Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Basketball Leads Start to Finish, Taking Down Louisville

A 14 – 0 run to start the game left Virginia firmly in control for the entirety of the 79 – 70 win.
Val Prochaska|
Malik Thomas and Isaac McKneely
Malik Thomas and Isaac McKneely | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win, but there are few better than wins against Louisville, former home of the sleazy Rick Pitino and the overmatched Chris Mack.  Look, Louisville is one of the truly great basketball programs and the team headlines the school, the city, half the freakin’ state.  And as far as ACC expansion goes, Louisville was a great get.  But Tony Bennett owned Louisville and Ryan Odom is continuing in his footsteps as Virginia now sports a 25 – 7 record against Louisville.

Plus

Virginia did indeed blitz the Cardinals with four three-pointers and a trio of blocks in the games first three and a half minutes.  The bigs were blazing as Ugonna Onyenso canned a three and Johan Grunloh had a pair.  Sam Lewis had one, as well as a coast-to-coast finish off a defensive rebound. 

Louisville clawed back because (a) they are pretty good and (b) they now have Isaac McKneely.  Louisville went on an 8 – 0 run of their own to bring the score to 14 – 8.  Virginia opened up a 10-point lead late in the half, only for Louisville to get back within five at the half.  Virginia in the second half opened a 56 – 41 lead before Louisville closed it back to within six and seven.  You just can’t spot a team as good as Virginia 14 points and expect to come out victorious.

Plus

Virginia, on the season, is a pretty mediocre free-throw shooting team, but they won this game at the line, going 23/29, or 79%, which is 13 points higher than their season average.  Grunloh and Lewis were both 5/6 while Chance Mallory was 5/5.  This was a very tightly called game, but the refs were consistent, whistling Virginia for 22 fouls and Louisville 21.  The key was that Virginia got 29 free throws to Louisville’s 18 (they only made 12.)  That was the ball game right there.  Tight games are won on the margins, and on this night, a poor free-throw team like Virginia shot lights out and collected another pelt.

Plus

Jacari White is back!  He canned a three:

But he clearly wasn’t game fit yet and only logged 12 minutes.

Plus

But that didn’t matter because Malik Thomas picked up the slack, setting a career high with six made threes en route to a team high 19 points.  This three has the same Jacari-trigger release.

In addition, Thomas frequently drew the assignment of guarding Ryan Conwell, who is leading the ACC in made threes as well as attempts.  On the night, Conwell was 3/12 from beyond the arc.  Malik’s defense is improving week by week, but he failed to grasp how tightly the refs were calling the game.  He had four fouls, and they were all tacky, largely unnecessary, fouls.

Minus

Thijs De Ridder had a rough game: nine points on 3/10 shooting.  He’s used to bullying smaller guys, but Sananda Fru has four years’ experience playing professionally in Germany and J’Vonne Hadley is a sixth-year senior.  De Ridder was banging with other grown ass men.  Trying to drive, De Ridder was stripped twice, blocked once, and tied up for a held ball once.

Minus

Isaac McKneely is playing for Louisville.  I am all for player movement; I got started writing about Virginia sports because I wanted to make the case that players should not have to sit out a season when transferring. However, I do like the old rule that you couldn’t transfer in-conference.  I should be able to wish McKneely the best and cheer him on from afar.  He was a credit to Virginia.  But he did his best to hurt Virginia today.  Isaac scored a game-high 23 points and he was instrumental in Louisville closing to within five at the half.  And his off-ball movement was astounding; we certainly never saw him run this hard while he was a Hoo.  But in the end he was 5/14 from deep, and that just was too little.

Plus

Stats that may only interest me:  Louisville took a lot more shots than Virginia, 67 – 53.  I’ve seen that kind of disparity before, but usually it’s the victor in a blow out who gets 25% more shots than the competition.  The Cavaliers were credited with nine blocks and Louisville was marginally better on the offensive boards, but that disparity is wild to me.  With star freshman Malik Brown, Jr sitting with a bad back, tiredness was an issue as McKneely and Coleman played 38 and 37 minutes respectively.  By way of comparison, Dallin Hall led the Hoos with 32 minutes.

Plus

Speaking of which, Hall was the game’s leading rebounder with 12.  And most of those were in traffic and among the trees.

Bonus Football + / -

Minus

After Virginia had their star running back quit on the team before their bowl game, Tony Elliott has just signed a quarterback who quit on his team in that very same bowl, Missouri’s Beau Pribula.  Maybe the athletic department has learned their lesson from the J’Mari Taylor fiasco and has written tighter contracts, but signing a known quitter for the most important position in all of sport doesn’t sound like any kind of football culture I would want.

Next Up:  Virginia travels to Dallas on Saturday, January 17th to take on SMU.  Game time is 12 noon and the game is on ESPN2.

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.

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