The Plus/Minus: Virginia Slips by Missouri in OT
Virginia women's basketball erased a 15-point first-half deficit and earned an 87-81 victory over Missouri in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge on Thursday night at John Paul Jones Arena.
Plus
A win is a win is a win. The slow starts continue for the Virginia women. Down 26-13 after the first quarter, the Cavaliers stormed back with a strong second quarter and a 27-point third quarter to take the lead. Virginia showed their youth late in the fourth quarter, but overcame some hiccups at the free thrown line in OT to hold on for the win. Mizzou is most likely going to be in the same bracket as UVa come NCAA tourney time. This is the sort of out-of-conference win that can bring good news on Selection Sunday.
Minus
Coach Agugua-Hamilton lost her father Wednesday night. These games don’t matter in the face of such loss, but Coach Mox was here and led the troops to victory.
Minus
Sam Brunelle limped off the court midway through the second quarter. Though she returned to the sideline in the third quarter without a boot or knee brace, for the most part she stayed rooted to the bench, rarely venturing even into team huddles. For a team still struggling to shoot the three, Brunelle is a huge loss.
Plus
Unlike the men, the women can rebound the ball, out-rebounding Missouri 44-41 overall and 16-9 on the offensive glass. Alexia Smith had a monster game on the glass with four offensive boards and 13 total rebounds.
Plus
Camryn Taylor fell a point shy of her career high with 26 points and 9 rebounds. She is successfully watching her fouls this season which means she can be on the court the whole time. For a player who scores her points in bunches, Taylor had points in every frame. This was her best game, start to finish.
Minus
The first quarter was ugly. After opening with a 7-4 lead, the Hoos ended up shooting 5/21 and 1/10 from deep for the quarter. The Tigers doubled up Virginia 26-13 to end the first. Mizzou was far more efficient, going 8/14 and 3/4 from beyond the arc. In addition, they took eight free throws.
Plus
As I have observed before, the quarter break in women’s hoops is the most jarring break in sports. After a 26-point first quarter, Virginia held Missouri to a 10-point second quarter and a 13-point third quarter. Sandwiched around the half, Virginia went on a 27 – 7 run and took the lead that they would never relinquish. With the return of Paris Clark and Kaydan Lawson, Cady Pauley is going to struggle to get minutes here on out, but she got four minutes in the 2nd and made the most of it, hitting a deep three to start the scoring streak.
Minus
Jillian Brown had a rough fourth quarter. Virginia held an 8-point lead with game going to the last five minutes. Brown grabbed a defensive rebound, got tunnel vision, and tried to go coast-coast on the break. She had help, which she ignored, and she tried to finish at the rim, despite there being three white jerseys in the paint. It didn’t end well. (On two of the next four possessions, Paris Clark got baseline and drove into two white jerseys and then Kymora Johnson threw the ball away in transition. With a pair of Mizzou treys back-to-back, Virginia was in a one-possession game.) To close out the game, with Virginia holding a three-point lead, Brown had the worst play of the game, fouling 88%-from-the-line Hayley Frank with four seconds left. Of course Frank canned all three foul shots.
Plus
After that boneheaded play, I would have left Brown on the bench for overtime. Not Coach Mox. Brown rewarded her coach’s trust in her by icing the game, going 5/6 from the foul line while London Clarkson, Cam Taylor and Kymora Johnson were combining to go 2/6 from the pin stripe. Brown also had two crucial rebounds in the final frame. There is a very strong any-player-can-contribute-at-any-moment vibe to this team.
Oh, and Brown made this pass in OT as well.
Plus
Kymora Johnson is a baller. She’s not shooting as well as was expected from three, and she’s showing some inexperience, but she is never rushed. Here she was maybe the fifth option on this play late in the shot clock. This was the second time she displayed her hesitation dribble en route to getting to the rim.
Minus
Take away Sam Brunelle and this team is not a good three-point shooting team. 35 for 153 is 22.8%. That figure, admittedly doctored to discount Virginia’s best shooter, is worse than any other team in the country. There are two ways to counter this. Shoot the corner three. Mizzou did tonight and was 4/9 from the corner. Virginia took only one corner three (and only five side threes.) Top of the arc threes are simply not as efficient as sliding down toward the baseline.
The other way is to drive and kick out. This way the shooter is already facing the rim. This one was lovely. The team needs more of this.
Plus
The ACC matters to me. Bragging rights between the conferences in such an ACC v SEC Challenge like this matters to me, but more importantly, when conferences are trying to get that 7th or 8th team into the NCAAs, challenges like this matter. With this win, the ACC took a 7 – 3 lead over the SEC with four late games on tap.
All the Scoring
Next Up: Virginia travels to Philadelphia to take on La Salle on Sunday, December 3rd. Game time is 1:00pm and the game is being carried on ESPN+.
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