Another Night at the Office for Virginia
Posted on Monday, Dec. 3, 2018, 10:53 pm
Follow Jerry Ratcliffe on Twitter
Advertising inquiries: Connect with us
Email Jerry Ratcliffe: jratcliffe7000@gmail.com
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Virginia has bolted out of the blocks just like most everyone projected the No. 4 team in the country would.
The Cavaliers have taken care of business. They’ve soundly beaten a series of Rent-A-Victims, just the way Top 10 teams are expected to do. They’ve been at their best in beating a pair of ranked teams to confirm the worthiness of their own ranking.
Monday night was just another day at the office, if your office happens to be John Paul Jones Arena, where UVa pummeled Morgan State 83-45.
It’s not easy for most teams to keep up the intensity when they’re leading by 20 or 30 points. That has not been the case for Virginia, which has a not-so-subtle reminder to prevent that attitude.
“It’s very easy considering how last season ended,” Kyle Guy said, recalling the team’s loss to No. 16 seed UMBC in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
Indeed.
That’s why Morgan State might as well have been another Top 25 opponent. Virginia was going to treat the Bears the same as the Badgers or the Terps.
Still, once reality set in, that the Bears weren’t the Badgers or the Terps, it was what old schoolers used to call “pad your stats night,” when players had an opportunity to add to their statistical resume. That’s exactly what Braxton Key (nine rebounds), Kody Stattmann (nine points), and Marco Anthony (eight points) did with career highs respectively.
Cruising to a 47-23 lead by the break, the starters weren’t going to get a lot of time, thusly Kyle Guy (15) and De’Andre Hunter (15) were the only two Wahoos in double figures.
It was more about the team, even though the bench was emptied early. Virginia shot a season-high 65 percent, shot a season high from the free throw line (91 percent), held Morgan State to 25.9 percent shooting, the lowest by a Cavaliers opponent this season.
Virginia did exactly what the No. 4 team in the nation was supposed to do, while checking all the boxes along the way.
About the only thing no one expected was big man Jack Salt attempting to go behind his back on a fast break.
No, it didn’t work, although he was fouled and made the free throws.
“Yes, and I was on the bench very fast,” Salt confessed afterward when asked about the move.
No matter the score, Tony Bennett is only going to let so much go.
Monday night was all about tightening things up defensively. Bennett, who is creeping up on his 300th career win (Morgan State was No. 296), had not been so pleased that in the last few games his defense had been sluggish.
It happened against Wisconsin. It repeated at Maryland and turned a larger Wahoos lead into a closer game than it should have been.
“I challenged the guys at halftime, regardless of the score, respect the possession, come out hard, don’t give them easy looks,” Bennett said after his team raced to 8-0 on the season with VCU coming to town on Sunday. “I thought our defense was tight in the gaps tonight.”
Morgan State must have thought so, too. The Bears connected on only 14 of 54 field goal attempts and went more than 10 minutes down the stretch without a bucket.
“I came in here knowing we were playing against the best defensive team in the country,” said Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman, who once led Cal to glory in the mid-90s.
Bozeman knew all about Bennett-Ball and the Pack-Line.
“I’ve been down here quite a few times,” Bozeman joked. “I consider myself a booster. My daughter went here and my son-in-law went here.”
He wasn’t crazy about the latest visit. Morgan State obviously scheduled this game for a paycheck, thus my earlier Rent-A-Victim reference.
“Clearly,” Bozeman said about the pay day. “I would not have chosen to come down here and play them.”
Virginia certainly got its monies worth. The Cavaliers, one of the most consistent teams in the nation over the past five years, are building chemistry as the challenging ACC schedule looms a few weeks ahead.
That’s one reason Bennett was determined to get these sluggish defensive letdowns early in the second half put to rest before the tough gets going.
“I think we need to keep coming defensively,” Bennet said for the 40-millionth time. “I’ll always say that, but I mean it because I know what [ACC] teams will do and the talent we’ll go against.”
His message for this game was, “Individually, can you get to shooters and use your quickness that way.”
Wisconsin and Maryland had scored in the paint, shot high percentages, and gotten in the gaps, all no-nos in the Pack-Line philosophy. Bennett emerged Monday night pleased that collectively his team improved on keeping the ball out of the lane.
More evidence of that was Morgan State’s 17 turnovers, and Virginia’s nine steals, along with five blocked shots.
Now if Bennett can only keep his bigs from trying to go behind their backs.
As Guy chipped in when Salt was asked about that play: “Just want to say their [Morgan State’s defender] did not fall for it at all.”
If that’s all Virginia has to worry about for now, all is well.
