Larrañaga: Miami has no answer for UVA’s physical play in paint
Posted on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, 10:21 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
Jim Larrañaga had a pretty good gameplan set for Miami’s road trip to Virginia on Saturday. Like Mike Tyson once said, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
That’s exactly what the host Cavaliers did, as they used their rugged style of play to physically dominate the paint and reduced the Hurricanes to tropical-storm status in a 71-58 win. It would have been even worse, had Miami not scored eight unanswered points in the final 90 seconds against UVA’s subs.
Larrañaga believed if his team could spread the floor, make 3-point baskets and force Virginia into turnovers for easy Hurricane buckets, the way Miami has against most of the ACC this season, that it might snap a four-game losing streak against the Cavaliers.
Plan A was working early as UVA opened up sloppy, turned it over and gave the ‘Canes some easy buckets. But once Virginia stiffened and began to establish beachheads in the paint, Miami didn’t have a chance. The Cavaliers actually built a 20-point lead late in the game against an opponent that hadn’t lost by more than four points since November.
In what was Virginia’s best performance of the season — the Cavaliers shot 60 percent from the field, 53 percent from the 3-point arc — Miami wasn’t much of a serious threat in the second half. Everything Larrañaga tried, Tony Bennett had an answer.
“I would say Tony Bennett’s a hell of a coach,” Larrañaga said. “He made some adjustments and was able to carve our scramble defense. Got the ball to the high post, to the low post, and [the Cavaliers] are large human beings.
“We had no answer for those big guys inside. [Jayden] Gardner goes six for nine, Francisco Caffaro goes four for four right inside the paint, like laying it in, and then you add [Kadin] Shedrick goes three for three. So, that’s 13 for 16 for the field, that’s very productive.”
Not to mention that UVA’s backcourt took care of business as well, as Armaan Franklin went 8 for 16 for a game-high 22 points. Kihei Clark was 4 of 8, including a deep three dagger that dashed any hopes of a Miami rally. Clark had 11 points, while Reece Beekman was 4 of 6 for nine points, along with 10 assists and two steals.
Larrañaga believed one of the keys was to prevent Virginia from scoring, but the Cavaliers surprisingly topped the 70-point mark, which almost automatically spells doom for opponents. In fact, it was Miami that couldn’t score. The Hurricanes, who averaged around 75 points a game, were held to a season-low 58.
As physical as Virginia was, the Cavaliers played cleanly, and didn’t send Miami to the free-throw line the entire game. According to fact-finder Rob Daniels, Miami became the first team in history to be held without a free-throw attempt in an ACC game.
The only other occurrence by an ACC team was Virginia in 2017, when the Cavaliers didn’t go the line in a 49-37 win over nonconference foe Wisconsin.
“We went zero for zero from the foul line,” Larrañaga pointed out, not complaining. “That kind of is a tell-tale story of we’re not attacking the basket and getting to the foul line like we did earlier in league play.”
Miami (16-7, 8-4), the ACC’s leader in forced turnovers, wasn’t as effective as it had hoped, even though it did score 17 points off 13 Virginia turnovers. Larrañaga said it just wasn’t enough.
Meanwhile, Bennett was pleased that his team hinted that perhaps it is improving at the right time. The Cavaliers (14-9, 8-5), leapfrogged 10 spots in the Kenpom.com rankings, up to No. 82, after knocking off the Hurricanes.
“Playing against Miami, teams like that, you’re going to have to beat them, they’re not going to lose,” Bennett said. “You could see when we were just off a little bit or made a little breakdown, they could just create their own offense. So they tested us, but I thought our guys stayed intent on what they needed to do.”
While this is the “newest team” that Bennett has coached at Virginia, and with so many new faces or new roles, the squad has spent most of the season trying to build chemistry. Could it be that chemistry is beginning to come together?
Bennett hopes so, because the back-end of UVA’s schedule is loaded with home-and-home games against conference-leading Duke (at Duke on Monday night), a return game at Miami, Florida State here and Virginia Tech on the road.
