Tonight, for the first time since Dec. 4, the Virginia women’s basketball team will play coming off a loss.
After falling 103-74 to then-undefeated No. 2 North Carolina Friday, the Cavaliers (14-3, 1-1 ACC) will be forced to respond to their first lopsided defeat this season. No. 16 Virginia has an opportunity to return to its winning ways in Blacksburg tonight, when it takes on a Hokies squad that has struggled thus far.
Virginia Tech (8-9, 0-4 ACC) has been unable to edge a conference or ranked opponent this season. The Hokies are playing without last year’s ACC-leading scorer, senior guard Brittany Cook, who continues to be plagued by injuries and has yet to appear in a game this season. Tech junior forward Utahya Drye, averaging 13.8 points, and junior guard Lindsay Biggs, averaging 13.5 points, are together scoring just 9 points more a game than Cook averaged last year.
Despite a disappointing early season record, however, the Hokies have shined from time to time, including during a Jan. 16 matchup against No. 4 Duke. Though the Hokies fell 57-52 in the end, they were within a possession of the Blue Devils with a minute remaining in the game.
“That is the best I’ve ever seen Virginia Tech play,” Duke coach Joanne McCallie said after the game. “They did some outstanding things.”
No matter what level of play the Hokies bring, the Cavaliers must remain focused on what they can do to improve their own performance, which is how Virginia has responded to adversity up to this point.
Though the loss to the Tar Heels was their biggest of the season, the Cavaliers have found themselves in a hole before, and it has been in such moments of trial that the team has responded best this season. In the first half of its ACC opener against Wake Forest, the squad fell as far as 16 points behind, but the Cavaliers managed to bounce back with a 24-0 run to top the Demon Deacons. Similarly, Virginia overcame a late deficit to beat then-No. 5 Tennessee 83-82 in Knoxville.
Furthermore, the Cavaliers have yet to drop two games in a row. In games following their previous two losses, Virginia has managed to rebound with two of its most resounding victories of the season, topping opponents by winning margins of 34 and 24 points, respectively.
Perhaps the Cavaliers’ resiliency can be traced to a pragmatic approach espoused by Virginia coach Debbie Ryan.
“The first [rule] of holes is stop digging and get rid of the shovel,” Ryan said.
With Ryan’s direction, Virginia will look to improve in the areas in which it struggled Friday during its loss to North Carolina.
First, the Cavaliers will have to shoot better from the floor if they wish to succeed in their upcoming tough conference tests; Virginia made only 37.5 percent of its field goals at Chapel Hill. At the same time, the Cavaliers struggled to control the ball effectively, giving up 22 turnovers while only dishing out a total of 10 assists.
One player who contributed to Virginia’s poor assist-to-turnover ratio was senior forward Lyndra Littles, who turned the ball over five times and failed to tally a single assist in the game. Littles, however, made up for her poor ball handling performance by hitting eight of 17 shots and totaling 21 points, good for second highest on the team.
Littles’ explanation for the Cavaliers’ toughness in the face of a challenge this season is a bit less philosophical and a bit more direct than that of her coach.
“We just played hard,” Littles said of previous Cavalier wins following a loss.
Regardless of how simple or complex the mindset the Cavaliers choose to take is, they will look to tonight’s matchup against rival Virginia Tech as a chance to reverse their recent misfortune.
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