The Virginia women’s basketball team found itself in a bit of a pickle Sunday, falling into a 15-point deficit against the Hokies before halftime while seeming unable to stop any of Virginia Tech’s drives to the basket.
Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, though, known as being somewhat of a man-to-man traditionalist in her strategic planning of the Cavaliers’ defense during her 31 years at the University, decided to go against her habits and switched to a 2-3 zone.
“I just noticed we were doing some things [wrong] we don’t normally do,” Ryan said. “So I went to the zone, and when it worked, I stayed with it.”
The change in scheme quickly shifted the game’s momentum toward No. 17 Virginia (5-3 ACC, 19-5), and Ryan stuck with the zone for most of the game against Virginia Tech (1-8 ACC, 11-13).
By the time the buzzer rang on Virginia’s 69-61 victory, the Cavaliers had played zone for 75 percent of the game by junior guard Monica Wright’s estimate.
“I’d say it was probably the most zone I’ve played in my life,” Ryan said. “I’m not much of a zone coach, but I thought we really did a nice job of spreading it out and forcing people to shoot shots they don’t [want to] shoot.”
Among the players that benefited from the zone was sophomore forward Kelly Hartig, who ended with one block, two steals and six rebounds.
Hartig “sees the game extremely well,” Ryan said. “She’s getting better and better and she even made an offensive move to score today.”
With senior center Aisha Mohammed, who serves as the go-to big player for the Cavaliers, still dealing with the ramifications of a knee injury that has nagged her since she arrived in Charlottesville, Hartig has had plenty of chances to assert her presence as a physical forward. She has started every game for Virginia so far this season and averaged 18.2 minutes per game.
“Mostly my area is defense and rebounding,” Hartig said. “I’m a large person, so I make it hard for people when they come in the middle. Coach has just really told me to focus on the defensive part of my game and the offense will come.”
Mohammed also started performing better when Ryan switched defensive strategies Sunday. Mohammed, who leads the ACC in rebounding with 9.6 per game, especially stepped up in the second half, during which she scored 11 of her 13 points and grabbed six of her nine rebounds.
“It’s nice for me to play with players like [Monica Wright], Lyndra [Littles] and Aisha,” Hartig said, ”who can just take over [offensively]. That way I don’t really have to worry about that. I just have to worry about helping them out on the defensive end.”
Perhaps Hartig’s most notable playing quirk is her tendency to rack up fouls. Her 54 personal fouls this season place her on the roster only behind Monica Wright, who has totaled 60 — and averages 15 more minutes per game than Hartig.
“I love hitting people,” Hartig said. “I’m a little bit foul prone. It’s a physical game, though.”
With Virginia’s star veterans — Wright, Littles and Mohammed — almost naturally contributing astronomical numbers and producing so effectively on offense, Virginia’s game plan seems focused on defense. When the Cavaliers make stops and grab rebounds to prevent opponents from having second chances, Virginia’s scoring usually takes care of itself. This is why Virginia’s shift to zone defense was such a notable story from Sunday’s game, and why Ryan’s defensive strategies in the future are such important questions for the Cavaliers to answer as they strive for continued success.
“We’ll go back to man-to-man very quickly,” Ryan said, noting though that, “We got 12 stops in a row [using zone], so if it ain’t broke, I’m not [going to] fix it.”
Virginia will have a chance to work on its defensive schemes Thursday at 7 p.m. in College Park against No. 11 Maryland. Thursday also will mark Virginia’s first away game since Jan. 26, when the Cavaliers topped Clemson 75-67.
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