Virginia continues to vex Louisville in ACC play
Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals suffered their fourth straight loss to the Virginia Cavaliers on Monday night, falling 71-55 in Charlottesville, despite an impressive performance from freshman V.J. King.
Senior London Perrantes led the way for Virginia with 18 points, four boards and three assists while Isaiah Wilkins added 13 points.
Here’s a look at the things we learned from the Cavaliers victory.
1. Louisville still can’t figure out the puzzle against Virginia
This was Louisville’s fifth loss in six tries against Virginia since joining the ACC for the 2014-15 season. Back in 2015, the Cardinals managed a two-point win at home, but the average margin of defeat in other contests is 13.4 points. It’s become a bit of a trend.
One potential explanation is that the Louisville has pretty consistently been a poor outside shooting team and the Cavaliers are most likely to give up 3-point shots because of the structure of their pack line defense. On Monday, one-third of the Cardinals’ field goal attempts came from behind the arc, but they made just 27.8 percent of those 3s. Louisville has made more than 40 percent of their 3s in just one matchup with Virginia since joining the ACC. They won that one.
2. Virginia’s defense locked it down in the second half
Virginia came into Monday’s contest with the no. 3 ranked defense in the country based on adjusted deficiency and after allowing the Cardinals to 1.10 points per possession (PPP) in the first half, the Cavaliers held them to 0.68 PPP over the final 20 minutes. Virginia’s ability to force its opponent into tough shots no doubt played a role. Louisville shot 6-for-24 in the period, including 1-for-7 from behind the arc.
There was also no doubt an element of fatigue here for the Cardinals, too. Louisville was without guard Quentin Snider due to injury as well as forwards Deng Adel and Mangkok Mathiang due to a suspension for a violation of curfew. With six players eating up the bulk of the minutes on a two day turnaround after Saturday’s game at Boston College, shots started coming up short and mental lapses became more prominent as the game went on.
Still, Virginia’s defense deserves plenty of credit for showing why it’s one of the nation’s best in the win.
3. V.J. King’s breakout is a bright spot for Louisville
Louisville freshman V.J. King came into the game averaging 14.5 minutes per contest, but with both Snider and Adel out, he was forced into action on Monday night. In 37 minutes of action, King scored 24 points on 17 shooting possessions.
The former five-star recruit out of Akron, OH showed that he’s more than just an athletic wing by knocking down 3-of-5 3-point attempts and consistently getting into the lane to after the Cardinals’ ball movement was able to get Virginia’s defense rotating.
Although this was Louisville’s fifth loss in six tries against the Cavaliers since joining the ACC, King’s performance is a bright spot for the team going forward since he’ll be able to add some firepower to an offense that has struggled to keep up with the quality of the team’s defense.