Tale of the Tape: Virginia vs. North Carolina
Posted on Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, 11:43 am
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As if facing Duke for a second time in three weeks wasn’t tough enough. Up next for No. 4 Virginia is a quick Monday jolt down Tobacco Road to tangle with eighth-ranked ACC rival North Carolina at the Dean E. Smith Center, less than 48 hours after falling short against the second-ranked Blue Devils Saturday evening.
It’ll be the second time this season that the Wahoos (20-2, 8-2 ACC) have gone up against a pair of top-10 opponents within a week (then-No. 9 Virginia Tech on Jan. 15 and then-No. 1 Duke on Jan. 19).
“Keep trying to tighten up,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said after Saturday’s 81-71 loss. “Just try to be as sound as you can. The formula doesn’t change — little adjustments here and there — and you don’t have much time.
“We’re going to play Carolina, and so get yourself ready, grow from this the little bit we can and then come out and hopefully be more ready, and that’ll be a great challenge, too.”
Three of UVA’s next four games are on the road against ranked opponents. Notre Dame visits John Paul Jones Arena at 2 p.m. Saturday before the ‘Hoos hit the road for two more — at No. 22 Virginia Tech next Monday (Feb. 18, 7 p.m.) and at No. 16 Louisville the following Saturday (Feb. 23, Noon).
“Whoever makes the schedule didn’t help us out too much,” joked sophomore forward Jay Huff, “but we’re going to prepare the same way we always do, and I think we’ll be ready to go. I don’t think [the quick turnaround] will be as big a factor as some people might think.”
The Cavaliers have downed the Tar Heels in each of the previous three meetings of the longtime rivalry, but wins have been hard to come by over the years in Chapel Hill. UVA has won just four of the last 15 meetings at the Dean Dome.
After falling to Duke, Virginia dropped to No. 2 overall in the KenPom ratings (3rd AdjD, 5th AdjO) and to No. 3 in the NET rankings after a long stay atop both lists. UNC comes in at 8th in the country according to KenPom (7th AdjO, 19th AdjD) and 9th in the NET.
The Tar Heels (19-4, 9-1) enter the Big Monday matchup (7 p.m., ESPN) fresh off a 3-point overtime win over Miami (2-9, 10-13) Saturday afternoon in Chapel Hill.
Carolina has won seven straight and 11 of its last 12, and has only lost once this season at the Smith Center, an 83-62 defeat at the hands of Louisville on Jan. 12.
Roy Williams’ squad owns the second-highest scoring offense in Division I at just over 88 points a game, while Virginia gives up the least amount of points in the nation at 54.1. Williams holds a 16-10 record against Virginia as coach of the Tar Heels.
Cameron Johnson, a 6-foot-9 wing, can fill it up. The sharpshooter, who transferred from Pittsburgh after two seasons, is now in his second year with UNC and has led the Heels in scoring in nine games thus far in 2018-19. He’s the conference’s lone player who appears in the top 10 in field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage and free-throw percentage.
Freshman point guard Coby White is averaging 20 points a game over the 7-game win streak and leads the team in scoring on the season with 15.9 points a game, barely ahead of Johnson (15.8 ppg) and 6-8 senior forward Luke Maye (15.1 ppg), who ranks second in the ACC with 9.7 rebounds per contest.
White is coming off a 33-point performance (which tied his career high) against the Hurricanes in which he hit 7 of his 10 attempts from 3-point land. Maye was a first-team All-ACC selection as a junior and is averaging 23.7 points over the past three games.
Senior guard Kenny Williams (9.0 ppg) and sophomore forward Garrison Brooks (8.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg) round out the starting five.
Two other UNC freshmen, 6-6 Nassir Little and 6-7 Leaky Black, provide depth off the bench along with junior Seventh Woods, sophomore Sterling Manley and junior Brandon Robinson. Little, who will likely be an NBA lottery pick this summer, puts up 10.3 points per game, and the Heels are 12-1 when he scores in double figures.
“I think there’s some stuff that we’ll need to see that’ll be important in the Carolina game that have to be fixed, the way [the Heels] offensive rebound, the way they can pressure, and all of those things,” Bennett explained.
The last time the two teams squared off in Chapel Hill — Feb. 18, 2017 — the Heels, ranked No. 10 at the time, blasted the then-14th ranked Wahoos, 65-41, which was the worst true-road loss under Bennett since the infamous 35-point shellacking at Tennessee in December 2013.
Tonight’s tilt will be a rematch of last year’s ACC Tournament championship game, in which Kyle Guy claimed tourney MVP honors with a team-high 16 points in the 71-63 win in Brooklyn. The Cavaliers pulled a sweep in 2018 against the Heels, as De’Andre Hunter’s memorable, highlight-reel jam helped lift the ‘Hoos to a 61-49 regular-season win at JPJ last January.
Mamadi Diakite, who threw down a couple nasty dunks of his own in that game, is a question mark for tonight’s contest after bumping heads with Hunter against Duke. The incident occurred late in the first half and Diakite did not return.
“It was a big loss, he was playing really well,” Hunter said of Diakite, who scored 7 of Virginia’s first 9 points.
If Diakite can’t go, Huff and Braxton Key will likely see more minutes down low against the Tar Heels, and it will be important for all of Virginia’s bigs to stay out of foul trouble in such a scenario.
Bennett was not sure of the extent of the injury, when asked Saturday if Diakite had suffered a concussion.
“He’s just a little fuzzy,” said the coach, “so I don’t know. We decided not to put him back in, I don’t know how serious, I’m sure some sort of [concussion], but we’ll see what that means.”
