Analysis: VT vs. UVA

I made the trip up to Charlottesville Saturday to watch the VT/UVA game, so I thought I'd write about what I saw. First off, UVA won the game because they played it at their tempo. They wanted to keep the game in the 50s, and limit the transition game of Virginia Tech, and they did that.

Let's start with UVA on offense. Having watched Tony Bennett teams for several years, I know his style. And he worked it perfectly Saturday. UVA slowed the tempo down on each possession, working the clock down under 10 seconds just about every time. More often than not, they ended up taking a 3 with less than 5 on the shot clock. And fortunately for them, they made their shots. It's not like they were all wide-open spot on threes either. Many of them were off-balance, with people's hands in their face. UVA had the most success when they sent either Joe Harris or Sammy Zeglinski to the corner. They seemed to make almost every single one of those. It seemed like Virginia Tech didn't know what kind of defense to play either - they switched from man-to-man to a 2-3 zone multiple times. It was only their pressing defense that allowed them to fluster the UVA offense.

UVA makes their living on defense, and they played it pretty well against Virginia Tech. They allowed very few baskets on the interior. It seemed like everytime Jeff Allen touched the ball, it was around the 3-point line. They also limited transition baskets and did a very good job on the defensive glass. At the beginning of the game, Tech tried to force tempo, but they were very sloppy. Terrell Bell in particular had some very bad turnovers. Once they weren't able to play that transition game, they slowed it down to a pace that UVA wanted to play.

It's pretty clear what Tony Bennett is trying to do at UVA with the talent he has: slow the game down, limit the number of possessions, and make a living at the 3-point line. When they hit their threes, they can beat people. When they don't, they end up scoring 40 points like they did last week against Duke. Regardless, this is not a fun team for opponents to play.

For Virginia Tech, it's obviously frustrating. They had been playing with a lot of confidence, and building momentum toward an NCAA berth. It's one thing that UVA hit a bunch of crazy shots. It's another to only score 54 points (with at least 8 of those in catch-up time in the last minute).

After this loss, it's looking more and more clear that the season will hinge on next week's home game against Duke. Duke is not invincible, but they are a very solid team and it will take a team effort to beat them. Tech will have to get contributions from their bench players if they have any chance of winning. Take a look at the stats for the bench players in the last five games:

Manny Atkins - 3-20 from the field, 0-7 from 3
Jarell Eddie - 1-10 from the field, 0-5 from 3
Ty Garland - 1-11 from the field, 1-7 from 3

That's just not going to get it done.