Virginia Responds After Duke Loss, Takes Care of Business
Posted on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, 5:36 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
For any skeptics who wondered how losing an emotional decision at Duke last weekend might impact Virginia going forward, the Cavaliers quickly provided an answer Tuesday night when they pummeled visiting Wake Forest, 68-45.
UVa, which moved up a spot to No. 3 nationally in the AP poll after the Duke loss, bolted to a 25-3 lead before the Deacons could blink.
It was an emphatic statement by Tony Bennett’s team that it had put Saturday’s loss in the rear view mirror.
“We really wanted to make a point to let everyone know that we were completely past our last game,” said junior guard Kyle Guy, who reached the 1,000-point plateau for his UVa career. “I think a lot of people acted like someone died or something, but it was just a game.”
Guy was correct. Many in Wahoo Nation reacted to the 72-70 loss at Duke as if the sky had fallen and seemed to have forgotten that Duke has to come to Charlottesville on Feb. 9 for a rematch. It was a healthy sign that the Cavaliers squashed the Deacs in a strong bounce back.
It was never really a game, and Wake coach Danny Manning wasn’t pleased in how his team handled the beginning of the contest. Asked if his team came out flat, Manning bristled a little in his response.
“I don’t know that flat is the right word,” Manning said. “Do we have to give more resistance defensively? Yeah. But [Virginia] is pretty damned good, too. They made some tough shots, they made some deep shots, and did some things offensively that had us on our heels.”
During that 25-3 opening blitz, three different Cavaliers indeed kept the Deacs on their heels. One of those was to be expected as De’Andre Hunter drilled a 3-pointer, scored on a drive, and hit a jump shot.
The other two main early contributors were a bit of a surprise.
Mamadi Diakite opened the game by single-handedly outscoring Wake 7-0, followed by Hunter’s point flurry. The biggest surprise came next when 7-foot-1 Jay Huff reeled off eight consecutive points, hitting a 3-pointer, scored on a drive to the hoop, was fouled and converted, then capped it off with an alley-oop slam dunk on a pass from Ty Jerome.
While Wake never surrendered — the Deacs did fight back to within 36-23 at the half — there was never a feeling that it would become a game. Less than seven minutes into the second half, Virginia had built a 53-29 lead on the first of two Guy 3-pointers, which pushed him past Malcolm Brogdon into eighth place on UVa’s all-time 3-pointers list with 188.
A little later, Guy became the 48th Wahoo to join the program’s 1,000-point club, oddly enough while shooting two technical foul shots, bringing a little razzing from his coach.
Bennett was aware that Guy had hit the 1,000-point mark during the game but when he learned it came on the two technical shots, he couldn’t help but take a playful jab.
“Oh, the technicals,” Bennett chuckled. “That’s a good trivia question. How many guys scored their 1,000th point on a technical? That shouldn’t count, should it? You gotta make a 3 if you’re a 3-point shooter.”
Guy, who owns an 18-game streak with at least one 3-pointer, has made two or more from past the arc in the last nine straight games. He was humble when asked about the 1,000th point and giggled at Bennett’s comment.
“I’m really honored to have reached that accomplishment,” Guy said. “It’s something that I did set a goal for myself coming in to college. It’s guys to the left of me, like Jack (Salt), who really are selfless and try to give me looks. I’m really grateful for them.”
Even though there was a sense throughout John Paul Jones Arena that this one was safely tucked away early, there were enough flaws at times, particularly in the first half, that gave Bennett reason to complain during timeouts and at halftime.
“I told them at halftime that I thought we got seduced, or it was a little bit of fool’s gold into shot selection,” Bennett said. “The shot discernment wasn’t strong all of a sudden and that led to nine [Wake] fast break points. I got on them a little bit, not too bad, and said, ‘Who are you?’”
He was concerned that the game had quickly turned into a pick up game for a brief span and that wasn’t acceptable. His team got the message at halftime and the rest is history.
With that aside, Bennett was pleased with how his team responded to the loss at Duke, and how they corrected some errors made at Cameron only a few days before.
“We responded the right way, really the right way, and then it seems like we slipped a bit,” Bennett said. “It’s just getting back to playing and playing the right way.”
He believed his team needed to address some things that Duke exploited, things that were points of emphasis in practice for two days, mainly a commitment to stopping the ball.
Bennett didn’t care for how his “Pack-Line” allowed Duke to exploit the Cavaliers in the lane on bold and bullish drives, in addition to offensive rebounds put back for scores. Then again, Wake didn’t have personnel in the same league as the Blue Devils, who boasted perhaps the top two picks in the next NBA Draft.
As Guy pointed out right after the game in Durham, “When you’ve got two killers that can just go get a bucket whenever they want…”
He didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t need to. We all saw the results from Duke’s freshmen phenoms Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett. Between them, they scored 21 of the Devils’ 26 field goals in the game, and most of them were in the paint.
The Cavaliers, who have a 12-game winning streak at home, are now 17-1 overall and 5-1 in ACC play. Over the past seven seasons, they lead the ACC in home game wins at 52-5 (.912), ahead of Duke, 50-7 (.877).
That’s an elite perch that many of basketball’s top programs wish they occupied.
After having the nation’s longest road winning streak snapped in Durham last weekend, the Cavaliers hope to start a new streak on Saturday at frosty Notre Dame, a program that Virginia has owned for the most part since the Irish joined the ACC.
