A week ago, the Wahoos appeared to have more questions than answers. But now, Virginia has the look of a team that’s starting to trend in the right direction.
With back-to-back road wins in a four-day span, UVa has climbed back toward the top of the ACC standings with a 3-1 conference record. A few days prior to Saturday’s visit to Syracuse, the Hoos had bottomed out at No. 114 in the NCAA’s NET rankings. With wins in both that game and at Clemson on Tuesday, they’ve vaulted 40 spots to No. 74.
The Hoos had broken 70 points in just three of their first 12 games; they’ve averaged 74.5 in those last two victories.
“We’re not gonna overwhelm people,” coach Tony Bennett said after Tuesday’s 75-65 win at Clemson, “but at least the last two games, we walked into some stuff where I think we forged a nice identity.”
It’s been a stark turnaround for a team that seemed to be going the wrong way prior to the holidays. In their final game before Christmas, UVa lost by 17 at home to Clemson to fall to 7-5 overall and 1-1 in the ACC—while staring down a three-game conference road swing to start the new year.
But Tuesday’s win at Littlejohn Coliseum, particularly in tandem with the victory at Syracuse three days prior, offered plenty of evidence of where the Wahoos have improved since losing to those same Tigers two weeks earlier.
Virginia led for less than two minutes in the meeting at John Paul Jones Arena, and trailed for the final 35-plus minutes. On Tuesday, the two teams traded the lead 15 times and the game was tied an additional 15 times. The Hoos moved in front with just under seven minutes to play before pulling away down the stretch. That came after Uva trailed for just 39 seconds in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.
UVa has averaged 31.1 points in the paint in their nine wins this season, compared to 22.8 in their five losses. The Hoos had a season-low 12 points in the paint in the loss to Clemson; in the rematch, they finished with 34 (and had 40 in the win at Syracuse). Those easier buckets near the basket on Tuesday night allowed Virginia to overcome a 4-for-14 shooting night from beyond the 3-point arc.
Jayden Gardner was just 2-of-9 from the floor for 9 points in the loss to Clemson at JPJ. He has averaged 19 points on 58.3 percent shooting (14 of 24) in the two subsequent wins, including a 23-point performance on 7-of-11 shooting on Tuesday night. Attacking the Tigers in the paint was one of the key adjustments UVa made heading into the rematch, Gardner said afterward.
“We just tried to reevaluate everything that we didn't do as well as we could,” he said, “and we attacked those areas in practice and we came out here and executed, and we got the W. That was a big win for us.”
UVa scored just 50 points in that loss to Clemson two weeks ago. Highlighted by an 11-minute second-half span between field goals, the Hoos shot just 36.6 percent in that game. They scored 74 in the Dome and 75 on Tuesday night, shooting a combined 53.4 percent from the floor in those two wins. The Hoos also have a combined 34-to-18 assist-to-turnover ratio in the last two games, after finishing with seven assists and 14 turnovers in the Clemson loss.
After getting zero points from the bench in that loss, the Hoos have averaged 13 bench points in the two subsequent victories. Veterans Francisco Caffaro and Kody Stattmann played important minutes off the bench on Tuesday. During one second-half stretch, Stattman had a nifty layup in the paint to get the Hoos back within one, then a 3-pointer to expand their lead to four. Caffaro broke a 54-54 tie with an emphatic one-hand slam with nine minutes to play, and was a physical presence on both ends.
That duo combined for 13 of UVa’s 15 points off the bench against the Tigers. It was their best combined scoring output of the season, surpassing the 11 points they put up in November’s loss at Houston.
“That’s important,” Bennett said afterward. “We need it all.”
Gardner led the charge offensively on Tuesday following a more balanced scoring performance in the Syracuse win. That game marked the first time this year that four Virginia starters finished in double figures. Armaan Franklin finished with 17 points, as did Kihei Clark, who hit a couple of game-altering 3-pointers in the game’s final nine minutes. With 12 points and 11 rebounds, Kadin Shedrick posted his first career ACC double-double.
With 13 points, Franklin was the only other UVa player to finish in double figures in Tuesday’s win. He shot just 4-of-11 from the floor, but made a pair of jumpers down the stretch as UVa was clinging to one-possession leads. Four players—Clark, Shedrick, Reece Beekman (who had a career-high 20 points in the Clemson loss) and Caffaro—chipped in with eight apiece. Clark again hit a clutch 3-pointer late, this time capping a 7-0 UVa run that ultimately put the game out of reach.
“We’re starting to get back on track the things that we do well,” said Gardner, “and we're addressing them and we're just going. It’s a long season. We want to be playing our best basketball come March. That's all that matters.”
At 9-5 overall, the Wahoos aren’t likely to start showing up on any NCAA Tournament projections yet—but they’re inching closer. Prior to the Syracuse game, KenPom was projecting just six more wins on the UVa schedule. That projection included losses in both road games that Virginia ultimately won to start the new year. KenPom’s updated projection now has the Hoos winning nine of their remaining 16 games.
Wins in back-to-back games is an admittedly small sample size. But there’s one more reason for optimism given those two most recent outcomes: Bennett’s history of figuring things out.
The 2013-14 team entered the new year at 9-4 (with losses in three of their last five games) after a 35-point drubbing at Tennessee that has since carved out its place in program lore—because the Hoos rebounded by going 16-2 in ACC play to win the regular season title (and conference tournament) and eventually reach the Sweet 16.
Two seasons ago, UVa was 12-6 but had dropped four of five in mid-January, capped by a two-point loss at home to NC State. That team went on an 11-1 run to end the regular season, finishing second in the ACC before the 2020 postseason was canceled amid the initial COVID-19 outbreak.
Tuesday's win at Clemson gave this year's team its second NET Quadrant 1 victory of the season, joining the neutral-court win over Providence in November. As of Wednesday, five additional potential Quadrant 1 wins remain on the schedule, starting with Saturday’s visit to Chapel Hill. North Carolina (10-3, 2-0 ACC) is No. 35 in Wednesday’s updated NET rankings.
“Hopefully we're getting better,” Bennett said. “We tried to be purposeful and intentional in our our break when we got back. We played good stretches of basketball at our place, but when you're on that fine line we talked about, you just keep pursuing improvement and quality and you don't get discouraged, as hard as that is, when the results might not be there.”
“And so, do you have the resiliency or the the kind of enthusiasm in your program,” Bennett added, “That comes from the young men. And of course as coaches we have to do that, to say, ‘Hey, just keep knocking. Keep knocking. It's not as far away as you think.’”
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