Can Buchanan help UVA find a spark at Louisville today?

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia’s week doesn’t get any easier today when the struggling Cavaliers, riding their longest losing streak since 2016-17, take on one of the ACC’s hottest teams at Louisville (noon, ESPN2).

UVA (8-9, 1-5 ACC) has a 10-2 record at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center over the years, but will be a 16-point underdog to the Cardinals (13-5, 6-1), a team that beat the Cavaliers by 20 points in Charlottesville on Jan. 4.

Louisville is presently riding a seven-game winning streak, which puts the Cards in a tie for second-place in the ACC. Meanwhile, Virginia has lost four straight games, the most recent, a narrow home loss to SMU at the buzzer on Wednesday.

One of the bright spots in that loss was sophomore Blake Buchanan’s performance, with the stretch 4 ripping down 15 rebounds, the most by a Virginia player since Mike Tobey posted 20 rebounds against Louisville in March of 2016.

“I’m hoping that this is the turn for him,” Virginia coach Ron Sanchez said of Buchanan’s game, his first career double-double that included 11 points. “His effort was fantastic, even when he was tired. [SMU’s 7-foot-2 Samet Yigitoglu] doesn’t only tower over him with inches, but also has a tremendous amount of weight over him. I think [Yigitoglu] might be close to 270. He’s a load. And Blake battled. If we can continue to get that effort from Blake, I think Blake will enjoy his second year.”

Buchanan is also hoping Wednesday night was his coming-out party and that he can continue to help Virginia down in the paint, something that will be crucial at Louisville this afternoon. In the first meeting, Louisville outrebounded UVA, 42-25, including 14 offensive rebounds, and outscored the Cavaliers, 36-18, in the paint.

“I think me getting rebounds obviously helps out the team tremendously,” Buchanan said after the gut-wrenching SMU loss. “[Sanchez] challenged us before the game, all our bigs, to each get eight rebounds. It just clicked with me, box out, high point the ball.

“I’ve kind of struggled, and [rebounding] has been a big struggle with me this year. [Tuesday] night I just kind of prepared for what I needed to do and I just got locked in.”

In that first meeting this season, Louisville snapped a nine-game losing streak against Virginia, which had won 18 of the previous 19 meetings since the Cardinals became members of the ACC. The fact that UVA is 1-6 outside the Charlottesville city limits this season and 0-4 in true road games, doesn’t help its cause. In those games, the Cavaliers are averaging a mere 59 points a game, as opposed to the 73.9 by opponents.

Still, Louisville coach Pat Kelsey isn’t taking anything for granted.

“[Virginia] kind of has the answers to the test and we have the answers to the test, so to speak, where we have stuff on tape, where that they did really well against us. We did some things well against them and they’ll adjust … we’ll adjust. That’s just part of it,” said Kelsey about today’s second meeting.

“We have a culture, a DNA, if you will, both on the offensive end and defensive end, and they do as well. Both of us, Virginia and us, rely on who we are and our principles, and obviously we have tweaks and they have tweaks. It’s always interesting just the adjustments that both teams make the second time, but we’ve got to be ready.”