Hoos Rue Defensive Lapses in Down-to-the-Wire Loss

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Had the shot gone in on the final play of the game on Saturday, the Virginia Cavaliers would be leaving for Pittsburgh on Sunday in the highest of spirits.

Had the shot gone in, UVA’s multiple defensive breakdowns against Virginia Tech might not have haunted the coaching staff as much after the game.

Alas for Virginia, junior guard Andrew Rohde’s contested runner at John Paul Jones Arena did not go in. And so instead of celebrating a stunning comeback win in the first of their two regular-season meetings with the Hokies, the Wahoos walked away with a 75-74 loss.

“It felt good,” Rohde said of his shot. “I felt like it was going in, but it’s the game. It happens.”

UVA guard Isaac McKneely said: “We got a good shot at the end; it just didn’t go down.”

With 6:30 remaining, the Hoos trailed by 13 and appeared out of sorts and out of the game. But they battled back, with some help from Tech (10-12 overall, 5-6 ACC). The Hokies went 0 for 4 from the line in the final minute, twice missing the front end of a one-and-one.

When the game appeared lost, UVA interim head coach Ron Sanchez said, his players “buckled down and got the stops that we needed to get. They executed, our special-situation actions well down the stretch and gave us a chance. They gave us a chance to win and I’m proud of the effort down the stretch there.”

Rohde said: “I don’t think we really had a lot of trouble scoring the ball, but we weren’t defending and getting stops. So I think once we started getting stops and got the crowd going a little bit, just kind of momentum swung our way.”

The Hokies’ final points came on a jumper that made it 75-68 with 1:09 to play. McKneely’s two free throws cut Virginia’s deficit to five with one minute left. A basket by Rohde made it a three-point game with 44.9 seconds remaining, and McKneely hit two free throws with 6.4 seconds left to make it 75-74.

The Hoos (10-12, 3-8) fouled as soon as Tech inbounded the ball, and Mylyjael Poteat went to the line for two shots. He missed both. Sophomore center Blake Buchanan grabbed the rebound of Poteat’s second free throw and passed to Rohde. With UVA out of timeouts, Rohde dribbled up the court at full speed and, as he approached the basket, put up a right-handed shot from the left side. It bounced off the backboard and then off the rim as time expired.

“I’m living with that shot from Rohde all the time,” McKneely said, “and I told him to keep his head up. I love Rohde … I wanted it more than anything for it to go down, but you’ve got to live with the result.”

Rohde, who’d missed Virginia’s previous game with a lower-leg injury, sparkled in his return. He finished with 12 points, seven assists, two rebounds, one steal and no turnovers.

After the final horn sounded, Rohde’s teammates rushed to console him. “That just kind of goes to show what type of team we are and what type of human beings we have on our team,” he said. “Everybody supports everybody. Just seeing that and them being there for me, it definitely meant a lot.”

For a program that prides itself on playing rugged man-to-man defense, the final statistics were jarring. Tech shot 52.1 percent from the floor overall and was 11 for 21 (52.4 percent) from 3-point range.

“The defense wasn’t at the standard that our defense is supposed to be,” Rohde said.

The Cavaliers’ close-outs on shooters were poor in general and at times non-existent, and the Hokies took full advantage. A transfer from Duke, guard Jaden Schutt made a game-high four 3-pointers, and two of his teammates hit two apiece. Schutt finished with a career-high 18 points.

“We’ve got to continue to build our habits of chasing screens and being there on the catch,” Sanchez said.

Head coach Mike Young’s Hokies came to Charlottesville shooting 36.3 percent from 3-point range, so the Hoos knew what to expect at JPJ.

“I give Mike a lot of credit,” Sanchez said. “It’s a team that shoots the ball well, they play well together, they made enough shots, they made the plays they needed to make.”

The Pack Line defense that UVA has employed for the past 16 seasons often takes players a year or two to master. The Cavaliers’ roster includes five scholarship players who were not in the program last season: freshmen Ishan Sharma and Jacob Cofie and transfers Elijah Saunders, Dai Dai Ames and TJ Power. The only senior on the roster is 6-foot-5 Taine Murray.

Among ACC teams, Virginia ranks 13^th in 3-point defense. Opponents are shooting 33.7 percent from long range against UVA. The Hokies made 10 of their first 17 attempts from beyond the arc Saturday, many of them on wide-open looks.

The Cavaliers have allowed at least 70 points nine times this season, and they’re 1-8 in those games.

“This is a young team, with a lot of new faces as well,” McKneely said. “So we’re still trying to put the defense together … We’re working on it every day in practice. I feel like we’re getting better. But there were stretches in the game where we [broke  down against Tech]. They hit a few shots in a row, and we can’t let that happen. I’ll take some responsibility for that. I had some lapses here and there on defense, but just all we can do is continue to work in practice and get better each and every day.”

The victory was Tech’s first at JPJ since Feb. 10, 2018. The longtime rivals’ second Commonwealth Clash meeting is Feb. 15 at Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, where the Hoos haven’t won since Feb. 26, 2020.

The Cavaliers hope to have Saunders back before then. The 6-foot-8 forward is  their leading rebounder (5.5 per game), and he’s second on the team in scoring (11.8 ppg). Saunders suffered a lower-leg injury in practice last Tuesday and, like Rohde, missed UVA’s win at Miami the next night.

Saunders, a transfer from San Diego State, is “day to day,” said Sanchez, who added that “in the meantime, it’s next man up. He wasn’t with us at Miami, and he wasn’t with us tonight, and we were right there. So I think there’s enough in the group to continue to compete at a good level.”

With Saunders out, the Hoos were short-handed in the frontcourt, and Buchanan’s foul trouble added to their woes. Coming off a terrific showing against Miami, the 6-foot-11 Buchanan was called for two fouls in the first four minutes Saturday. He ended up playing only 15:18.

“So for us to be in that game down the stretch, being down that many bodies, being in foul trouble,” Sanchez said, “it’s just a testament of the character of the guys, how they’re fighting and how they’re growing and how they’re improving and how they’re getting better.”

McKneely, a 6-foot-4 junior, led all scorers with 19 points and also had a career-high seven assists. Ames scored 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting, and Murray finished with 10 points and a career-best six rebounds. Off the bench, Sharma scored eight points in 13-plus minutes.

Of the Cavaliers’ 12 defeats, several have been blowouts. But there have also been close losses: 64-62 to then-No. 21 Memphis on Dec. 18, 54-52 to SMU on Jan. 15, and now the setback against Virginia Tech.

Sanchez said he’s trying to teach his players that every possession “is its own battle. Being fatigued is not a reason to stop. That possession could win or lose you the game. And then in the end, you take the combination of all those possessions, and if you win most of them, then you will have a chance to win.

“That’s what we’re trying to do, and this team is about 10 possessions away from being in a completely different space. Maybe five on offense, five on defense, seven on offense, three on defense. It doesn’t matter. You do the math … I think that’s how close they are, but it’s also how far they are. So that’s the lesson here for us.”

The biggest positive for the Cavaliers on Saturday, McKneely said, was the resilience they showed after falling behind by 13.

“We fought back all the way, had a chance to win it,” he said. “So you just gotta live with the result at that point. But I was proud of the way we fought back. But nobody likes losing to their rival at home, of course, and we’ll have another chance at their place.”

NO TIME TO REST: The Cavaliers are back at it Monday night. At 7 o’clock, in an ACC game to air on ESPN, UVA meets Pitt (14-7, 5-5) at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh.

Pitt lost 76-74 to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Saturday afternoon.

The Hoos have dropped two straight to the Panthers but lead the series 19-6.

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