Sometimes I think this Virginia men's basketball team is more fickle than Lady Gaga in a hair salon. One day the Cavaliers are throwing up as many bricks as a foreman at Garrett Hall - such as their 2-20 three-point shooting disaster against Seattle - and the next they're stroking 25-foot jumpers like the 1985 Celtics, as seen in Saturday's 7-8 three-point shooting clinic in the first half against Georgia Tech. The Cavaliers live and die by the three-ball these days, and Saturday, they lived life to the fullest.
You can't really criticize this team for its dependence on the long-distance heave. It is an on-court lifestyle stemming more from necessity than choice. When your team's only reliable low-post player goes down, your offense suddenly does not run through the interior - that is, unless you want to place your faith in Assane Sene's not-so-multifaceted repertoire of post moves. Coach Tony Bennett has been forced to experiment with four guard lineups, meaning sharp outside shooting has become a top priority. The strategy has both worked wonders (see: the first half against Duke) and precipitated failures (see: the second half against Duke). Depending on how confident its guards are feeling from behind the arc, Virginia is capable of dethroning an ACC powerhouse like Duke one day and losing to a Division I doormat like Wake Forest the next.
I'm sure some blue-and-orange clad fans ambled out of John Paul Jones Arena feeling their team had finally found its way, that the Cavaliers had uncovered an air of confidence on both ends of the court that would make them ACC contenders toward season's end. If they could light up a conference foe that was coming off a 20-point spanking of North Carolina and a 35-point annihilation of Wake Forest, why couldn't they just keep it up against everybody else? With stellar shooters like Joe Harris, KT Harrell and Mustapha Farrakhan leading the way, a reliance on the jump shot seems a recipe for sure-fire success.
To these optimistic Wahoos, I say don't hold your breath. There is a reason Georgia Tech ranks last in the ACC in three-point field goal percentage defense. Coach Paul Hewitt seemed to emphasize stopping penetration to the basket at all costs, even if it meant giving Virginia's shooters ample space for uncontested catch-and-shoot situations time and again. Other conference opponents will be far more reluctant to leave guys like Harris so open. Also keep in mind that the Ramblin' Wreck are more inept on the road than your average Floridian retiree behind the wheel, as they have yet to win a single game outside of Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
At the end of the day, though, the Cavaliers will not be able to shoot their way past every opponent. As their game against Iowa State - 0-13 shooting from deep - proved, shooters have their good days and bad. Like a weekend golfer, a shooting guard doesn't really know whether he'll be ice cold, en fuego or something in the middle until he unleashes that first shot. Despite controlling the entire game, Virginia was still out-rebounded by a small Georgia Tech squad and out-scored 34-20 in the paint. Joe Harris - a pure shooter who now finds himself in the power forward position at times - led the Cavaliers with eight boards, a stat line you would not have seen when Mike Scott was taking the court. For a team that likely will lose the rebounding battle in just about every game the rest of the season, shooting 50 percent from the field as Virginia did against Georgia Tech will be just as essential as it will be impressive.
Luckily for the Hoos, their main core of shooters are all feeling confident in their stroke - Harris's jumper looks as smooth as ever, Harrell seems to have found a nice rhythm, Sammy Zeglinski is finally returning to form and Will Sherrill is getting his legs back. Most of all, though, Mustapha Farrakhan is once again feelin' it. The team's newfound leader by proxy finally put together a complete game against a worthy opponent, racking up an ACC career-high 23 points on 6-10 shooting to go along with five assists. Farrakhan's confidence is crucial not only because he is saddled with so much responsibility on the offensive end, but also because he faces tough tasks on defense, where he continues to be assigned to guard marquee players. His performance against Iman Shumpert, who tallied 19 points, was not great, but his hustle was admirable. Hopefully, Farrakhan's mentality the rest of the way will be to score 30 and give up zero.
Up next for Virginia is another confident team - Maryland, which beat Clemson Saturday. The Terps' biggest threat to the undersized Cavaliers is a big man named Jordan Williams, a 6-foot-10 forward coming off his school-record 13th consecutive double-double. Hopefully the Cavs will attack him in the lane - and then kick it to a shooter, of course.
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