After getting a pair of wins last week in Columbia, the Cavaliers continue their NCAA Tournament journey tonight when top-seeded UVa heads to Louisville for the South Region semifinals and Sweet 16 matchup against No. 12-seeded Oregon (approx. 10 p.m., TBS).
The Wahoos (31-3) return to the KFC Yum! Center after beating No. 16-seeded Gardner-Webb and No. 9-seeded Oklahoma. The Ducks, meanwhile, arrive in the Bluegrass State after picking up wins Wisconsin and UC Irvine. Oregon (25-12) is the lowest-rated team left per KenPom but it's also the hottest, having won 10 straight.
Without their best player since the ninth game of the season, the Ducks had an up and down year but then went on a tear through the Pac 12 before winning the conference tournament with a 20-point victory over Washington.
Three Things We Know
1. Oregon comes into tonight's matchup red hot.
Virginia will face a tough opponent in its third Sweet 16 in six seasons. The Ducks may be the lowest-seeded team remaining in the field, by a whopping seven-seed margin, but they are far from a typical Cinderella. Oregon began its streak when the team was 15-12 overall with a 6-8 mark in the mediocre Pac-12. The Ducks then won their final four conference games and reeled off four straight in the conference tournament to earn the league’s automatic bid. In the first round, Oregon pulled away from the fifth-seeded Badgers in a game that was barely an upset according to Vegas (at one time the Ducks were actually favored). Oregon followed that up by holding off a second-half rally from the upset-minded Anteaters to earn tonight's date against the Cavaliers.
2. The Ducks have more talent than the typical No. 12 seed.
Oregon lost it best player, Bol Bol, early in the season, but has plenty of other talented players that earned the NCAA Tournament big. The freshman phenom was dominant early before lost for the season due to a foot injury, putting up 21 points and 9.6 boards per game. It took Oregon a while to adjust to life without him, but head coach Dana Altman has brought enough talent to Eugene that the Ducks were able to overcome that loss. Point guard Payton Pritchard is the leader and the only player on the roster that played on the 2017 Final Four team. He is Oregon’s leading scorer (13 points per game) and distributor (4.5 assists), and has come up big in the NCAAs with 19 points against Wisconsin in the first round followed by 18 in the win over UC Irvine with 15 combined assists over the two games. The junior guard is a solid 3-point shooter as well, making 35 percent of his attempts this year after averaging better than 41 percent last season. Oregon has two other players averaging double figures in scoring. Freshman wing Louis King is another five-star recruit at Oregon, and is the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging 12.9 points per game. He has been huge for the Ducks in the postseason, scoring in double figures in each of their six tournament wins. Senior forward Paul White has also become a pivotal player for the Ducks, too. The 6-foot-9 forward began his career at Georgetown and in his second year at Oregon is averaging 10.6 points per game. White is a 37.8 percent 3-point shooter who has the ability to give UVa problems if he can extend the defense and make shots from deep.
3. Oregon’s stifling defense and improved shooting have been the keys to their March momentum.
The team's surprising late-season surge has been fueled by its defense, which has led the nation in efficiency over the course of the 10-game winning streak. In those games, the Ducks have allowed only one team to score more than 61 points, with Arizona State putting up 75 in an overtime loss. They held Pac-12 regular season champ Washington under 50 points in their two meetings during the streak and allowed just 54 points in each of their two NCAA Tournament games. Oregon employs a matchup zone with backcourt pressure that has been vexing for opponents. The matchup zone doesn’t allow the typical open areas on the floor that a 2-3 zone does (roughly the free throw line extended) because the system allows more freedom and uses man-to-man tactics and double teams rather than a pure area coverage scheme like Syracuse uses. Oregon’s strategy allows the Ducks to excel in three key areas: taking away 3-pointers, forcing turnovers, and blocking shots. To compliment their excellent defense, the Ducks have been hitting clutch 3-pointers on the other end of the floor. They have shot the basketball well in the postseason, making 41 percent of their attempts in their six postseason games and 50 percent in their two NCAA Tournament games. Oregon made 13 of its 25 attempts from beyond the arc against UC Irvine and before the winning streak began, the Ducks made just 32.8 percent of their 3-pointers.
