Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia rebounds, Stomps NC State

Sam Lewis’ breakout game keys a decisive 76 – 61 Cavaliers win.
Val Prochaska|
Sam Lewis
Sam Lewis | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win, of course, but beating Will Wade just makes it even sweeter.  Look, Wade’s a fine coach, but he’s so sleazy he was let go by LSU, and by my way of thinking, he’s a stain on the ACC.  BartTorvik and KenPom both had eerily similar predictions, 80-77 and 80-76 respectively, with NC State pulling out the win.  Virginia jumped out to 9 – 3 and 15 – 9 leads early and were never seriously threatened.

Plus

Sam Lewis, who had started every game up until the Virginia Tech game, when he was dropped, and then responded by missing every shot he took, was on fire from the get-go.  Lewis hit the game’s opening three (following a great Malik Thomas offensive rebound,) scored 12 of Virginia’s first 15 points and had 20 points at the half.  (NC State had just 20 points at the half.)   Lewis was 8/12 from the floor and 5/9 from three as he matched his 23-point career high.

Plus

After going 10/45 from deep against Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers were 13/33 (39.4%, or better than their 37.5% season average.)  Devin Tillis was 2/2 and Thomas was 3/8.  It’s amazing how making your threes makes everything else easier.

Minus

Which brings me to all the complaining I read after the Virginia Tech game about how we’re soft and lack grit and how Odom was out-coached.  This is a jump-shooting team and it’s going to be tough for the Hoos to win when they’re 10/45 from beyond the arc.  Another gripe was that Virginia was out-worked on the boards. There were 110 missed shots in that game and Virginia grabbed 54 boards, 17 offensive for just a 1 or 3 deficit on the offensive glass depending on who has the right stats.  (StatBroadcast has -3 while sport-reference has it as just -1.)  None of Virginia’s bigs has a post-up game.  In this game, Thijs De Ridder had just one post-up.  This team has to make the threes to win.

There’s only one Plan B that I can see…

Plus

Malik Thomas slashing to the rim.  And Thomas has played his two best games as a Hoo these past two games.  At one point, he had 11 of Virginia’s first 33 points.  He finished with 13 points and had a game-high seven rebounds.  He’s a high-volume scorer – meaning that he needs a lot of shots to get his points, but he’s taking hard shots – but he does offer something else when he’s on the court.  And he’s playing better now that we’ve advanced to ACC play.

Plus

Devin Tillis had a quiet game.  He usually does.  All he did on this day was score 10 points on 4/4 shooting with two of those coming from deep.  The ball movement tends to stop when Tillis gets the ball, as he’d like to post up, but again, this team needs alternatives to the three.

Minus

Virginia struggled breaking NC State’s press.  The Wolfpack had an interesting press.  Most teams really have only three players pressing: one for each guard and the third player ready to swing side-to-side to apply the double pressure.  NC State had four players ahead of half court so they could instantly double both ball handlers.  Chance Mallory is going to be susceptible to doubles just because he can’t go over the defenders.

Plus

Virginia had a 40 – 20 lead at the half and scored the first two points of the second half and then watched as NC State made a game of it.  The Wolfpack scored 11 straight points, and if I was being snarky, I would insinuate that somehow Will Wade paid off the refs at half time because Virginia was called for five fouls in three minutes.  And they were all touch fouls.  But Ryan Odom had seen enough and he charged onto the court and got T’ed up.  Turns out it was the right call on Odom’s part.  After NC State made four consecutive free throws (the original foul and Odom’s T) to narrow the lead to 44 – 35 and bring the fans back into the game, Virginia went on a 20 – 6 run and it was effectively game over.

Plus

NC State’s Darrion Williams was perhaps the prize recruit of last season’s portal and he was the ACC Pre-season Player of the Year.  He’s had a rough couple of games.  So much so that when a reporter asked about Williams’ “slump,” Wade jumped all over him:

This seemed like a set piece for Wade – was too ready with this level of anger – but most players would tell you that knowing that coach has their back would do wonders for their game.

Not on this day.  Williams had seven points and five rebounds, and while he had a couple of moments of energy in that mini 8 – 0 for State in the second half, for the most part, De Ridder and Tillis marked Williams right out of the game.

Next Up:  Virginia heads back home to host Cal on Wednesday, January 7th at 9:00pm.  The game will be on the ACC Network.

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