik has them at #39 in the nation.  Seems high, but in any event, Auburn, like Virginia, has beaten up on their cupcakes and hopes to end the year in the top half of their conference.

More UVA Women's Basketball News & Content

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Falls to Washington State

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Holds off Green Bay

UVA Women's Basketball Escapes Green Bay for 66-61 Win in Puerto Rico

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women's Basketball Buries Bethune-Cookman