The Plus/Minus: Virginia Shakes Slow Start, but Can’t Catch Up to Syracuse
Virginia women's basketball nearly erased a 17-point halftime deficit, but the comeback effort fell short in an 85-79 loss to Syracuse on Sunday afternoon at John Paul Jones Arena. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down the loss.
Minus
Virginia spotted Syracuse a quick eight points and turned the ball over seven times in the first seven minutes and were down 24-10 at the end of the first quarter. Kymora Johnson looked like a freshman and the team shot 3/15. To make it even worse, Virginia was down by 14 and that was with Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair only contributing two points. It was a dour kind of quarter. Johnson, Fair and Paris Clark would all wake up as this game turned into a barn-burner.
Plus
Coach Agugua-Hamilton started Johnson, Clark, Olivia McGhee, Sam Brunelle and Camryn Taylor. I would consider this to be Virginia’s most promising lineup, and yet 25 games into the season, this was the first time Coach Mox was able to start this quintet. This lineup has size, spacing, can attack the rim and shoot the long ball and make a lot of free throws. Hopefully the injuries have subsided and these women can feature.
Minus
Or maybe not. Kaydan Lawson didn’t dress and Yonta Vaughn didn’t seem to be present. Still too many injuries plaguing this squad.
Minus
It would be hard to overstate just how poorly the women played in the first two quarters. Of those seven TOs I mentioned? All were unforced, and they weren’t necessarily the result of a miscommunication. They were just poorly executed.
This team still does not know how to attack in transition. Watch this clip from Syracuse:
This is how you run a break. After the block, Kyra Wood is out ahead of the ball, Fair has split to the left three-point line dragging Jillian Brown out with her. Alaina Rice, who has the ball, stops two feet before she meets the wall of Johnson, Taylor and Alexia Smith. She pivots and finds a trailing Georgia Woolley who cans the three.
Virginia rarely gets that kind of spacing. More often than not, the lead ballhandler is going to try and split those defenders, which is a losing proposition. Johnson is getting better at this, but the rest of the team? Not so much.
Plus
This team does not give up. Ever. The Cavaliers came out of the locker room at half time dialed in defensively and they stopped turning the ball over. After committing ten first-half TOs, the women had just two in the second half. The ball movement was better and for the game, the Virginia had 27 assists on 30 made baskets. That’s astounding.
Paris Clark was attacking the paint, which led to this:
Clark, interestingly, is much better in the half court than in the full court. In my hypothetical Virginia fast break above, she is the one who barrels into a defender for a charge. She had yet another one today. But she’s much more composed in the half court and she had 16 points going 7/10 at the rim. She had seven rebounds, four of them offensive, and four assists and a pair of blocks. Clark also drew the unenviable task of defending Fair.
Plus
Let’s take a moment to celebrate Dyaisha Fair. Lost in the hoopla of Caitlyn Clark becoming the all-time NCAA women’s scorer is the fact that Fair is now sixth on that list, and she’s going to pass Brittney Griner in her next game.
Source: ACC Network
Fair dropped 36 points on Virginia last year and after that slow first-quarter start, she finished with 33 points on 5/10 shooting from deep. Syracuse was tabbed to finish 9th in the pre-season poll, and yet here are the Orange, sitting 2nd with a 12-3 ACC record. If she’s not the best player in the ACC this season, she’s certainly the most stoic.
Plus
If there’s a better rebounding team in the ACC, it would be Syracuse. Coach Mox played for Syracuse coach Felisha Leggett-Jack at Hofstra, so you would expect that the Mox would hold dear the same things Jack does. It showed out on the boards. Every miss was contested by three, four and five players. Syracuse had 35 boards, Virginia 34, but the Hoos had a 15-9 advantage on the offense end.
Plus
Maybe Tony Bennett can get the women to show the men how to shoot free throws. A day after the men went 1/11 from the line against Wake Forest, the women converted 11/12 from the charity stripe. Both games at JPJ. Same rims. It was a team effort: five different Hoos made both of their free throws.
Plus
Cam Taylor had a monster game. 20 points and 8 rebounds, and most importantly, just three fouls. This team is going to need Taylor on the court at all times to make any noise in what’s left of this ACC season. The team needs more Controlled Cam.
Plus
Debbie Ryan, the most successful women’s coach in Virginia history, was honored at the game. Interesting factoid: Geno Auriemma, arguably the greatest collegiate coach, in any sport, is part of the Virginia coaching tree. Geno coached under Ryan for four years back in the 80s. How had I never heard that before?
Today's attendance was over 6600, the fourth largest crowd in program history. Coach Mox has brought this program back to life.
Next Up: The Cavaliers host Miami on Thursday night, February 22. Game time is 7:00pm and the game is on ACC Network Extra. There’s still a chance that Virginia can move up the standings to 9th place and earn a first-day bye for the ACC tournament. Miami is the team that they have to get ahead of to claim it. A win would be the best place to start.
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