Virginia debuts in the 2021 ACC Tournament as the 1 seed for the 5th time in the last eight years. This year the Hoos draw 8-seed Syracuse as its opening round opponent, a day after the Orange easily ended NC State’s 5-game winning streak in a lopsided 89-68 win. Virginia will have to cool off the red-hot Orange to advance past this years’ quarterfinals.

Game Details:

Date/Time: Thursday, March 11th, Noon Eastern
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, NC
TV: ESPN2

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of Syracuse:

A) They’re finally getting their bench involved. The Orange are known as a team that rides their starters hard, usually amongst the nation’s lowest in bench usage rate. And overall for this season, that’s largely been the case, as they rank 344th on the year in Bench Minutes at only ~ 36 mpg combined for the reserves. But recently they’ve been making a point to utilize some depth, with freshman guard Kadary Richmond playing around 23 mpg over the last five games, and getting around an additional 13 mpg each from sophomores combo forward Robert Braswell and center Jesse Edwards, even finding spot minutes for rookie big man Jon Bol Ajak. It’s noticeable for a Boeheim team, especially watching Richmond eat into incumbent PG Joe Girard’s minutes (though Girard did play 33 minutes against NC State on Wednesday, his first time exceeding 30 minutes since Feb 13th), but the recent emergence of Edwards (18 minutes, 8 rebounds against NC State) also goes a long way to relieving concerns about Marek Dolezaj playing too many minutes at the 5.

B) Buddy Boeheim has been on fire. The junior wing has been carrying the scoring load for the Orange as they’ve won six of their last 8 games. Over those 8 games, Boeheim has gone for double digits in every game, eclipsing 20 points in half of them. He’s gone a combined 30-of-66 (45.5%) from 3 over that stretch, using his 6’6″ size to shoot over most every defender he’s faced. In the blowout ACCT win over NC State, Boeheim went for 20 first half points en route to a 27 point on just 16 shot performance, to go with a healthy 5 assists. Virginia effectively stymied him at JPJ, holding him to 9 points on 12 shots, but he may be extra motivated after being stiffed on the All-ACC teams (Guerrier got a 3rd team nod, Griffin was honorable mention, and nothing for Boeheim).

C) The Zone has been inconsistent down the stretch. This iteration of the 2-3 Zone has given up some concerning point totals in ACC play this year. 96 to Pitt, 81 to UVA, 73 to NC State in January, 78 to Clemson, 85 to Duke, and 84 to GT. Statistically speaking it’s very middle of the road for this year’s ACC, 8th of 15 per KenPom. There’s been a big focus on forcing teams into contested 3’s, which they’ve done at a high rate, forcing the 3rd highest opponent rate of 3PA per FGA (42.2% of ACC opponent shots were from deep), while holding them to a league-2nd-best rate of just 31.6%. But in the paint, once the zone is penetrated, teams score at the rim at a middle-of-the-road 50% clip. Syracuse blocks a lot of shots (Griffin and Guerrier are very good at collapsing on shooters this way), but abysmal at securing defensive rebounds, the worst DR% in the conference. UVA was able to use a balanced attack to score effectively at all 3 levels against Syracuse in January and will attempt to do the same here.

Their season to date:

Syracuse is 16-8 on the season, and went 9-7 in regular season ACC play, finishing 8th in the league. They scored hood home wins over VT, UNC, and Clemson, but struggled on the road, going just 2-6 away from the Carrier Dome during ACC road play. They won their first game of the ACC Tournament 89-68 against 9-seed NC State.

Keys to getting the win:

1) A big scoring day from Kihei. In the first matchup, the Zone treated Kihei like a scorer when he went into the high post, collapsing on him, either from the guard position or the center, allowing him to feed his shooters (Sam and Trey) or the block (Huff) for a high assist total. Syracuse is going to adjust by sticking to our Big 3 scorers, in which case it may come down to whether Kihei can hit his jumpers, be they midrange when he plays the high post hub role, or 3’s when Reece or Sam plays the middle and Kihei comes free for kickouts. I do think Tony’s going to counter with Sam in the high post, forcing Dolezaj to choose between Sam’s midrange game and Huff’s lob finishing, a high-potential high-low attack, but Cuse will collapse guards on the free throw line to bother Sam and Kihei will be the one who has to hit the kickouts.

2) Ball Security, especially on the press break. Syracuse is second in the league this year at steal rate, essentially grabbing a steal one of out every 8 opponent possessions which they’re able to turn into easy offense. Virginia’s been overall very good in ACC play taking care of the ball, but we did give up 9 live ball turnovers to Syracuse in JPJ, a hidden stat in our otherwise lopsided win. Syracuse’s press caused us issues in the 2nd half, and there’s a lot of length in the 2-3 zone disrupting passing lanes in the half-court offense. The 9 live-ball steals earned by Syracuse in January was the season high for a UVA opponent (tied only by FSU), and it has to improve today.

3) Heat Check their shooters. Syracuse runs an impressively well-balanced offense. They’re not overly reliant on the long ball, though don’t shy away from it either. They’re relatively effective both from deep and playing downhill. So in many ways, it’s a roll of the dice where you choose to focus your defensive attention. But after seeing them bomb NC State out of the gym yesterday, going 14-of-29 from 3 en route to a big early lead they never relinquished, you have to at least pay serious attention to guys like Buddy Boeheim (discussed above) and Alan Griffin (40% from 3 in ACC play, but really the entire backcourt. Syracuse had five guys make at least two 3-pointers in their win yesterday, the worst shooting performance being Girard’s perfectly okay 2-of-6 long ball performance (Braswell and Guerrier both went 2-of-3). I’m sure Boeheim will want to establish good inside-outside balance early in this game, but it’s going to be a natural temptation for Cuse’s shooters to feel confident shooting on these rims after yesterday and want to pick up where they left off.

Predictions:

When I first saw the ACC Tournament draw, and saw UVA slated to face one of Syracuse or NC State, it was NC State I didn’t want to see today, just a few weeks after State had scored the only opponent win in JPJ this season. Virginia’s built to beat the zone with smart ball movement, effective 3 point shooters, and good finishing big men. And with Murphy at the 3, UVA’s got length to disrupt Syracuse’s size and shooting.

Tony’s got a tried-and-true blueprint for Syracuse games. Expect a minutes distribution similar to the first matchup where Tony always tries to keep at least two shooting wings/forwards on the floor in Sam, Trey, and Tomas, some good facilitators in Kihei and Reece, and solid bigs on the blocks in Jay and Caffaro. It’s not a matchup I expect lends itself to much of Casey or McKoy, neither of whom have an obvious role in the Zone-break offense as of today (give it a year).

I think Syracuse’s shooting stays hot early in this game, and may even put UVA behind out of the gate as the Cuse offense is warmed up from yesterday and UVA’s needs time to find its rhythm. The sooner UVA’s defense can find its form and lock in, the better, which will buy time for the UVA shooting to dial in. Don’t be alarmed if UVA isn’t up at halftime; this one may require a good 2nd half from UVA to earn the win.

I like the computers’ margin here, though think UVA’s cool shooting in the 1st half and improved defensive intensity in the 2nd combine to put this game on the Under.

Hoos Win – 65-62