Beyond the in-game stats and numbers, nothing better illustrates the inconsistent nature of this Virginia basketball season than the difference a week can make.

Seven days ago, the Wahoos had just pummeled Virginia Tech in the kind of methodical, grinding way that has frustrated and stymied many an opponent over the last decade or so. They had played their best offensive game in quite some time in that 65-39 win and emerged from the weekend with something resembling momentum. A trip to Boston was first on the docket, the kind of game that UVa typically finds a way to win even when the machine isn’t running at top shape.

We all know how that went. And we all know, coming off of Saturday’s 63-55 overtime loss to Syracuse, just how odd it is to see the Cavaliers struggle so mightily to be who they’ve been.

Only these Cavaliers haven’t been that. Not yet. And while that may be frustrating for some, it’s natural and expected despite still being so very surreal.

“So many of these guys aren’t used to,” Tony Bennett began Saturday evening before restarting, “It’s hard to win. And a lot of these guys either aren’t used to losing and we’ve lost a couple in a row. It’s a fine line. All those little things matter. Whether you don’t get a rebound when it’s in front of ya.

“Our inexperience certainly shows at times,” he added later.

Those two sentiments really encapsulate this team. Now on a two-game ACC losing streak for the first time in years, the Hoos are a squad that features players not used to being in such a spot (whether that describes the losing skid or their new “bigger” roles) as well as players not used to college ball at all.

In many ways they are inexperienced, either the normal kind like first-years typically are or the “growing” kind like some of the upperclassmen who are trying to be more integral.

“You can’t control missing a shot,” Bennett said. “You’ve got to take shots and shoot them. But there are certain things you can’t control and that’s the message, is learn from it, try to control what we can control. I said don’t hang your head but don’t you dare think ‘Well this was just a fluke. Ah, it’s just a fluke. They threw one in off the board.’ Nah. Look at it for what it is.

“We’ve got to keep getting better,” he added, “and of course you have to stay together. It’s easy to divide the house, say ‘it’s him, it’s this, it’s that.’ You’ve got to be able to win together, you’ve got to be able to lose together, and then grow. That’s what we’ll do.”

Bennett would later reiterate, as he said when the team opened the season at Syracuse in November, that UVa remains “a work in progress.” That might not be totally unfamiliar territory for the Hoos but it’s certainly been a while since that was the prevailing thought in mid-January.

Given their NBA losses from a year ago, fans knew this would be a different season. Their relative frustrations have been textbook. Watching the players be unsure and frustrated, though, continues to be jarring. But that’s part of the process and the Cavaliers are certainly not the only team in the league struggling to find themselves.

Ironic, then, that in a year when UVa’s typical teams would be cleaning up this year’s club may well benefit from the uncertainty the league provides on a nightly basis. Or, perhaps, be swallowed by its own.

“The ACC,” Bennett said, “at least with a lot of the teams, it’s just whoever is ready to play and plays the best.”

With games at Florida State on Wednesday and Georgia Tech on Saturday coming up, we’ll have to see what difference a week makes now.

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