Morgan State (4-10) at UVa (9-2)

7 p.m., ACC Network

After falling hard in Memphis before their Christmas break, the Wahoos are back in action tonight for the first time in more than a week when they host Morgan State.

Looking to put a disappointing blowout loss behind them, the Cavaliers close out their non-conference slate with arguably the worst team on their schedule.

The Bears come in having lost their last two games, including an 89-75 home game against James Madison last Friday. It’s been a rough go for Kevin Broadus and Co. this year, opening with a 122-59 loss at Arizona and including a 93-50 loss at BYU along the way, two of the top five teams according to KenPom. To date, only one of Morgan State’s four wins have come against any kind of comparable competition, a 92-80 win over UMBC earlier this month.

Needless to say, this game, the first between the two teams since an 83-45 UVa win in 2018, is one the Hoos cannot afford to win close, let alone lose.

Unsurprisingly, Morgan State comes in 300+ nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Simply put: The Bears struggle to score and they struggle to stop other teams from scoring.

On offense, they’re 318th in offensive efficiency and don’t crack the top 250 in any of the four major categories. What stands out most for Morgan State is the inability to get to the free-low line, where the Bears rank 349th. If there is “good” news in the numbers, they are 112th in block percentage offense and 107th in non-steal turnover percentage, which has been something this season that UVa has been relatively good at creating.

But the Bears are also among the worst teams nationally in 3-point shooting and the number of assists generated per bucket, which does not bode well for them against Virginia.

On defense, Morgan State is 348th nationally in efficiency with the 351st-ranked team in terms of effective field-goal percentage. That’s also where the Bears rank in offensive rebound percentage, which might be a category where they won’t lose much given UVa’s relative lack of focus on the offensive glass. The 3-point defense (329th) and two-point D (344th), though, are major issues for the Bears.

Wynston Tabbs, Guard

A senior forward now on his third school, Tabbs might be a name familiar to UVa fans given that he spent his first two seasons at Boston College, though he only scored nine points against the Hoos in both of his previous meetings. This year, Tabbs has been having a solid campaign and scoring a team-high 16.4 points per game. His best two games of the year have come against regional teams, a 31-point effort against Radford last month and then a career-high 38-point night against UMBC earlier this month. But he hasn’t played in his team’s last three games and his status going into this one remains very much TBD. But over the course of the season, he’s been one of the best players nationally in terms of usage percentage.

Kamron Hobbs, Guard

At 10.1 points per game and 4.1 assists, Hobbs is second on the team in scoring and its leading distributor. A redshirt junior, he came to Morgan State last season after spending two years at North Greenville University. Without Tabbs in the lineup, the 5-foot-10 Peach State native had 16 points in the JMU loss.

Will Thomas, Forward

His team’s third-leading scorer, Thomas is putting up 10.1 points per game and 4.1 boards while shooting a solid 44.7 percent from the floor. He was the leading scorer in the loss to the Dukes (20 points) and also had a nice game in the loss to Campbell (22 points). Though not much of a threat to pull from deep, his length will be a good challenge for the Hoos since he’s got a 7-footer in Christian Oliver playing alongside him in the paint.

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his shouldn’t come as much of a shock that we fully expect the Cavaliers to win this one easily. After the drubbing in Memphis, UVa has to use the Christmas break as a way to get back on track. And to some extent, one could argue this isn’t the kind of matchup the Wahoos need given the disparity between these two teams and their overall outlooks.

The Bears don’t run a true Princeton set but they do a lot of back cutting and will look to test the patience and precision of the pack-line. So while this might not be the kind of team you’d ideally want UVa back in action against, this specific piece of things is precisely the kind of challenge this team could use given what Memphis’ length and athleticism put on display last week.

Ultimately, without knowing whether Tabbs is able to go or not leaves saying too much about this one harder to do but even if he plays, he’d be coming in with some understandable rust and even if that’s true this is still a game UVa has to win.

The bigger question is if the Wahoos can shoot it better, rebound more soundly, and be overall more like the team that worked its way into the Associated Press Top 25.

Even on a bad night, the Cavaliers should be able to get this W. Question is if they’re able to start some momentum with ACC play about to rev up.