Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: UVA Basketball Snuffs out Wake Forest

Wake Forest pounded Virginia in the paint, but Virginia shrugged it off and won going away 83-75.
Val Prochaska|
Virginia Athletics

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Virginia Cavaliers

Despite all the heartache the Virginia Cavaliers have visited upon their fanbase this season -- be it Tony Bennett’s shock retirement or giving up a trio of three-pointers to SMU in the last 25 seconds -- Virginia is somehow in a four-way tie for the last bye in the ACC tournament.

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  Wake Forest sure looks like a down-trodden program.  Officially the fourth of ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s Last Four In, and still having to face Duke at Cameron, this was a must-win for the Demon Deacons.  And yet it was the quietest ACC crowd I’ve heard in quite a while. Wake racked up an astounding 52 points in the paint as Efton Reid, Cam Hildreth and Hunter Sallis shot a combined 22/29 from inside the arc.  Hildreth and Sallis gave it all back from three as each shot 1/5 from deep.

Plus

Isaac McKneely set a season-high with 27 points on 4/7 shooting from deep and 6/7 from within the arc.  He’s getting more confident hunting his shot as this was his seventh 20-point game of the season.  He had five such games all of last year.

Plus

Play of the game:  Virginia had an 11-point lead at the half and it ballooned to 14 points in the second half.  Wake Forest wouldn’t go away, clawing back to five points and then two points.  With Virginia up by only four points, Andrew Rohde grabbed a rebound, and as he was falling out of bounds, called a timeout.  Rather than Wake ball under the basket, Virginia subsequently sprung McKneely for three as Virginia went on a 13-5 run to seal the win.

Minus

Who would have thought at the beginning of the season that a lightly-regarded redshirt freshman would be crucial to Virginia’s growth?  Anthony Robinson was out with a foot injury and it could have cost Virginia.  Elijah Saunders, Blake Buchanan and Jacob Cofie all finished the game with four fouls and they really failed to provide much in the way of rim protection or support as Hildreth and Sallis got into the paint at will.  Buchanan and Cofie each got called for a moving screen.  They’ve each played sufficient minutes to know better by now.

Plus

Virginia was 10/22 from three.  You can win a lot of games connecting on 45.5% of your threes.  McKneely was 4/7 while Rohde and Saunders each went 2/2.  Conversely, Wake lost the game at the arc, going just 2/14 from deep.

Plus

This was as confident as Virginia has looked all year running the offense.  83 points is a season high and the second time the team has broken the 80-point barrier.  The team scored a season-best 1.297 points per possession.  In the second half, Wake did drop back into a zone, and they made their first run to close with five points.  It took the Cavaliers a couple trips down the floor to figure it out, but then went on 7-2 run to extend the lead.  Wake closed again and Rohde made his timeout call and Virginia responded a second time.  Earlier this season, this team would have folded in the face of these kinds of runs, but Virginia never panicked.  The resurgence of Dai Dai Ames has been a big part of the success.  With Ames there to provide secondary ball-handling, McKneely is free to run around screens and hunt his shot.

Ames is also the only guy on the team who can do this:

Minus

Elijah Saunders is in his own head.  He’s playing smaller than his 6’8” frame and yet he’s trying to bring the “power” in power forward.  But for the third game in a row, he’s spectacularly missed a dunk at the rim.  He also seems genuinely confused by each and every foul call that goes against him.  He did knock down a pair of threes and was the team’s leading rebounder, but he’s very much his own worst enemy at this point.

Read More: Matt's Got Five Takeaways

Plus

For Jacob Cofie, who has struggled a bit, tonight looked like it was going to be another rough game in a string of rough games.  He picked up his third foul very early in the second half (Buchanan was already sitting on three fouls,) but from that moment on, he played with the poise expected of someone who is really no longer a rookie.  He scored 12 points on the strength of an 8 for 10 night from the free throw line.  It’s demoralizing when the freshman big, who is not Andrew Rohde or Isaac McKneely goes 8/10.

Highlights:

Next Up:  Virginia will face a tougher test as they host No. 13 Clemson on Saturday, March 1st for Senior Day.  Game time is 12 noon and the game will be on ESPN2.

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The Brilliant Numbers Behind Andrew Rohde's Recent Point Guard Play

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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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