Virginia Rolls in Second, Ground Mountain Hawks - SCACCHoops.com

Virginia Rolls in Second, Ground Mountain Hawks

by UniversityBall.org

Posted: 11/25/2015 10:32:59 PM


Down 35-30 and with the ball after a Jack Salt turnover one minute into the second half, Lehigh had a chance to get within a possession and throw a scare into the large pre-holiday crowd at JPJ. They disappeared instead. Three missed shots and four turnovers later, four different guys had scored 11 points for Virginia, putting together an 11-0 run that gave us a 46-30 lead and sent the crowd off to thoughts of smoked meats and tables full of sides.

That skilled depth has made this year’s ‘Hoos special so far. There’s no break from players who can make plays for themselves or others on offense, and that’s killing teams who can’t necessarily go 10 or 11 deep. Only eight of our 11 scholarship players scored tonight, but all 11 scored in two of our three games in Charleston, and it’s not like the guys at the end of the rotation can’t play. Evan Nolte has rained threes on UNC and started NCAA Tournament games and Jarred Reuter has shown signs of being skilled beyond his years.

We’re going to see different guys from the supporting cast step up every night — Darius Thompson rebounded from a quiet Charleston classic to score 12 points, dish three assists, and do this — but Malcolm Brogdon is this group’s divining rod. Brogdon hit his first five shots and scored 12 in the first half, finishing with 23 points and success from everywhere on the court except for 15 feet out (he missed both free throws, looking unusually uncomfortable while doing so). AG added a very quiet 10, Marial scored 11 (and was the assist man on the ri-damn-diculous alley-oop to Thompson), and Tobey scored eight off the bench. Isaiah Wilkins only scored six points, but often appeared to be in three or four places at once on defense and was consistently around the rim on offense.

The defense wasn’t perfect. Lehigh gouged us on the offensive glass in the first half (though some of those were crazy caroms from missed threes) and got enough from Tim Kempton (5-13, 14 points) and the jump shooters they surround him with to stay close for a while. We came into this game allowing a 0.91 defensive rating, and Lehigh finished this game scoring 0.92 per possession and with an EFG% of 42.9 — good numbers, but not obtained in quite the way I’d want.

The keys to this win were that we had Malcolm Brogdon and Lehigh didn’t, they allowed us to match their season average for offensive rebounds allowed (43% coming in, we grabbed 42.1%), that we only had seven turnovers to their 17 (and turned them into a 25-7 advantage), and finally, both size and speed (London dished many of his eight assists in the lane, including a pretty dish to AG for the dunk) let us pretty much live in the lane (we outscored the Mountain Hawks 42-14 in the paint).

Ohio State is up next. December gets real fast.

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