Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: UVA Basketball Suffers Heartbreaking Loss to SMU

Despite Blake Buchanan’s 11-point, 15-rebound double-double, SMU hits three threes in the game’s last 25 seconds to steal the win, 54-52.
Val Prochaska|
Aaron Snyde

In this story:

Virginia Cavaliers

This one hurts.  The game was exciting, and meaningful basketball at the end of regulation has been in short supply this season.  But there’s just no sugar-coating a loss that drops Virginia to 8-9 on the season and 1-5 in ACC play.  Were there any positives we can take away?

Minus

Virginia had this game won, up 50-45 and then 52-48 with well under a minute to play.  Ahead by a point, 52-51 with seven seconds remaining, Taine Murray went to the line to shoot two, and bricked them both.  The same Taine Murray who’d improved his free throw percentage to 82% in his senior season.

Minus

How snake bit can a team be?  Virginia had played solid defense all night, forcing SMU into a 3/18 performance from beyond the arc.  This is the same SMU that is leading the ACC in shooting the three and is sits eighth among P4 schools.  3/18!  And then the Mustangs hit three treys in half a minute to get the win, the last one a miracle shot where Boopie Miller was facing the baseline when he elevated for the shot.

Plus

Blake Buchanan played easily his best game of the season, and easily his best game since Florida last year.  BB had his first career double-double and set a career high for rebounds.  He stuffed the stat sheet with three offensive boards, two lovely assists, three blocks (one uncredited, but then, I am counting) and a steal. 

More importantly, he played with an energy we haven’t seen much on-court this season.  As I’ve written a couple of times this season, Buchanan has been bodied by re-treads at low-major colleges, but here he stood up well against SMU’s man-mountain, Samet Yigitoglu.  He got every crucial rebound and didn’t commit any silly fouls.  And with Virginia chasing, down eight with eight minutes remaining, Buchanan even sunk his free throw for an and-1.  This was the kind of game we’ve been waiting for from Buchanan and if he can continue with the strides he made today, Virginia basketball will be in a better place.

Plus

Hopefully Dai Dai Ames is now out of coach Ron Sanchez’s doghouse.  Ames got his first start of the New Year and responded right out of the gate, scoring six of Virginia’s first eight points.  The Virginia punditocracy has been saying that Ames is the only guy on this team who can create his shot, and Ames meant to prove it: all three of his buckets were unassisted.  Ames got to the rim twice and had a nice stop-and-pop.  Virginia is a marginal team and needs all the diversity it can get.

Minus

SMU was poor from deep shooting 5/21 for the night.  But Virginia was worse at 4/26.  I’ll save you the trouble of doing the math: that’s 15%.  Isaac McKneely was 0/6, Andrew Rohde was 0/6, and Ishan Sharma was 2/7.  Elija Saunders was 2/3, so he did his job.  Everybody else was pretty much abysmal.

Minus

The Pack Line is toast.  In the first meeting between these two teams, SMU scored 30 points in the paint.  Tonight the Mustangs got 36.  Teams are just shredding the Virginia defense.  You look at Rohde and McKneely and Sharma and even Murray, and you see a lot of guys who will never be confused with stud athletes, and yet, they play Virginia ball and move their feet brilliantly and deny penetration… and yet the ball still gets into the paint at will.  Virginia did a much better job on the boards, and yet Virginia was still outrebounded, 39-30.

Read More: Matt's Takeaways

Minus

Isaac McKneely was 1/9 and 0/6 from deep.  Five of those threes were in rhythm and they’re the kind that McKneely cans at a 44% clip.  They were good looks, and iMac just missed.  He’s yo-yo-ing:  three points against Cal, 22 points vs Stanford, six points now.  This is a team on the margin and really cannot afford single-digit nights from Isaac.

Plus

I love Josh Pastner as an analyst.  He’s smart, his analysis is spot-on, and he’s enthusiastic.  He’s really loving this gig.  And it shows.  Great pick up by the ACC Network.

Minus

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about the ceiling for this team would be the NIT tournament.  But the Cavs are 1-5 in the ACC, with four of those being double-digit losses.  In the newly-expanded ACC, only 15 of 18 teams even go the ACC Tournament.  At this rate, Virginia is going to be lucky to even make it that far.  I didn’t think Virginia going to be a top 3 team this year, and after Tony Bennett announced his retirement, I didn’t know if this was a top-half team.  It is quite an attitude adjustment to think Virginia’s season could end by the 8th of March.

Next Up:  Virginia travels to Louisville on Saturday, January 18th.  Game time is noon and the game is on ESPN2.

More Virginia Basketball News

Five Takeaways From Virginia Basketball's 54-52 Loss to SMU

Virginia Honoring Tony Bennett During Georgia Tech Game on February 8th

VIDEO/Transcript: Ron Sanchez Weekly ACC Zoom Press Conference - 1/13

Reevaluating Potential Virginia Basketball Head Coaching Candidates

What's Going on With Christian Bliss? Ron Sanchez Finally Gives an Answer

Report: Former Virginia Guard Dante Harris Transfers to Memphis

Published
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.

Share on XFollow Jerzy_Walker