Less than two weeks ago, Virginia was at the top of the ACC standings, rising in the AP vote every week and a sneaky candidate finishing as seed on Selection Sunday.
After three consecutive defeats – the last coming home on Wednesday to NC State by a final score of 68-61 – the Cavaliers are seeing their NCAA tournament seedings weaken quickly, and questions are starting to be asked about how deep the Virginia race – one of the top five teams in the preseason – can really arrive in March.
The first two losses in a three-game losing streak were understandable: on the road in the state of Florida, and then on the road in the final minute against a hot Duke team. But Wednesday’s loss to NC State was different. First, it was the first home loss in Virginia of the season and the first since January of last season. NC State was 10-9 overall and 6-8 on ACC entering the game, with only one win over a team ranked in NET’s top 80.
So, what’s going on with Tony Bennett’s team? The most notable problem is at the defensive end of the court, the area where Virginia ranks among the country’s elite annually. Florida State, Duke and NC State scored at least 1.08 points for possession against the Cavaliers, a number they have only allowed four times in the past season. While they are still the best defensive team in the ACC, they are allowing 0.99 points for possession in a conference game – their highest number since the 2010-11 season.
Offensively, two things stand out. First, Virginia has struggled to hit the baskets at the end of games or at the end of the kick timer, when play stops. The Cavaliers do not have players who can consistently beat their defender in dribbling and create goal opportunities, as they did in the past with Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter and Malcolm Brogdon. Kihei Clark nailed his career, but he is not expected to take an attack. The second problem is the perimeter firing. Virginia gets a significant portion of her points behind the arc, but Florida State and Duke made 3s more than the Cavaliers and then shot 7 of 25 from the perimeter against NC State.
Virginia needs to fix the ship quickly, with only two games remaining before the ACC tournament, because the Cavaliers’ NCAA tournament profile isn’t very impressive when you start removing the layers. Metrics really like Virginia, including ESPN’s NET, KenPom and Strength of Record and BPI. As long as those numbers are good, the Cavaliers will not fall much – but that is their only saving grace at the moment. Virginia is 3-4 against opponents in Quadrant 1, with two losses in Quadrant 3 (although the State of NC is likely to move up to Quadrant 2 territory after defeating the Cavaliers).
It is a curriculum completely devoid of anything that resembles a major victory; the Cavaliers’ best wins this season came over Clemson, Georgia Tech twice and North Carolina. None of these three teams is above 7 seeds in Joe Lunardi’s and Georgia Tech’s latest Bracketology nor is it in the projected field. Their quality wins just don’t compare favorably when compared to teams like Texas, Kansas, USC, Creighton and teams in that area of the key. Considering that Virginia was solidly a 2-seed just a few weeks ago, dropping to a 5- or 6-seed three games later would have been difficult to understand.
Virginia will still be a team that nobody wants to face in the NCAA tournament – the Cavaliers are still the national champions in title, after all – but because they lack guards on the offensive side and their defense is not as petty as it has been in recent years, their margin of error seems much narrower.