UVa is as heady and disciplined team as they come.
Were State as such…
This ran through my mind while watching the game last night. It was actually a pretty clean contest – ‘Hoos just outworked them. I imagined how good State could be with even a small amount of discipline. Defensive positioning and rebounding (not 4 guys going for the same blocked shot), shot selection, when not to pull the trigger and make the defense work. Tons of talent, almost zero court awareness in terms of controlling game flow and dictating to the opponent.
As for style of play – UVa has cleaned up quite a bit in the last two seasons with a focus on offensive efficiency. We can argue about defense and style of play, but UVa went from an NIT team to a Top 10 team after focusing on offensive improvement and efficiency.
They still run the slowest pace in the country. In the past, they killed themselves by not being able to score and would lose early home games to low-major opponents. Their pace of play and inability to score kept inferior opponents in the game with them. Now their pace of play truly works in their favor b/c they can actually score and put real pressure on their opponents.
In fairness to those who rag on watching UVa games – of which I am one – for every game they have dismantling an opponent who favors an up-tempo game, like the Unx game, there’s a game against a fellow slow down team that is brutal to watch. Like the Rutgers game, which was 18-17 at the half and Rutgers scored 8 freaking points in the 2nd half. Everybody’s mileage varies. I tried to watch some of that game since Rutgers was leading at the half. I could not. 45-26 final.
If someone wants to hold that up as great basketball to watch, be my guest. If Wisconsin and UVa were to face each other in the NCAA tournament it might very well be the ugliest game in the history of college basketball. I’ve got nothing against good defensive basketball, but if you get a bad set of refs and two teams willing to go slow as molasses, well … . 41-39 finals can be exciting, I guess.
