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No. 8 Virginia exits exams with test against No. 12 Villanova

Cavaliers continue to work on stiffening interior defense

Fresh out of final exams for the fall semester, No. 8 Virginia basketball prepares themselves for another stern examination, this one coming on the hardwood against 12th-ranked Villanova.

When the two teams tip off Saturday the Cavaliers (8-1, 0-0 ACC) will be 11 days removed from their last contest, a 70-54 victory over then-No. 14 West Virginia in the Jimmy V Classic. In that game, Virginia played some of their worst basketball in the first half before rallying with one of their better second-half performances.

“Assistant coach Brad Soderberg has a saying on his desk. It’s a Mike Tyson saying: ‘Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth,’” coach Tony Bennett said. “We absolutely got punched in the mouth.”

Senior forward Anthony Gill led the way for the Cavaliers against the Mountaineers. Gill scored 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting and pulled down 12 rebounds. That double-double earned the Charlotte Christian alum ACC Player of the Week honors.

The Wildcats (8-1, 0-0 Big East) also enter Saturday on the heels of a victory — 76-47 over La Salle Dec. 13. Prior to that, Villanova suffered their first defeat of the season to then-No. 7 Oklahoma, 78-55. Since that game, the Sooners have shot up to No. 3 in the polls and are the second-best team in the nation behind Virginia, according to KenPom.

The story of that drubbing in Pearl Harbor, as well as Villanova’s season on the whole, has been the three ball. The Sooners hit 14 of their 26 attempts from deep, while the Wildcats made only four of their 32 long-distance shots — only 12.5 percent.

Coach Jay Wright’s 2014 Wildcats squad was an offensive juggernaut that averaged 120 points per 100 possessions. Villanova boasted the 14th-highest eFG percentage in the nation and shot the lights out from deep — connecting on 38.9 percent of three pointers.

The graduation of Darrun Hilliard coupled with the transfer of Dylan Ennis to Oregon sapped much of the long-range firepower from Villanova. As a senior, Hilliard led the team with 204 three-point attempts and made 38.7 percent of those shots. Ennis, meanwhile, shot 36.2 percent beyond the arc on 160 tries.

Compounding the Wildcats’ offensive struggles has been the regression of several key cogs. As a sophomore, Josh Hart was 16th in the nation with a 46.4 three-point percentage. One year later, his accuracy has plummeted to 35 percent. Likewise, junior Kris Jenkins has seen his long-range accuracy dip by almost six points. Only senior Ryan Arcidiacono has maintained his three-point proficiency.

The Wildcats’ first-month woes are perhaps due in part to the altered roles brought about by the graduation of Hilliard and JayVaughn Pinkston and the transfer of Ennis.

“We are a work in progress,” Wright said. “Last year at this time, we were starting five guys that had started a lot of games — at this point in the year we were a well-oiled machine. This group is not but we have a chance to get a lot better, and we’re learning.”

One month into the season and the staple of Virginia’s success — it’s defense — is also a work in progress. Early struggles to navigate through the new rules only exacerbated the challenge of accounting for the lost defensive impact of wing Justin Anderson and big Darion Atkins, causing the Cavaliers to drop outside the top 10 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive ratings.

“Justin and Darion brought some things that were special,” Bennett said. “They could defensively erase mistakes. It puts a premium on being sounder and in better position because you know we don’t have guys like that.”

The Cavaliers’ uncharacteristic defensive slide begins and ends with the defense of its rim. Last season, with Atkins as an anchor in the paint, opponents shot 36.7 percent at the rim. This season, that figure has jumped to 41.4 percent, and attempts at the rim are being blocked 4.4 percent less of the time.

“We have to be sound and be together,” sophomore forward Isaiah Wilkins said. “[Darion] and Justin really helped clean up a lot of mistakes we made, so there’s less room for error.”

Virginia’s defense is ratcheting tighter as the season progresses, but without a true rim protector the Cavaliers’ paint is more vulnerable than it has been in several seasons.

Villanova’s willingness to exploit Virginia’s softer interior by going to the rim will be a crucial key to victory on Saturday, but so far the Wildcats have not shown such a willingness. Only 31 percent of Villanova’s shot attempts come at the rim, which is 298th in Division I.

Instead, Wright’s team remains content to shoot a high volume of three-pointers.

Tip-off is scheduled for noon.

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