There is a very strong impulse to forget this one. It will go down in the annals of most humiliating losses in Virginia Basketball history.  No way around it.  From the head coach to the guy on the end of the bench, the Purdue Boilermakers spanked the Cavaliers with a steel girder.  Before the game, StLouHoo identified three keys the Hoos would have to hit in order to come away with the win:

1) Don’t get beat on the glass.

2) Pressure their backcourt.

3) Our guards need to finally dial in.

So how did the Hoos do?  They hit the keys the way a three-year-old hits his father’s grand piano. It was as discordant as you can imagine.

1) Don’t get beat on the glass.

The rebounding margin was actually pretty close in raw numbers. Purdue out-rebounded Virginia 31-26.  Both teams had 22 defensive rebounds.  Purdue had 9 offensive boards to 4 for Virginia. But when you convert it to percentages, the Boilermakers boarded almost a third of their misses – still below their season average – while the Cavaliers chased down a mere 15%. That’s bad, and on several plays Purdue was simply hungrier for the ball.  The Boilermakers chased down the loose balls, and they snatched several away from Virginia players. There was not a ton of damage from this disparity, however, as Purdue only outscored Virginia in second chance points 6-4.

2) Pressure their backcourt.

We learned something last night: While Casey Morsell is a good on-ball defender, he’s not good at chasing a good runner through off-ball screens.  Tomas Woldetensae isn’t good at either. Sasha Stefanovic abused those two players like Joe Harris on Rasheed Sulaimon, coming wide open off screens time after time to catch and shoot wide open threes. Purdue’s backcourt – not close to among the best in the nation – made a joke out of Virginia’s defense, hitting a combined 15-28 from the floor, and 10-18 from three, with 6 assists to 3 turnovers. Purdue’s guards schooled Virginia’s, exposing the Cavaliers for what they are, a collection of noobs, lightly-recruited prospects and walkons. I thought Coach Bennett also did a poor job arranging the matchups, as Morsell was trying to chase Stefanovic around a bewildering array of screens and re-screens – if any team in the country off-ball screens better than Purdue I don’t want to see it – while the more experienced Kody Stattmann was getting yoked around by Jahaad Proctor.  I would have reversed those matchups. What we saw, really, was Purdue doing to Virginia what the Cavaliers have done to many teams down the years: exploit an inexperienced backcourt with off-ball screening. Think back to some of the big explosions by guys like Harris and Malcolm Brogdon, and they resulted from the veteran guard being matched up against a freshman who repeatedly made the wrong decision on a screen. Purdue did that to the Hoos all night long.

3) Our guards need to finally dial in.

Yeah, my mom tried to teach me the same thing many moms try to teach their kids, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  That maxim permits a person to say less and less about Virginia’s offense, particularly its guards. I really want to stay positive and not dump on kids while they are down.  But I can’t be a commentator or analyst if I do what I want – or in this case don’t do what I don’t want.  There’s just nothing nice to say, nothing good, nothing positive about their play – last night or increasingly in general.  Casey Morsell has Arizona State – he better cling to that like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood.  I mean, you would expect to hit more threes by accident.  Our outside shooting has become comical.  I mean, from watching them play, this must be what practice looks like:

I apologize but sometimes you have to make light of something to avoid drowning in depression.  While Purdue was breaking free of its paltry 31% three-point shooting with a 13-25 performance – even career 25% shooter Matt Haarms got into the act by going 2-2 – the Cavaliers appeared determined to prove wrong everyone who has said “they can’t possibly shoot 16% all season” by shooting 16%.  It’s worse when you extract out the bigs who were 3-11, as the guards went 1-13.  It has gotten so bad that the true freshman walkon Chase Coleman seems to play with the most confidence.