Editor's Note: Over the course of this multi-part series, we're diving deep into UVa's recent results in the NCAA Tournament and breaking down the data to see what myths can be busted and what long-term lessons can be taken away.

Today we talk about pace of play and share the central thesis of this series. You can check out the previous installments on the recent wins and losses as well as how regular-season success compares to the tournament results, the "magic number" , and the hot takes explained.

While not much of the evidence we’ve seen supports the idea that UVa’s style of play dooms them in March, it would be naive not to think there’s some element of truth to the theory.

So let’s take that side of the argument.

UVa’s title run was anchored by four players currently playing in the NBA, including a lottery pick. Historically, that level of talent on a Virginia roster is rare and although UVa’s recruiting is in a decent place under Tony Bennett, the success of the 2016 class will be tough to replicate in any year.

Even with all of that talent, UVa needed all of its close-game luck to be cashed in in back-to-back-to-back wins that were all coin flips. The players deserve credit for making tremendous plays but a few inches or tenths of a second in the wrong direction and UVa could’ve lost all three of these games without much needing to go against them.

The Cavaliers played good teams in their title run, but avoided a Duke team that beat them twice, and didn’t play a 1- or a 2-seed in the six-game run. In fact, Bennett’s Virginia teams have never played a No. 1 or a No. 2 in March, and a lot of those losses we mentioned previously when talking about Kentucky, UNC, and Duke came when those teams were matched up with other top teams.

But other teams have played slow and made deep runs in the tournament. Loyola-Chicago just beat the ACC Tournament champion and a No. 1-seed to make the Sweet Sixteen, ranking 342nd nationally in tempo and leaning on defensive efficiency to get through games. Its 2018 team that made the Final Four had a similar profile and pulled out a bunch of close wins to make that run. Butler’s back-to-back Final Four teams played slow as well and won a lot of low-scoring games in their runs.

So if it worked for them, why is it a problem for Virginia?

Simply put, those teams are Cinderella stories. UVa is now one of the nation’s premier programs, in a talent rich area, in the most prestigious conference, and boasts excellent facilities and a great coach. So while that style works for the underdog, UVa isn’t the underdog; the Hoos are the hunted in March. UVa has access to more talent and doesn’t need to eek out games to beat top teams. Virginia’s slow tempo evens the playing field for the little guy and allows them to hang in games when they have a talent deficit.

Playing slow means fewer possessions. Fewer possessions mean each possession is a bigger percentage of the entire game. Which means that each possession means more, and the margin of error shrinks. Each turnover, every missed 3, every bad screen means more to UVa than it does to teams playing 10 more possessions in a game. And because of that, mistakes become glaring in do-or-die games.

UVa also has a track record of falling behind early in these NCAA Tournament games, and fewer possessions means fewer chances to right the ship.

Playing slow is okay, but do the Wahoos have to be the absolute slowest? Villanova is a relatively deliberate team but the Wildcats have adjusted that based on their personnel. In some recent years, they have been 300th or slower nationally in tempo. But when they had a stacked team in 2018, Jay Wright sped it up and Nova finished 150th nationally in pace. So even if UVa picks up the pace a little bit, that might help the Hoos when they have a talent edge. And with everything written above about how winning games in the 50’s is possible in January but nearly impossible in March, isn’t it time for the them to get up and go?

For some, the answer is an obvious yes. But as with anything in life, there is a cost. UVa’s slow pace helps the players keep their legs for defense, where they are elite, and defenses have to be elite to win national titles. And while UVa plays slow, their offense is a Rube-Goldberg machine of screens on top of screens that make the defense work while UVa circles the ball. And, more obviously, if UVa trades good shots for worse shots, that likely won’t help them become more efficient.

We’ll never know if UVa would have beaten Ohio if the Cavaliers ran the floor for 40 minutes. UVa’s style works really well in the regular season and has had mixed success in the postseason. But great coaches look at everything they are doing and try to get better. Shutting down the idea of playing faster is just as foolish as saying that playing slow will never work.

As we’ve detailed in this series, when UVa has bowed out of the Big Dance, it’s been a bad performance. In wins, the Wahoos are efficient, tenacious on defense, and precise on offense. And in losses, shots don’t fall, the Cavaliers don’t get to the line, and the defense loses focus long enough to fall behind. But Virginia didn’t abandon its slow pace on the road to the 2019 title. The Hoos did everything the same, they just did it better.

One could argue against this, but I’d say that UVa hasn’t played “well” in any of the seven NCAA Tournament losses under Bennett. The one exception could be the 2014 loss to an underseeded Michigan State team that ranked No. 8 in KenPom and won a toss-up 61-59 contest. Even then, UVa played far from its best game and came up just short.

Virginia has gotten away with a few uneven performances in victories—the win over Oregon two years ago comes to mind—but most of the time, when they play well they win and when they don’t play well, the Cavaliers lose. The same is true of their regular-season performances, with a little more margin for error when playing poorly, with more frequent “bad” opponents, and the lack of do-or-die stakes.

Some of Virginia’s contemporaries have played well in losses, though, while playing at a faster pace. Purdue played really well in the clash with the Wahoos in 2019 but UVa just made more plays. Kentucky was 38-0 going into its Final Four game with Wisconsin, and scored 1.1 points per possession in an upset loss. The Cats had just six turnovers, made 60 percent of their 3s, and simply came up short. It wasn’t because of their pace or their offensive sets. Wisconsin just outplayed them. If UVa was playing well in its losses and kept coming up short, especially against double-digit seeds, then complaints about pace of play would be more valid.

There isn’t an easy answer as to why the Cavaliers have had more games where they’ve played bad in March. And to be fair, they have faced a less-formidable group of opponents over the years than many other teams have, with mixed success.

But from all of this research, the big question isn’t “is style of play keeping them from winning?” But rather, “What do the Wahoos need to do to execute better in the NCAA Tournament?”

UVa lost a bunch of close NCAA Tournament games between 2014 and 2016. Then, in 2019, the Cavaliers didn’t. They made the plays they needed to and won it all.

Coming Monday: We conclude the series with a look at the blueprint for winning a title

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