On paper, it would seem that any ACC men’s basketball team should put a pounding on Virginia’s Big South foe Liberty tonight at John Paul Jones Arena.
Virginia, however, has yet to dominate anybody this season, including two other foes from the Big South. While pleased with his team’s undefeated record, coach Dave Leitao is far from satisfied with his team after only scraping by Big South opponents VMI and Radford and Big East opponent South Florida, the preseason’s worst-ranked team in that conference, in the first week of the season.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ve got a short period of time to start getting serious about our work if we have any visions of being a good team,” Leitao said.
Most recently, against Radford, Virginia (3-0, 0-0 ACC) trailed for the majority of the game before escaping with a 2-point win after the Cavaliers took back the lead for good with only 29 seconds remaining.
“By chance [Friday], we made a play or two at the end, or they didn’t execute a play or two at the end, and we were fortunate enough to win,” Leitao said.
Though the Cavaliers have focused on defense since the start of preseason, the offense’s struggles have been particularly noticeable. The Cavaliers have shot a dismal nine for 44 from 3-point range on the season and 38.6 percent from the floor in their last two games. The team’s 54.4 percent shooting in the back-and-forth, full-court shootout in the 107-97 win against VMI inflated Virginia’s accuracy to a respectable 44.5 percent. Even Virginia’s free throw shooting has been off: The team has made 55 from the charity stripe on 80 tries (68.8 percent).
The abysmal shooting from the perimeter is of particular concern. Leitao has said this is not the best penetrating team he has ever had, nor does he have the inside threats to put up big numbers on the block. If Virginia does not shoot well from the perimeter, it likely will not win.
“I can tell you specifically why we’re not making shots, and it’s not because we’re not good shooters,” Leitao said. “We’re not creating — through our offense or our execution — comfortable [3-point shots]. We take them as a last resort, or we take them because we need to take them, or just because a guy’s open, and you don’t make shots like that.”
In fact, it is arguably because of Virginia’s McDonald’s All-American freshman guard Sylven Landesberg that the team is in the win column at all. Landesberg has scored 28, 21 and 22 points in the first three games, respectively, to lead all Virginia scorers. The New York City product has shown off his inner-city flair and touch around the basket in the process.
Landesberg “right now, for good, for bad, for indifferent, he’s oblivious — he just plays basketball,” Leitao said. “I think because he is naturally an attacker, he challenges the defense, he finds openings.”
But as Virginia looks ahead to its schedule before getting a break for final exams, tonight’s game against Liberty (1-1, 0-1 Big South) would be a timely occasion to start playing team basketball. Following tonight’s matchup, Virginia makes its most taxing road trip of the season, traveling to Syracuse, N.Y. Friday and following that up with a contest at Minnesota Tuesday.
The rest of the troops will have to get more involved if Virginia wants to keep winning.
“It’s hard, because you’ve got to change a lot of people’s personalities,” junior guard Calvin Baker said. “Naturally, we’ve got a lot of players who are introverted — they really stick to themselves. In order for us to be a good team, everybody’s got to give more than they have been doing.”
Liberty, however, will likely not be any less resistant than fellow Big South opponents VMI and Radford. Liberty was picked to finish fourth in the conference in the preseason, sitting between VMI (seventh) and Radford (second). The Flames took down Montreat by 20 to open their season but were rocked 84-56 Tuesday by UNC Asheville, which was picked to finish ninth in the Big South. Like Virginia, Liberty’s leading scorer, Seth Curry, is also a freshman guard and was a McDonald’s All-American nominee, though he did not play in the All-American game as Landesberg did. Curry has put up 20.5 points per game in his first two games, while returning leading scorer and senior guard Anthony Smith has added 19 points per game.
With the big Thanksgiving weekend road trip to the Northeast looming, it would certainly make Leitao breathe easier if his team could win by 15 or 20 points instead of by 1 or 2.
“We’ve got to be in a better position from the start of games and throughout the games to not be toward the end of a game trying to eek out victories night in and night out,” Leitao said. “You don’t win that way; not each night.”
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