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Efficiency Breakdown: UVa 77, ND 66

Jordan Wells

I've posted how many times?
Feb 11, 2015
7,264
3,028
113
Pace: 58 possessions. This might be one of the slowest games played in college basketball all season, and yet people still keep talking about UVa and/or ND being uptempo. It's hilarious.

Efficiency:

Virginia--133

Notre Dame--114

Here's what I wrote in the Liberty efficiency breakdown:

"The level of play from the last two games absolutely can't carry over into the UVa game. If it does, I could see the Cavs winning by double-digits."

It was even worse today than I thought it would be.

The Irish had very few answers for Virginia on defensive end of the floor. Gill and Brogdon combined for 45 points on 16-of-24 shooting, and a third in big man Tobey threw in 15.

But none of those guys did anything that blew me away. I was never like "man, that was a tremendous move". They just got a ton of basically wideopen, uncontested layups and dunks over and over. It reminded me some of what I saw from the Irish's offense last year when they were clicking, just less three's and more in the post.

I will give Notre Dame the benefit of the doubt on one thing - it wasn't their day early. They came out firing in the first couple minutes, but then several shots just barely missed or rolled out while UVA got a few bounces to pull away early. And the Irish just never recovered after that, which is a tall task to ask at Virginia.

And it's just one game. Notre Dame is just 0-1 in the conference. Still though, there wasn't much encouraging about it. Auguste struggled mightily, Brey even benched him at one point in the second half and played a combination of Colson and Torres. D.J. struggled until he got some insane three-point attempts to fall in the second half.

Offense--114 is 1.14 points per possession. This was very surprising to me, this is actually very good.

My rule of thumb when you go on the road is you want to average more than 1.00 points per possession, and hope the home team is cold. ND gets a big checkmark here, as much as we are all picking apart the Irish offense.

Defense--This is what I will keep coming back to. Virginia's season average entering this game when adjusted for strength of schedule was a 118 - meaning against an average NCAA defense, they should average 1.18 points per possession.

Against the Irish, they posted 1.33. This high of a number is just unacceptable regardless of who you're playing. If this game was played at just an average NCAA pace of 70 possessions a game, that means UVa is looking at 91 points.

And if this game were played at a fast pace? The Cavs would have broken 100.

Notre Dame Identity Stats:

1) Effective Field Goal Percentage: 54.5 percent. Not a good effort. Irish did make 20-of-34 two's (59 percent), but struggled to only 7-of-22 three's (32 percent).

2) Turnover Rate: 8 TO's in 58 possessions is a 14 percent turnover rate (about one every seven possessions). This is a massive checkmark here against a UVa defense that is pretty good at forcing them.

3) Offensive Rebounding Rate: Notre Dame collected 10 offensive rebounds in 31 opportunities (Cavs collected 21 defensive rebounds), which is a 32 percent offensive rebounding rate. Not great, but okay.


Summary: Again, I was shocked to see the offense posted a 114 this game.

Only three teams have done that to Virginia since the beginning of the 2014-15 season. Davidson posted a 115 on Dec. 30, 2014, Duke posted a 117 when the Blue Devils beat UVa 69-63 on Jan. 31, 2015, and Villanova posted a 125 earlier this season.

That Duke game is one of the only ACC teams to beat UVa at home in I dunno how long. That kind of productivity on offense is very, very tough to do to Virginia.


As I've written for a couple weeks, it's the defense that needs work. The defensive rankings continue to tumble - Notre Dame now ranks 191st nationally in defensive efficiency after tonight's game.

The offense believe it or not ended up okay tonight. Maybe some of them were some lucky makes late, like a few of Jackson's deep and guarded three-pointers. But the productivity was there.

Notre Dame just went cold in that single eight minute stretch in the first half - and when you play defense as bad as they do, that's just enough to put you out of the game against a team like Virginia.


I'm done trying to nicpick the offense. That end of the floor is fine, even if it's not perfect like last year. It's time we all start paying more attention to the issues defensively, because that's where improvement is desperately needed.
 
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