Cavaliers Now

The Championship Saturday Plus/Minus: Virginia Dumps Dayton

Virginia men’s hoops team held serve for their part in Wahoos-Take-Over-Charlotte Day, downing Dayton 86 – 73 behind Jaccari White’s perfect day.
Val Prochaska|
Jaccari White
Jaccari White | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  Only in this case, on supposedly neutral-court Charlotte against a fine Dayton team, this could end up being a Quad 1 win.  The karma gods were smiling on men’s basketball because this was anything but a neutral game; watching the game over the airwaves, the crowd sounded louder than a JPJ home crowd.

Minus

Football brought the fans to Charlotte for the ACC Championship game, but the team couldn’t knock off Duke for a second time this year.  The Cardiac Cavs made it a heart-wrenching, stomach-churning affair before falling in OT (but of course) 27 – 20.

Plus

Jaccari White put on a show going 9/9 from the floor including a jaw-dropping 7/7 from three.  He had a solo 16-point run of his own early in the second half to blow a tight game wide open and bring to mind memories of Kyle Guy, Isaac McKneely and even Tomas Woldetensae.  Jaccari now has made 11 straight threes, tying Guy for the longest such streak in Virginia history.

Plus

The Jacarmy, fans who come to games sporting White’s now-trademark headband and wearing olive-green t-shirts, showed out for this game.  I have to hand it to these guys, they got on the Jaccari bandwagon from the get-go.  Announcer Randolph Childress had the best line of the broadcast wondering when these guys are going to go full Jacarmy and actually shave their heads.

The Jacarmy
Jaccarmy's Army: The Jacarmy | Instagram.com/ @The Jacarmy

Plus

This was a great matchup, though hard to stomach for the Tony Bennett holdovers out there.  Dayton has decent size, great athleticism, and they bring the full-court pressure from the opening tip off.  Coming into this game, Dayton had three times forced opponents into 20+ turnovers.  Count Virginia as victim #4 as the Hoos turned it over 21 times.  Much of this was just due to Dayton being really good, though freshman Chance Mallory did get sped up and had a pair of particularly egregious turnovers amongst his four.  But’s that why this was such a fabulous out-of-conference matchup.  Best to get these jitters out of the way now and the coaching staff will have lots of footage for instruction.

Plus

Speaking of down-the-line teaching points, Virginia had to play grown-up basketball.  De’Shayne Montgomery had these two slams back-to-back.

And actually, Montgomery had a prettier dunk when he had an open lane to the basket following his steal.  He went up with the ball in his left hand and only as he was above the rim, did he transfer the ball to his right hand.

Plus

Outside of White, the Hoos shot 5/13 from deep, or 38%.  The most important 3 of the game might have been Devin Tillis’ first.  The game was still whip-sawing back in forth in the early minutes of the second half and Dayton’s Amael L’Etang had just canned a three to close Dayton to 46 – 41 when Tillis sunk his three to increase the lead to 49 – 41.  While we will never know, because White then went on his personal 16 – 0 run, it was Tillis’ three that felt like the backbreaker.

Plus

Virginia’s ball movement is near elite as the Cavaliers had 21 assists on 27 made buckets.  Dallin Hall, Mallory and Thijs De Ridder can all get into the paint at will and then make the kick out.  And once on the perimeter, the Hoos will make two, three or four passes to find the best three-point offering.  Virginia is playing some unselfish basketball.

Minus

The game could have gotten away from Virginia as Dayton put together a 14 – 0 late in the second half to cut the lead to 74 – 68.  The Flyers did this in less that three minutes.  It took me by surprise, I know it took the Cavaliers by surprise.  White’s final three of the day (off an offensive rebound by The Stud of Charlottesville, Chance Mallory) broke the run.

Minus

De Ridder had his worst game in a Cavaliers uniform.  He missed his first five shots and had a turnover before coach Ryan Odom yanked him.   Two of those misses were from beyond the arc, and while it is nice when your bigs can pop outside, I think De Ridder needs to be the one to establish Virginia’s post game.  Johan Grunloh is showing great explosion in the dunker slot, but his post game still needs work.

Plus

Virginia came into the game as the nation’s second best shot blocking team at over seven blocks per game.  The box score will show that Virginia only recorded three blocks for the game, but the length of the Hoos bothered Dayton considerably as the Flyers only shot 39% from the floor.  The problem for Dayton is that they were athletic enough to challenge at the rim, but not good enough to convert.  This was the real difference in the game.

Next Up: It's back to cupcakes for a pointless game. Virginia hosts UMES on Tuesday, December 9th. Game time is 7:00pm and the game is on ACC Network Extra.

Published | Modified
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for nine years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

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