Tobacco Road Report

By Michael

After putting together a big win over in-state rival Virginia Tech, Virginia struggled all game against Wake Forest. Wake and Kyle Visser were able to exploit Virginia's main weakness -- interior defense -- to earn a 78-72 win at home. Unless Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and Boston College all lose tomorrow, Virginia will have to be content with sharing the regular season conference crown.

Neither squad shot well in this one. Virginia was 23-63 and 5-20 from three. Wake was 22-60 from the field, but a slightly better from 7 of 16 from three. All these misses stuffed the rebounding stat sheet with 86 total rebounds, but neither team was able to gain an advantage on the boards.

The difference was that Wake had 15 more opportunities from the line to scratch out it's victory. Wake was 27-43 from the free throw line and, while not a very good percentage, was just enough to overcome Virginia's 21-28 from the stripe.

Visser in particular was effective in getting to the line, converting 9 of 15 attempts and hitting the important ones down the stretch. Wake was also benefitted by more offensive balance with four players in double figures: Visser (17), Drum (16), Williams (13), and Skeen (11).

In contrast, Singletary was excellent (25 points, 7 rebounds, 2-3 3-FG), but Reynolds was average at best (11 points, 3-14 FG). The rest of the supporting cast that had been so effective against Virginia Tech -- Cain, Soroye, and Diane -- only mustered 6 points on 2-12 shooting.

As we've said many times, Virginia needs a third scorer to be effective. Otherwise they can't overcome some of their inherent disadvantages on the interior.

All this ineptness from the field and the line led to a meager 0.96 points per possession for Wake and 0.86 for Virginia. It's rare that wins come with less than one point per possession, but beggars can't be choosers and Wake is happy to get this one on Senior Day.