The Plus/Minus: Virginia Knocks off Virginia Tech
Virginia knocked off Virginia Tech 65-57 in the Commonwealth Clash on Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down what we saw from the Cavaliers in this win over their in-state rivals.
Plus
A win is a win is a win. And that is not something I have written many times in this new year. With the victory, Virginia recorded its 20th straight home win, the longest such streak in the country.
Plus
Jordan Minor was the player of the match. Who had that on their Bingo card? Minor tied with Reece Beekman for a team-high 16 points on 5/8 shooting. After a slow start at the foul line, Minor was a perfect 4/4 down the stretch to help Virginia maintain the lead. He got started with a bang as well, scoring four of the team’s first six points. He was active on the boards and helped Virginia win the rebounding battle.
More importantly, Minor was the rim runner, setting screens all night long for Beekman and Dante Harris (more on him in a moment.) Minor set screens and effectively bodied defenders in the paint. In other words, he did what he was brought here to do.
Virginia did not have a mid-week game last week which probably allowed Coach Tony Bennett to break the periodization schedule a bit. With a mid-week game, the team would probably only be able to have a single hard practice since you have to recover from the previous game for a day and then have another slow day after the hard practice in preparation for the mid-week game. Before last week’s game against Wake Forest, Bennett had said it had been a great week and he specifically called out Jordan before inserting him into the lineup. Over the weekend, he acquitted himself well. Today he was a game changer.
Plus
With Tech’s Hunter Cattoor and Sean Pedulla leading the inevitable comeback, the Hokies sliced Virginia’s 10-point lead down to five points. Pedulla would then connect on back-back threes. Which could have been disastrous, except that Blake Buchanan scored six straight points. Twice against Beekman, once against Harris, Tech doubled the ball and left Buchanan open, and he made them pay.
Plus
After missing ten games, Dante Harris returned to action. He didn’t start practicing until Sunday, and not very hard at that, but he brought a spark off the bench, some relief for Beekman, and the prettiest assist of the night.
When Harris and Beekman were on the court at the same time, Beekman was able to move to Pedulla, who came in as hot as anyone could be in the ACC, having recorded career highs in three straight games. Harris’ return allows Beekman to pick his spots, and he had four steals on the night.
Minus
Tech wasn’t going to go away and in crunch time, they brought out full-court pressure. Predictably, Virginia didn’t handle it well. The first three instances, Beekman was the man taking the ball out of bounds. And this is a Bennett tendency, but I’ve always maintained that you want to get the ball into the hands of your best ball-handler. Once Isaac McKneely took over inbounding duties, Virginia broke the press more comfortably.
Plus
33 to 32. Virginia doesn’t often win the battle of the boards, so when they do, I’m going to trumpet it. Baby steps. Baby steps.
Related: Read a full game recap here with quotes here.
Minus
Virginia played their most complete game of the season and yet were still in something of a cat fight because almost everybody takes more threes, and makes more of ‘em. Tech was 11/30. Virginia, after making four of their first five treys, then missed every other long ball. (Isaac McKneely did connect on a pair of toenail twos, so his accuracy was there.) Trading twos for threes can very easily be a losing proposition.
Minus
This team is a much better team with an effective Jordan Minor. But it means that Bennett is starting anew figuring out his rotations and Leon Bond III (5 minutes) and Elijah Gertrude (glued to the bench) lost out. Andrew Rohde is a really fine defender, and it’s why he’s playing despite averaging 4.0 points since the new year. In today’s freedom of movement regime, Gertrude seems to fit the template for making a quick departure from his first school.
Bonus Highlight
If you notice at the beginning of the clip, it’s Minor who walls off Pedulla at the perimeter and forces the turnover.
Next Up: Virginia travels to Georgia Tech for a night game on Saturday, January 20th. Game time is 6pm and the game is on the ACC Network.
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