After two straight losses on the road to Maryland and N.C. State, the Virginia women’s basketball team travels back home and hopes to regain its footing against Miami tonight.
“We can only dwell so much on past games,” junior guard Monica Wright said. “We just have to refocus ourselves in practice when it comes to defense and little mistakes we made in the past game.”
The Cavaliers will look tonight to remedy one of their recent weaknesses — a lack of depth in the scoring department — against Miami (13-12, 2-8 ACC). Virginia tends to rely heavily on Wright, senior forward Lyndra Littles and senior center Aisha Mohammed for the majority of its offensive production, and it may need to share the ball more to pick up its sixth conference win.
“Offensively, we are learning how to make plays when we need them, make shots when we need them,” Wright said.
In the game against Maryland last week, the Cavaliers (19-7, 5-5 ACC) saw double-digit scoring from both freshman guard Ariana Moorer and senior guard Britnee Millner. In their most recent game against N.C. State, however, it seemed business as usual for Virginia as Wright, Littles and Mohammed combined to score almost three-quarters of the team’s total points. Wright, though, said she foresees a more balanced attack in the near future.
“During the last couple weeks, I feel like a lot of the other players have been stepping up. On the offensive end, [opponents] aren’t focused on only two players. I feel like Ariana [Moorer] is definitely doing a good job,” Wright said, also noting that “Britnee [Millner] is doing a great job in transition — beating people off the dribble.”
As the Cavaliers look to find an offensive stride that involves more than just their usual three-step approach, they also must prepare to contend with the Hurricanes’ athleticism.
“Miami is a good team — very athletic,” Wright said. “They have one of the best freshmen in the country right now, [Shenise Johnson]. We expect a good game.”
Johnson, who has started all 10 games this season, leads the Miami offense with a team-high average of 12.1 points per game, placing her in the top 20 in the ACC. She also is in the top 15 of the ACC for rebounds, 19 of which were offensive.
“We are definitely going to play our game and focus on what we need to do,” Wright said. “They are a quick team so we are going to have to get up and down with them and try to limit their chances on the offensive end.”
The idea of “playing our game” seems to be a concept that Virginia coach Debbie Ryan shares. Ryan tends to emphasize aggressive defense and rebounding as fuel for a fast-paced transition offense, which has led to success on many occasions. At the same time, Ryan has shown a willingness to make dramatic adjustments if necessary. Consider the Cavaliers’ win against Virginia Tech, during which Virginia made an uncharacteristic switch from man-to-man defense to zone. This switch led to 12 straight defensive stops and a Virginia come-from-behind victory.
“Sometimes when you look at your team,” Ryan said. “You kind of know things about them ... I just noticed things that we don’t normally do. So I went to the zone, and when it worked, I stayed with it. I’m going to stay with something that works.”
Ryan also was quick to point out, however, that she mostly sticks to her tried-and-true methods.
“If it ain’t broke, I’m not going to fix it,” she said.
With this in mind, look for Virginia to play its run-and-gun offense against Miami, as long as its defense can put enough pressure on the Hurricanes to allow the Cavaliers to stretch the floor.
The Hurricanes for will look to bounce back from a loss at home to Boston College, and, if past experience is any indication, play a similarly fast-paced offense.
With just four games left in the regular season, Virginia has a limited number of chances to regain momentum before the postseason.
“We are just really focused right now coming off two losses,” Wright said. “We have just got to regroup and refocus ourselves.”
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