For UVA, Louisville was just what the doctor ordered

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Beleaguered Louisville coach Kenny Payne knew he wasn’t going to see the same Virginia team on Wednesday night that was surprisingly blown out at Notre Dame four days prior. Tony Bennett hoped Payne’s intuition was right.

Payne also knew that Virginia was a different animal at home, where the Cavaliers are unbeaten, where jump shots fall with more regularity and the defense is turned up a notch or two. When UVA went on a Ryan Dunn/Reece Beekman-led 13-4 run to end the first half (37-22) everyone in John Paul Jones Arena figured Louisville’s curse in the building would continue.

With sharpshooter Isaac McKneely (18 points) rediscovering his touch, leading four Cavaliers in double figures, Virginia (11-3, 2-1) handed Louisville a 77-53 defeat, making the Cardinals Oh-for-Forever in visits to JPJ (0-for-9 for the record). Virginia, which is still a work in progress, beat Louisville worse than Kentucky did (19 points) on Dec. 21.

For a complete blow-by-blow account, see game story, notebook and box score.

“We knew that Virginia would come in here on their home court and play different, play with energy and fight,” said Payne, whose Cardinals are now 5-8, 0-2, and slipped to 9-36 under his direction. “As the game went on, we lost our discipline, we lost our focus and lost the fight.”

In all fairness, Louisville was missing four of its players, primarily senior JJ Traynor, sophomore Tre White and freshman Dennis Evans, but then again, UVA was without point guard Dante Harris, who missed his eighth-straight game with a severe ankle injury.

Bennett’s team, featuring lots of new pieces or pieces with more responsibility and court time than a year ago, needed to positively respond from its mysterious implosion at South Bend.

Lopsided losses to Wisconsin and Memphis were understandable, but losing by 22 to Notre Dame, a team that had been boat-raced on the same floor by The Citadel (by 20) left observers scratching their heads.

“We chose guys to build for the future, but to also be as good as we can in the immediate, and we’re throwing them into some situations that are challenging,” Bennett said of his relatively young squad. “But I think, hopefully, it will produce a good harvest, whenever that is.

“Sometimes it’s hard and it’s painful going through it, but we’ll keep fighting. I thought they had a little more grit and steadiness. I thought we tightened things up with little adjustments in practice that got us back to how we have to play.”

For one thing, Virginia shot the ball better, (30 for 58, 52 percent; 10 for 26 on 3’s, 38.5 percent), rebounded better (won the boards, 34-27), didn’t give the ball away (season-low 3 turnovers) and defended better (Louisville shot 40.4 and 24 percent).

Bennett reminds fans as often as he can that other than Beekman, not many of his players received a lot of court time last season — McKneely and Dunn less than starter’s minutes, while Andre Rohde and Jake Groves were playing elsewhere, Leon Bond was redshirted, and Blake Buchanan and Elijah Gertrude were in high school.

Now would be a good time to quote Bennett from the ACC Basketball media day down in Charlotte in October, when he said that the Virginia team in March would not be the same Virginia team from November.

That’s what he meant by the great harvest down the road. One of the things Bennett likes about this team is that for the most part, it could stick together for two or three more years, barring transfer-portal temptations. Of course, he’s hoping for constant growth as the Cavaliers maneuver through an ACC road filled with potholes.

One of those landmines awaits in Raleigh on Saturday when Virginia goes to NC State, which will be a challenge. While UVA has generally been good on the road in the past, this team hasn’t been battle-tested away from home like some of Bennett’s former teams, and it has shown.

“You’ve got to be rock-solid and steady, and I think the inexperience really shows so far,” Bennett said. “I hope this was a step in trying to play the right way. We play so many Saturday games away [from JPJ].”

True, Virginia plays the fewest Saturday home games in the entire ACC this season for some odd reason, which just added to the degree of difficulty for this young team.

Still, it bounced back against a hungry Louisville team that wanted to take a step forward itself.

Payne knew it wouldn’t be easy on either end of the floor for his team.

“You come in here and you know you have to defend,” the embattled coach said. “Overall, you don’t want to settle for jump shots against [Virginia].”

The Cardinals did just that on offense with a lack of ball movement, which allowed UVA to contest most shots. Defensively, his team didn’t rotate to his liking, leaving McKneely wide open at times, a huge no-no for any defense. Plus, his defense gave Dunn too many open lanes to the basket and he made Louisville pay dearly, making 7 of 8 shots for 15 points in another double-double performance.

If nothing else, Bennett watched as his team got back on the right track. The next step is to keep it on the tracks down on Tobacco Road.

Easier said than done.