How Good Are The Virginia Cavaliers?

How good are the Virginia Cavaliers? Are they the team that was un-ranked after putting up a less than impressive 9-4 performance out of conference? Or are they the team that led the ACC with a 0.22 efficiency margin en route to winning their first regular season title since 1981? While Tony Bennett’s squad has steadily improved over the past two months, the ACC tournament will clear up these questions.

How far will Joe and Tony go?

Big things were expected from the Cavaliers this year as they returned almost their entire team after a NIT run last year including a potential ACC player of the year in senior Joe Harris. The team was predicted to finish fourth in the ACC during the pre-season and many expected Virginia to make the NCAA tournament for just the second time in the Bennett area. 

Last Year:

The Wahoos put themselves in a position for a NCAA invitation last year, but their road woes were too much to overcome. After a court storming 73-68 victory over Duke to end February, Virginia promptly lost back to back road games to Boston College and Florida State by a total of three points. This was a microcosm of UVA’s season as they were dominant at home going 9-0 in conference play but just 2-7 on the road. Besides for a 93-81 loss to UNC where P.J. Hairston went off for 29 points all of their road losses came down to a few possessions at the end. Along with their conference road woes, Virginia also had several bad out of conference losses to George Mason, Delaware, and Old Dominion on their resume. Looking ahead to 2013-14 it wasn’t hard to see that UVA had a good chance to improve on their 11-7 ACC record with an additional year of experience.

Out of Conference:

It might be bit of an understatement to say that the first two months of the year were not too kind to Virginia. After an easy win against an undermanned JMU team, the Cavaliers lost to VCU on a game-ending three at John Paul Jones arena. They followed the heart breaking loss up with a win in Charlotte against a scrappy Davidson squad and then proceeded to win five more games in a row. Their six game winning streak came to an end at home in the ACC / Big 10 challenge. In one of the ugliest (if not the ugliest) games of the year, Virginia lost to Wisconsin 38-48. Yes, you read that correctly. Neither team broke 50 points as both teams combined to go 6-34 from the three point line. Add in a road loss at Wisconsin-Bay and a 35 point drubbing at the hands of Tennessee and things were not looking pretty heading into conference play. Along with the win over Davidson, UVA’s best win was a 76-73 victory over unranked SMU in Corpus Christi, TX.

ACC Play:

Joe Harris, a four-year starter at UVA who averaged 16 points per game as a junior was struggling as a senior. The native of Washington had several conversations with Tony Bennett prior to conference play and credits those talks in helping turn around Virginia’s fortunes as they “rededicated themselves to their “pack-line” man-to-man defense". UVA started conference play in Tallahassee and quickly vanquished their road demons with a 62-50 win at Florida State in a game where Harris only played two minutes due to an injury. The Cavaliers followed their road win up by blowing out Wake at home and then they went down to Raleigh and beat down N.C. State by 31 points in a game where they forced the ACC player of the year, TJ Warren into his worst game of the year (1-9 FG’s). Virginia suffered their first loss in game number four at Cameron Indoor. After being down for most of the game, UVA came roaring back but thanks to a fortuitous bounce on a Rasheed Sulaimon three the Blue Devils survived. The Cavaliers then reeled off 13 games in a row which included a conference clinching nineteen point home win over Syracuse. Virginia finished 16-2 in conference play with the 2012 UNC team being the last ACC team to finish with just  two losses as they went 14-2.

Discussion:

Virginia has always been known for its stellar defense in the Tony Bennett area. In 2012, Virginia ranked No. 6 in the country in Ken Pomeroy’s defensive ratings. In 2013 they finished at No. 24 and now in 2014 they sit at No. 4. Along with their pack-line defense, the Cavaliers limit transition points and as noted in Luke Winn’s power rankings they rank in Synergy’s top 10 in "lowest percentage of defensive possessions allowed in transition" and in the top 10 on hoop-math.com in "lowest percentage of initial field-goal attempts allowed in transition." Now that UVA’s defensive prowess is noted let’s look at a few other factors.

             ACC Play:

Much has been made about the unbalanced scheduling created by conference re-alignment. While it’s true that all Virginia can do is beat the teams in front of them (which they did) it is also true that the schedule makers were extremely kind. Virginia played one game against each of the top four teams in the conference going 3-1 with a buzzer beating road win at Pittsburgh and home wins against North Carolina and Syracuse. Their other 13 wins came against teams that are not expected to make the tournament. While the ACC is expanding the overall performance of the conference has deteriorated. In 2004, six out of the nine ACC teams made the tournament. Now, in 2014 only five teams out of 15 will make the tournament. 

Offense:

Virginia has slowly improved their offensive efficiency as they now sit at No. 26 in the country in KenPom’s rankings. They improved their points per possession in conference play from 1.05 in 2013 to 1.13 in 2014 and the Cavaliers also have a freshman point guard in London Perrantes that does not turn the ball over (4.5 A/TO rate). The Wahoos go eight deep and are led by red-shirt sophomore Malcolm Brogdon who shook off the rust from his red-shirt year and scored in double-figures in every single ACC game on his way to earning 2nd team All-Conference. Harris, while not getting as many shots as he did last year knocked in 42% of his three pointers. Add in Akil Mitchell, Mike Tobey, and Anthony Gill, Justin Anderson, and Evan Nolte coming off the bench and you get a well-rounded and versatile offensive team.

Tempo:

UVA loves to play slow and smart. Whether it was at Washington State or now in Charlottesville, a Tony Bennett led team has never averaged more than 63 possessions per game. The highest they have finished in the country was No. 317 in 2010 and they just finished the ACC regular season with a pace of 59.5. While this is how UVA is comfortable playing it could lead to an increased chance of a potential upset in the NCAA tournament. Less possessions equals less chances to put an inferior opponent away early on.

Tournament Play:

In Bennett’s first four years in C-Ville he has one tournament appearance in 2012 which ended with a 71-45 loss to Florida. In the ACC tournament, Bennett won his first every game in 2010 with a 68-62 victory over Boston College. In 2011, 2012, and 2013 the Cavaliers exited in the first round thanks to a monumental overtime collapse against Miami and back to back losses to N.C. State.

Overall:

Virginia is currently ranked as the No. 5 team in the KenPom rankings and they have an outside shot at a No. 1 seed. Are they worthy of this high billing? Probably not, given their best out of conference victory came against an unranked SMU team and while they went 16-2 in ACC play they were boosted by a strong home court (in conference play), an easy schedule, and a weak conference. That being said, the Cavaliers are definitely a team to be reckoned with due to their strong defense and well-rounded offensive team. The Cavaliers will be tested in Greensboro at the ACC tournament this weekend. If they can run the table against top 40 teams in a neutral court then maybe, they might just be for real.