The Plus/Minus: Despite Valliant Effort, Virginia Falls to Notre Dame
Virginia nearly erased a 20-point second-half deficit, but came up short in an 86-76 loss to No. 19 Notre Dame on Thursday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down what we saw from the Cavaliers as they remained winless in the brutal ACC.
Plus
I think the Virginia women can lay claim to being the hardest fighting team on Grounds. Notre Dame put on a clinic in how to run in transition, put up a 24-point quarter in the first and scored 25 points in the third, got 44 free throws (more on the refs in a bit,) fouled out Camryn Taylor (and London Clarkson for good measure,) and took a 20-point lead late in the 3rd quarter. And yet the Cavaliers stormed back and cut the deficit to five before giving Notre Dame multiple trips to the foul line with time running out. This was a gritty, physical game and Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Sonia Citron are going to be spending a lot of time in a whirlpool bath the next couple of days. Virginia simply does not give up.
Minus
The team is still woefully erratic. Virginia was in the game late, but just couldn’t close the deal. And that is the tale of the season:
Source: ACC Network
Plus
Virginia fought back into this game largely on the strength of the full court pressure it brought to bear in the 4th quarter. Notre Dame has two very good ball handlers in Citron and Hidalgo and one would think that they’d be able to handle the press. Even when they broke the press, the Irish could not transition to their half-court offense and Virginia owned the fourth, 29-22.
The greatest depth of this team is at the wing. Coach Agugua-Hamilton has five wings – Olivia McGhee, Paris Clark, Jillian Brown, Alexia Smith and Kaydan Lawson – so she’s got fouls to give. Full-court pressure should be an everyday weapon, not just a fourth-quarter response to a 20-point deficit.
Plus
I said Olivia McGhee should be starting and Coach Mox did just that, granting the freshman her second career start. Mox wants this team to run – and pace is becoming the name of the game on the women’s side of the house – and McGhee is the best floor runner on this team. She glides down the court, as she did scoring the team’s opening bucket.
McGhee was one of a trio of Cavaliers to reach double figures scoring 14 points while connecting on a pair of three pointers.
Related: Matt's complete game report.
Minus
That trio of 14+ point scorers did not include Cam Taylor who quite possibly played the worst game of her Virginia career. She fouled out. Again. And her six points just barely eclipsed her foul total. I’ve been watching her for three years and she has simply never learned to not make bone-headed fouls. The first marker of greatness is availability: you have to be on the court to be a great player. It was a rough end to the first quarter as Notre Dame was in the process of closing out a 15-4 run to take an eight-point lead to the break. With 40 seconds left, 35 feet from the basket, with the shot clock winding down on the Irish, Taylor decided to contest a 20% - 80% loose ball. The 20% was her chance of success. She didn’t get the ball, but she got the foul, her second of the first half. Now Taylor knows that Coach Mox subscribes to the foul-out-off-the-first-half mentality. And yet, Taylor went for the ball, and sat out the entire second quarter. Then, when she was finally released from the penalty box, Taylor got her third foul just 80 seconds into the second half.
Taylor picked up her fourth foul early in the final frame. To be honest, it was a lame call and it should have just been a held ball. But blown calls are a part of sport and Taylor’s thinking should be that she will do anything to stay on the court. But no. Less than a minute later she commits her fifth foul hedging Hannah Hidalgo 35 feet from the basket. (If you haven’t seen Hidalgo dribble, well, she dribbles like Kyrie Irving.) There was no point pressing that high, but Taylor did it anyway. Taylor cannot lay claim to being the best player on the team if she cannot keep herself on the floor.
Plus
Coach Mox is getting a lot of good video, from the opposing teams sadly, of what great transition play looks like. It’s multiple players filling lanes, it’s wings exploding out of the back court, well, it looks a lot like this:
Seriously, this play happened three times for the Irish. (Hidalgo may have the best hands I’ve ever seen in the women’s game and she’s doing the unthinkable: making people forget about Olivia Miles.) If it had been a Virginia Cavalier who’d gotten the ball where Citron did, she’d be trying to dribble it out. When Virginia can run like this, the Hoos will be in position to win these games.
Plus
If you think that free throws are just that – free – and that conversion rates ought to be much higher for Power 5 college players, this game would be catnip. Eight different Cavaliers combined to go 17/18 from the line. (Paris Clark has the most gorgeous free throw stroke. I want her to go to the line more often.) Notre Dame, the beneficiary of whistle-happy refs, converted 33/44 attempts from the pinstripe. Citron was 12/12 while Hidalgo was 11/14. No one was spurning easy points on this night.
Up Next: No rest for the weary as the Cavaliers travel to Tallahassee to take on the No. 15 Florida State Seminoles on Sunday, January 21st. Game time is 2pm and the game is on ACC Network Extra.
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