Much has been made of just how much Virginia lost from last season, what with the departures of Trey Murphy, Sam Hauser, Jay Huff and Tomas Woldetensae, combined with the transfers of Justin McKoy and Casey Morsell. But if there is a team that lost more, it would be Pitt, what with the losses of Justin Champegnie, Xavier Johnson and Au’Diese Toney, the suspension of Ithiel Horton and the injury to Femi Odukale. If you’re scoring at home, that’s 62 points, 25 rebounds and 13 assists per game. This game was always going to be a dogfight.
Pittsburgh    56
Virginia        57
Positive
A win is a win is a win. Virginia has now played two games in a row down to the wire, and if the Cavaliers failed to convert versus Iowa, they made up for it to snatch the game from Pitt. 16 seconds left in the game, Virginia down by four, Armaan Franklin missed a layup but Virginia retained possession on the out-of-bounds. Kihei Clark found Gardner on the inbounds for the score and the foul. Gardner made the free throw. Pittsburgh ball, but great team defense and stellar individual defense by Reece Beekman, forced a 5-sec violation. Taine Murray takes a three, but Kadin Shedrick keeps the ball alive long enough for Gardner to grab the ball and sink the game winner. The rim wanted to get in on the drama as the ball bounced five times before sinking through the net. Clark steals the long in-bounds and Virginia walks away with the win.
Negative
This is a bad Pitt team. They lost their opening game to the Citadel. By 15 points. They lost to Vanderbilt (admittedly playing decently to start the year,) and the Panthers lost to UMBC by 10. All at home. The team’s most effective player on the night may well have been a senior walk-on, Onyebuchi Ezeakudo. Pitt did not bring ACC talent to Charlottesville.
Negative
Pitt came in shooting 27% from three, which meant there were only 20 schools in the country worse at shooting the long ball. Of course Pitt went 8 – 16, a stat that would look much worse for Virginia if Pitt big man John Hugley hadn’t tried to channel his inner Chet Holmgren. Hugley would go 1 – 5 from beyond the arc. Another game. Another best-of-the-season night from 3 for the opponents. I expect this trend to continue.
Negative
Another underwhelming performance on the boards. While the single biggest offensive rebound of the night was the Shedrick to Gardner combination that lead to the game winner, it seemed as if all the other big offensive rebounds went Pitt’s way. The stats say that Pitt “only” had a 10 – 9 advantage on the offensive glass and that each team had 13 second chance points, but in the flow of the game, Virginia’s inability to protect the glass almost allowed Pitt to steal the win.
Negative
The previous two negatives bring me to this one: Virginia is short. And basketball is a big man’s game. It’s one thing to start 5’8” Clark at the point. ReeceBeekman is 6’1” which is good size for a PG but makes him short at the 2. Franklin is 6’4”, which again, is short at the 3. Throw in 6’6” Gardner at the 4, or even worse, 6’5” Taine Murray, and the only position we have comparable height is at center. The case for Murray at the 4 is that we’ve entered the grand era of positionless basketball, which is true, but not for Virginia. We are very much playing position basketball. We’re giving up too many easy looks from long range and we’re getting beat under the boards. That’s a dicey combination.
Read HooAmp’s game report.
Positive
Kody Stattmann keys Virginia’s best run in the second half. 13:03 left in the second half, Gardner has just hit a turnaround to give Virginia back the lead at 39 – 38. Stattmann checks in for Clark and Virginia’s got a bigger lineup: Beekman, Murray, Stattmann, Gardner and Caffaro. Virginia opens a 48 – 42 lead as Stattmann has a 3, an assist and an unrecorded rebound. Murray has a block and a rebound. Size matters.
Negative
Tony Bennett’s chain. On his way out, Casey Morsell complained about never feeling comfortable in the offense for fear that he would be yanked for a bad play. Bennett has claimed for years that he doesn’t yank players for a poor shot, as long as they were taking the shots that should be taken. But with 6:40 left in the game, Stattmann airballed a 3. You could see Bennett immediately wave on Franklin, who was resting rather comfortably on the bench. It was a sub that was an immediate reaction to a missed shot. Yet Beekman, who was 0 – 4 from deep, and Franklin who was 0 – 6, each airmailed threes, and yet they logged 34 and 31 minutes respectively. So far this season, Stattmann is our best 3 point shooter – he’s connected on 50% thus far – for a Virginia team that is about 225 in the country from deep. Murray and Igor Milicic seem to have the green light to shoot, but is Bennett going to be able to nurture their confidence the rest of the season?
Positive
Play off in-bounds. Franklin twice and Gardner once rolled very nicely to the bucket and converted on in-bounds plays. It’s demoralizing to give up such easy points and Virginia did a great job on the night.
Positive
Kihei Clark is shooting 43% from 3. For two years the news coming out of summer camp has been that Clark worked on his 3. We didn’t notice the last two years. This year is different. Clark is making catch-and-shoot threes and he’s using his new reputation as a bomber to shot fake his defender and open up space. For a limited offensive player, this is a most welcome trend.
Positive
Jaden Gardner. He’s just very efficient on the offensive end. Over his last four games, he’s had 8 – 9, 8 – 13 and 7 – 10 shooting performances. And interior passing is better than I expected. He’s already had an over-the-shoulder, no-look feed to Caffaro inside and he’s found both Milicic and Murray for three when he’s down low. Both Murray and Beekman struggled to break the zone Pittsburgh brought out. Gardner’s just bigger. He might be the answer when we travel to Syracuse on New Year’s Day.