I am not sure where to even start about last night's game. There are two positive things that I can think of resulting from the game. 1. I am glad we did not play Wake Forest (worst team in ACC) because I am sure we would have lost to them, which would have hurt our resume a lot more than UVA. 2. I am glad we didnt play UNC, because they might have scored 80 by halftime and it might have been one of the biggest margins of defeats since those years of playing Duke and losing by 60. I guess there might even be a 3rd positive, we might have just watched us play the worst possible game from this Michigan team and they were a few breaks away from keeping the score within 5 against a probable tournament team.
So we got the standard positives out of the way, I will take a few minutes to analyze what actually happened last night. I am still frustrated and annoyed at how bad a team I thought was a legit top 12 in the country performed last night. We all know they played terribly, and most of us know the main reasons. So there is no reason for me to go on and on.
FOUL TROUBLE killed us again. In my preview one of the biggest matchups was Jordan Morgan v Mike Scott. But Michigan game out and tried to defend him with a slow, unathletic gump of a dude that cant keep his hands straight up when he plays defense. So he gets whistled almost every time he plays post defense. Of course I am talking about the one and only Smot. He is so frustrating to watch, he was having his best offensive game of the year but then complimented it with one of his worst defensive performances. He racked up 5 fouls in incredible time.. maybe we wanted to play hack-a-Cavalier with just Smot. Since Horford looks weak and useless on the court most of the time, we were stuck with our back up power forward guarding a first team all-ACC-er. This is our 6'3" linebacker of Zak Novak. Mike Scott is the exact type that Novak cannot match up with at all. Scott was able to shoot over him, also able to see the court for WIDE OPEN cross court passes for easy jump shots, rebound over him, and to make matters even worse... Scott was also quicker than Novak. That made for a great outing for Mike Scott (18 points and double digit rebounds). Lets move on to our second key matchup, Tim Hardaway and Harris for UVA. Tim wanted to call on his inner-Smot by picking up 2 first half fouls in 4 minutes. Then Beilein was forced to sit him until halftime (questionable since Hardaway usually finishes with 2 fouls for games). He was held to 5 points because once he came back in he was so far out of any sort of rhythm that most shots were forced. Meanwhile, Harris was able to camp out at the 3 point line and have shooting practice since we wanted to see if a team could shoot better than Duke against us. Our defense proved that they can allow even a bad shooting team to have career games. This is going to be great watching us try to defend Sullinger. So the key matchups for the game were heavily in favor of the Cavaliers.
Why else did we lose? We outfouled Virginia 20-12, and got out scored from the free throw line by 13 from the free throw line (4-7 vs 17-22). Also, we got outrebounded by one of the worst rebounding teams in the country. We outrebounded Duke, Memphis, and UCLA, but get outrebounded by a team that never crashes the offensive glass to stop the fast break. Somehow we found ways to give up offensive rebounds, especially out of the 1-3-1. These two stats might be the main factors for the loss.
I hope this team was still tired from Hawaii, because they are going to have to play better on the road to finish with a winning B1G record. (B1G schedule and team preview will be coming soon).
Also, since this is my blog, I will keep complaining... I have had enough of Stu Douglass playing so much. As a senior I would expect one of the "leaders" to run the offense that he has been in for 4 years better, and to take better shots. How many half court threes can the dude take in one game. Yes, he made one of them, but does that give him the green light to shoot and miss 3 more? I dont think it should. Also, the moron doesn't understand the concept of boxing out anyone on the defensive end. 2 of UVA's offensive boards were from Stu not putting his body into his man (it led to 5 points). He has been struggling with that all year, I just havent mentioned much since they have won or played well until last night. As much as he can make a few shots for us, he needs to improve on the little things to see the floor as much as he does. Everyone knows how much I like Trey Burke so far this year, but last night he had so many bad turnovers. He finally looked like a freshman last night to me, maybe it was the good defense or being on the road. How many times can you try to dribble behind your back when you are inside the 3 point line. People will sag to stop dribble penetration and will be there to steal the ball when you are careless with it. He will need to improve holding onto the ball when B1G time comes around. Also, he struggled to run any sort of offense for most of the game, we were forced to take fade away shots from all over the court. We didnt try to attack the pick and roll much or get Morgan involved in the offense.
I could go on and on. I hope last night was just a bad game from a tired young team (like Duke too losing by 21 to Ohio). But I do not like losing, especially when we dont play well. So hopefully we will see some improvement as the 5-2 cagers head home to take on baby Michigan State... I mean Iowa St on Saturday!
Go Blue!
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