Bennett: ‘When the defense goes, it’s not good’

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Maybe Tony Bennett saw it coming and tried to warn his team and caution Wahoo Nation that Virginia’s basketball team just isn’t ready for primetime.

If you’ll remember Bennett’s postgame from earlier in the week when the Cavaliers cruised past Morgan State, he kept emphasizing that if UVA’s defense didn’t improve, losses were on the way. Saturday in South Bend, Bennett’s warnings became reality in a 76-54 loss to a Notre Dame team that had lost by 20 at home to The Citadel.

Irish guards slashed through the “Pack-Line” so frequently splitting defenders on the pick-and-roll, and with straight line drives to the basket, that Bennett — for the second time in December — resorted to a multiple 1-2-2 zone.

Say what?

Notre Dame, picked to finish last in the ACC, bolted to a 13-0 start courtesy of J.R. Konieczny’s three triples as the Irish led wire-to-wire (see game story on this site). UVA only made a game of it with a 7-0 getaway to start the second half, but couldn’t maintain and suffered its worst loss to an ACC opponent in six years (65-41 vs. North Carolina in 2017).

It all starts with defense. Bennett complained about a dropoff in defense following the Morgan State game and nobody got the message.

Notre Dame came into the weekend as the worst 3-point shooting team in the league, and at one point was making 70 percent of its triples before finishing 11 for 23. There was breakdown after breakdown, poor on-ball defense (UVA misses Dante Harris, sidelined for seven-straight games with an ankle injury).

With defense collapsing, Virginia doesn’t have enough offensive punch to match opponents bucket-for-bucket. Thusly, if the Cavaliers can’t execute the usual defensive stops, they’re in trouble.

“That’s just the way it is,” Bennett said matter-of-factly after the Notre Dame loss. “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to be harder to score against than we are, or this will continue to happen to us.”

Everybody get that?

This team already had some flaws in the lack of size and physicality, which led to sometimes getting pounded on the boards. It is also, surprisingly, one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in America.

Throw in a lack of on-ball pressure, defensive breakdowns, and the inability to respond offensively and it’s a nightmarish scenario. Lack of scoring is somewhat surprising, because the influx of transfers had all shown a history of solid shooting for the most part and offered glimmers of offense in the early portion of the schedule.

Beekman’s offense and aggressiveness has improved, Dunn’s is still coming, and McKneely’s is temporarily out-of-order. Sometimes it seems if everyone is standing around expecting Beekman to get it done. He doesn’t mind, but needs a little help from his friends.

“We took a punch early and didn’t respond,” Bennett said. “We weren’t sound enough and consistent enough to get back in that game, which was frustrating.

“You don’t necessarily win a game in the first four or five minutes and you don’t necessarily lose a game, but you make it incredibly difficult when you get down like that. We didn’t have a lot of tenacity and soundness.”

The coach complained about too many uncontested shots, almost sacrilege in the Pack-Line guidebook.

“We didn’t have the wherewithal to stop the bleeding,” Bennett said.

So the Cavaliers were left there to bleed out and dropped to 10-3 for the season, 1-1 in the ACC.

Bennett has always been outstanding in delivering the right message to his team, win or lose, and this time he said all the right things. Stay together. Don’t hang your head. Take a good look in the mirror.

The troubling thing is, he’s probably said this for the third time this season, going back to lopsided losses to Wisconsin and Memphis. Both of those were understandable. Saturday wasn’t.

Yes, Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry had put a lot of pressure on his players after the Irish staggered to a rough start, and he made it plain that it wasn’t acceptable. He had noticed a significant uplift in practice. Yes, associate head coach Kyle Getter, who was in Bennett’s UVA program for five years, knew the Cavaliers inside and out, which didn’t hurt, but doesn’t explain Virginia’s shoddy performance.

Again, Bennett believes the root of the problem is defense.

“When the defense goes, it’s not good, and today the defense was gone,” Bennett said.

“We’ve gotten beaten three times pretty handily and haven’t been able to hang in there.”

Each of Virginia’s three losses have been by 20 or more points, almost unfathomable if you’re a follower of the Orange & Blue. That hasn’t happened to the Cavaliers since Bennett’s second season at the helm and it’s just now January.

If UVA doesn’t get it together defensively, if the Cavaliers don’t peer deep into the mirror, then remember Bennett’s forewarning: “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to be harder to score against or this will continue to happen.”