The Good, Bad and Ugly of Virginia Basketball’s Tight Loss to North Carolina

The Virginia Cavaliers ended their winning streak after losing to North Carolina yesterday.

Virginia Cavaliers head coach Ryan Odom and players | Amber Searls-Imagn Images

The Virginia Cavaliers suffered their first loss in quite some time yesterday. Entering this weekend's matchup against the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Cavaliers were riding a stunning five-game winning streak and had maintained a home streak. Given that this game was at John Paul Jones Arena, UVA was hoping to defend its territory.

Despite a relatively strong start in the first half, Virginia started to drop momentum in the second. As a result, the Tar Heels pulled away every so slightly for an 80-85 victory. This was the first loss faced by the Cavaliers since Virginia Tech defeated them 95-85 on Dec. 31.

With the disappointing game now behind them, let's take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly of yesterday's meeting.

The Good

Virginia Cavaliers guard Chance Mallory | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Virginia's performance in the first half was promising. In fact, it led many to believe that the Cavaliers were going to clinch another victory. Shortly before halftime, UVA was leading by 16 points. Unfortunately, this lead eventually started to dwindle.

Before now, Virginia had been a program that could consistently finish halves strong, but the same can't be said for this weekend. Momentum loss aside, it should be acknowledged that their first-half performance was fairly strong.

The Bad

Virginia Cavaliers guard Malik Thomas | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

When communication on the court isn't lining up, performance inevitably drops. The Cavaliers experienced this yesterday, and it looked like they were marching to different beats at times. By the end of the night, UVA had amassed 11 turnovers, which, of course, contributed to their downfall.

"I mean, I think the first half we had a couple, you know, maybe four, we ended up with 11. I mean, the key is you're going to turn it over on occasion," head coach Ryan Odom stated during his postgame press conference. "Some of them were bad beats, some of them were not. They made good plays, you know, knocking it out of our hands. Loose balls, whatever it is, we've been generally pretty good at, you know, getting on those and coming up with those. The key is you can't have those turn into baskets, and tonight they turned into baskets."

The Ugly

Virginia Cavaliers head coach Ryan Odom | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

Throughout the season, Virginia has been improving defensively, but the program seemed to regress this weekend; they weren't playing with the same level of intensity they once displayed. This could simply boil down to it being an off night for the Cavaliers, or it could be more telling of UVA's remaining season—is this where the Cavaliers start to plummet?

"The defensive intensity was not where we needed it to be. The communication was lacking, and you know, just a really, in general, a poor defensive performance overall. And in retrospect, it kind of started out pretty well. Like our guys, you know, it was 40-some 20-some.

The end of the half was a killer. I think seven to one. Beginning of the second half, another killer. We did not come out with enough fire on the defensive side of the ball to make things harder for them and, you know, once it's free and easy it's hard to get really good and talented teams, you know, out of that mode and our guys battled, you know, they did a nice job of trying to figure out a way to win the game there. Missed some key free throws, of course, but it was deeper than that. The defensive effort was just not where it needed to be."