UVA takes a giant step back in lopsided loss to L’ville

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Hall of Famer Rick Pitino couldn’t do it, nor his list of successors of David Padgett, Chris Mack, Mike Pegues, or Kenny Payne. None of those Louisville coaches could ever beat Virginia in Charlottesville.

In fact, Pitino, who was once so frustrated with losing to UVA that he called Virginia his “kryptonite,” was the only Louisville coach to beat the Cavaliers at all since the school joined the ACC. That was 18 losses in 19 tries.

Until Saturday night. Pat Kelsey, who is reviving the storied Louisville program after doing the same at Charleston, broke the curse with little resistance from Virginia in a 20-point blowout at John Paul Jones Arena.

Normally this Louisville team (10-5, 3-1 ACC) relies on its offense to accomplish its mission. This time out, Kelsey’s defense is what spelled doom and gloom for the Cavaliers. It was the second straight game that the Cardinals locked down their opponent down the stretch.

Against North Carolina earlier this week, Louisville broke away from a 61-61 deadlock with 8:37 to play and outscored the Tar Heels 22-9. On Saturday, UVA lost separation on its home floor with a little more than 13 minutes to play.

Andrew Rohde, who led the Cavaliers with 16 points (his UVA career high), drilled a 3-pointer to cut the Cardinals’ lead to 41-37 with 15:16 to play. That was as close as Virginia came the rest of the way, as Louisville outscored UVA 29-13 from there. Virginia scored only one bucket over the final 5 minutes of the game.

For all the good things the Cavaliers did in erasing a 14-point deficit in coming back to beat NC State earlier in the week, all that went out the window.

Virginia appeared slow and plodding compared to a more athletic Louisville. The Cavaliers were absolutely destroyed on the glass (42-25), soundly beaten in the paint (36-18), lost their defensive discipline and couldn’t throw a beach ball into the ocean in terms of their 3-point shooting (5-26) except for sharpshooter Isaac McKneely, who made 3 of 7 and had two rim-outs.

Outside of McKneely, Rohde and Elijah Saunders going a combined 17 of 34 from the field, the rest of the team was a collective 3 for 20.

UVA got nothing from its bench (2 points), compared to 34 by the visitors.

All that added up to an 8-6 overall record (1-2 ACC), with only two semi-impressive wins over NC State and Villanova.

“I think today, we fractured a little bit,” said interim Ron Sanchez, who is coaching for his head-coaching life. “We became a little more individual.”

Certainly it didn’t start out that way. Virginia played aggressively throughout most of the first half, until Kelsey challenged his team during a timeout.

“I just said, ‘Fellas, I’m being honest with you. Right now, [Virginia] is the most physical team,’” Kelsey said to his troops. “They were screening harder, they were beating us to 50-50 balls, they were just muscling us in every area. I thought from that point on, we were the aggressors.”

Kelsey was right. He took a team full of eight new transfers, came into a place where Louisville was Oh-for-Forever and pounded a team coming off its best win of the season by 20 points in front of its home fans.

Maybe Kelsey had never heard Pitino’s “kryptonite” line before, or maybe he just didn’t care.

“What’s the old saying, ignorance is bliss?” the new Louisville coach said.

The Cardinals’ radio play-by-play man had mentioned the program’s history in Charlottesville to Kelsey on Friday, and Kelsey didn’t want to hear it.

“I did the old thing that 8-year-olds do, I was like, ‘no, no,’ (covering his ears and drowning out the unwanted news), I didn’t want to hear it … don’t tell me about that stuff, so I didn’t mention it to our guys,” Kelsey said.

While Kelsey and the Cardinals head back to Louisville on a winning note, Virginia has a few days to collect itself before becoming the first ACC team to make the challenging West Coast swing with games at California next Wednesday, followed by a game at Stanford next Saturday.

McKneely said the trip could be a bonding experience, essentially most of a week on the road with no classes, practice and go back to the hotel to do whatever the players choose, and try to pick up a couple of valuable wins.

Sanchez, trying to slowly bring along a very inexperienced team, is hoping to find some answers along the way. His job depends on it.