Tobacco Road Report

By Michael

Sean Singletary has a “thing” for Gonzaga. After dropping 35 points on Gonzaga last year, the junior guard bettered his effort with 37 points while hitting 7 of 10 three point shots. Though Gonzaga looked a step slow and was never really in it, the Cavaliers earned their second quality non-conference win 108-87, which should help them during the tournament selection process.

By any measure, conventional or other, Virginia totally dominated this game. The Cavaliers shot 51 percent from the floor, converted 18 of 34 three point attempts, registered 21 assists on 32 made baskets, and only turned the ball over 12 times in a high paced game (86 possessions). In addition, the Cavaliers held Gonzaga to 40 percent from the field and forced the Zags into 19 turnovers.

On a tempo-free basis, the numbers look even more gaudy. The effective field goal percentage for the Cavaliers was an astounding 65 percent due to the high volume of made three pointers. Virginia assisted on 25 percent of its possessions while creating turnovers on 22 percent of its opponents possessions. The end result was 1.26 points per possession for Virginia against 1.02 for Gonzaga.

The only weak spot was rebounding, where the Cavaliers only grabbed 66 percent of the available defensive rebounds.

On offense Virginia looked sharp and nothing the Zags did defensively was effective. Gonzaga began the game in their 2-3 zone, which was successful in limiting the North Carolina offense in the Preseason NIT, but several three point bombs by Singletary in the early going forced Gonzaga into man-to-man.

This played to the strength of Virginia, who had more quickness in the backcourt as Singletary and Reynolds (15 points, 5 assists) were able to beat Pargo and Bouldin off the dribble when necessary. Gonzaga was really in a bind – guard the three point shooters and in doing so open up the drive – or protect the drive and give up the open three point shot. The Zags ended up taking away neither.

To further complicate the matter for Gonzaga, sophomore Mamadi Diane (22 points, 4-4 3-FG) had one of his better games this season and freshman Jamil Tucker (12 points, 5 rebounds, 3-5 3-FG) had an excellent game off the bench. Diane has shown the ability to hit the three pointer consistently, shooting 20-44 on the year, but also has the ability to score in traffic with a quick release on his jump shot. Tucker, out of Gary, Indiana is young, but shows a lot of promise and could be effective in limited minutes. When these two are on, Virginia is tough to beat.

The main weakness for Virginia continues to be a lack of interior presence on both ends of the floor. I counted on one hand the number of times the Cavaliers intentionally made a post entry pass. The first one didn’t come until two minutes into the second half when Laurynas Mikalauskas earned a trip to the free throw line. The lack of any legitimate post presence will spell problems for the Cavaliers – as long as the threes are dropping everything will be fine and dandy, but watch out when they’re not.

Overall, the Cavaliers rebounded from two bad losses to Utah and Appalachian State. As we noted here in our New Year's Resolutions, Virginia needs to establish their home court advantage in the new John Paul Jones Arena. For the first time in many years, Virginia has a home court worthy of the ACC.

We’ll know whether Virginia has it or not in the next two weeks. After hosting Stanford on Sunday, the Cavaliers travel to North Carolina and Boston College before returning home for a game against Maryland. Split these games and Virginia is in good shape. Three of four is possible, but it would take the kind of consistent play that the Cavaliers haven’t shown just yet.