UVA Shows Capel’s Young Team ‘What Elite Looks Like’

By Jerry Ratcliffe

The basketball road has to be a very weary one for Jeff Capel. Accustomed to winning as Mike Krzyzewski’s right-hand man at Duke for six seasons, Capel took on the challenge of rebuilding Pitt, which was nearly bankrupt of talent.

After a 73-49 drubbing at No. 2 Virginia on Saturday afternoon, Capel was numb from another defeat as the Panthers lost their 23rd consecutive road game dating back to 2017.

Still, the Pitt coach knew greatness when he saw it.

“What I told our team afterward was, this is what elite looks like,” Capel told his young Panthers in describing opponent Virginia. “This is what we aspire to get to.”

The Cavaliers reeled off their sixth straight win, upping their record to 26-2 (14-2 ACC) with one week remaining in the regular season. UVA has its third quick Saturday-Monday turnaround (all three Monday’s have been on the road) at Syracuse, then closes out at home next Saturday against Louisville.

Give Virginia credit. It has faced two of the league’s bottom feeders in the past week (a 30-point home win over Georgia Tech) and did exactly what No. 2 teams in the country are supposed to do. The Cavaliers chewed them up and spit them out.

Tech’s Josh Pastner said that if UVA continues to play the way it did against his squad, then the Cavaliers are probably the odds-on favorite to win the national championship.

Capel, who knows something about that level of play, didn’t quite go that far, but described Virginia’s performances as a thing of beauty.

“Playing against them is very difficult … watching them, though, it’s beautiful to watch them defensively,” Capel said. “It’s like an elite level as if you had someone to choreograph their defense.”

Tony Bennett’s “pack-line” defense is indeed a thing of beauty for those who appreciate defensive basketball. It is choreographed every day in practice. It’s like they’re all connected by the same string and Bennett is the puppeteer.

Capel wasn’t upset with his team’s 12th straight loss this season. He felt his players (he relies heavily on three freshmen in this rebuild) did a good job at times considering the circumstances.

“Really good players can make defense look bad, so I don’t think it was as much our defense as that [Virginia] is really good,” the Pitt coach said.

He referenced Virginia’s “three pros,” a thought echoed by Tech’s Pastner a few nights earlier, De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome, and Kyle Guy. Yeah, if those guys are having a good night, chances are you’re not.

On Saturday, they were on fire. The three combined for 42 points and made 14 of 20 shots from the field, including Guy’s 5 for 7 beyond the arc, in addition to 9 for 10 at the free throw line. That will usually break anyone’s back.

It was another dominating performance by the host Wahoos, who improved to 14-1 at home this season. UVA shot 59 percent from the field (24-41) and 56 percent from Bonusphere (9-16), 80 percent at the line (16-20).

How do you beat that?

When it was over, media had little choice but to quiz Bennett on the obvious. With a week left in the regular season, has he talked to his players about capturing yet another ACC regular season title and the rapidly approaching ACC Tournament?

“We talked about it for sure,” Bennett said. “There’s something I read in a book, but it was a coach talking about the joy of competition and the fun in a pursuit of a championship.

“We’re fortunate for the conference to be in the pursuit, so have joy, have fun doing it, but you better be locked in and ready to go.”

Bennett said even if he hadn’t broached the subject with his players that they’re keenly aware of their surroundings and what lies ahead.

“Over the regular season conference title, if you’re in contention for that, that’s a test,” Bennett said. “That’s long, a lot of games, and very important.”

A team’s entire body of work in a conference is a big deal, unbalanced schedule or not. Virginia’s faced Duke twice, North Carolina once, Virginia Tech twice, presently the remainder of the top four in the ACC.  If you take a look at the cellar dwellers, Boston College, Miami, Wake, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, and Pitt, well, the Cavaliers have only had the pleasure of playing each one of those once, with the exception of the Irish.

Virginia has run the table against that lineup, more often than not with a lopsided result similar to the pummelings the Wahoos have handed to Pitt and GT this week.

There’s a good reason why.

“We got the greatest lesson learned ever last year,” said Guy, who led UVA with 17 points against the Panthers. “So even though [Pitt] is a young team and they may not be the greatest team this year, they played really hard. We were just trying to win any way we could.”

Guy said he and his teammates, particularly with last March’s upset loss to UMBC in mind, are clearly focused on what lies ahead, but refuse to take their collective eyes off the immediate targets: Syracuse and Louisville. The rest will arrive soon enough.

“For me individually, I have this ‘umbrella goal,’” Guy shared. “First, you win the ACC championship, and then everything else will fall underneath. If we take care of business, then everything else will be fine. We are absolutely hunting for three championships this year.”

The first once can be wrapped up this week if the Cavaliers win out over the Orange and the Cardinals. The second is scheduled in Charlotte week after next. The big one is at the end of the rainbow in Minneapolis.

Lessons learned, Virginia wants them all.