Sunday, December 8th, Virginia basketball will be facing North Carolina at JPJ arena. Come here to talk about the game.
Sorry about missing the last one, thanks to the person who created one for Purdue 
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Not sure what to expect.
With Armando Bacot out with an ankle injury (a double digit scorer and their leading rebounder), Virginia should have an advantage inside. UNC is not deep (currently 7 healthy scholarship players) and Virginia’s defense could wear them out.
UNC doesn’t have a scoring wing. At all. They’ve won, so far, by throwing the ball inside to their two-post offense and crashing the boards. Lots of second chance points. But now Bacot is out.
So Cole Anthony needs to shoot 20+ times. If he’s on, UNC wins easily. If he’s not, Virginia should grind this out.
Here’s what Ohio State said they did to limit Cole Anthony (hint: they learned from two losses to Carson Edwards and Purdue):
Here’s what I think Virginia should do: go back to being Virginia. Every defensive possessions with max effort. On offense, use all the clock, trading good shots for better shots, and get a paint touch inside to Diakite or Huff on every possession. And lock down Cole Anthony – 75 feet of attention from Kihei Clark.
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You nailed it, without Bacot this game comes down to containing Anthony. With our offensive issues, he could be the difference. I am also really concerned about our mindset. Not sure how we will be mentally. The shooting absolutely has to be in guys heads, as does the pressure on MD and KC to carry the team. This game is going to tell us a lot.
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A couple posters here (and Sperber) noted that teams are picking up Kihei full court since he’s been our only proven, reliable ball handler under pressure so far. This allows the rest of their defense to rest for a few seconds, and its a few more seconds off for their defense against UVA’s grind it out half-court offense. I expect that UNC will do the same, but as you note they are not deep. Plus they risk wearing out Anthony, who’s gonna play 35+ minutes regardless. UVA used Coleman more and had Kihei pass off to him or Morsell in the backcourt to try to counteract that strategy against Purdue. I’ll be curious to see if Tony goes to that against UNC as well.
Both teams took an embarrassing beat down in their last game, so I think the redemption factor will be their for both as well. Agree that it seems like 3 point shooting accuracy will determine the outcome.
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What is Braxton’s status?
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Game to game. I don’t think there’s much chance he plays Sunday. Next week maybe though.
Still no Braxton for tonight? Might be a pretty good game…Both teams have a similar story line since they are both missing arguably their second best players, and both teams are coming off bad losses…Physiologically, UNC and UVA could both be in the same position…
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No Braxton, unfortunately. But, UNC is also missing on of the best players, forward Armando Bacot.
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This is looking like a Dean Smith score.
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It’s gonna be a interesting score by the end of the game
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As long as it’s not a shut out!
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Serious question. Virginia has been comfortable for years running the shot clock down and taking late shots. Given the current makeup of this squad, maybe they should consider taking quicker shots if they are open shots.
Dont you think Keys absence is a factor in when they take a shot?
Imagine if we had Key right now! For as ugly as a game as this is, Im seeing some encouraging things.
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For a painfully ugly game I feel good about this one. It’s a weird feeling.
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especially Tomas hitting a few threes
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Papi gets to break the rock!
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Most encouraging game of the year. Not only did we beat UNC minus Key. But we had so many guys off the bench and newbies really step up! What a confidence builder this was. Starting to find a bit more rythem.
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No Papi definitely breaks the rock.
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