The Same System That Made UVA a Powerhouse Turned It Into a Punch Line
Tony Bennett’s glacial, defense-first strategy made it impossible for his team to keep up with UMBC
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. After years of close calls and early tournament exits, this was going to be the year Virginia finally made a deep run. The Cavaliers won 31 games. They earned the Dance’s top overall seed. Pundits projected a Sweet 16 matchup with either Kentucky or Arizona—two immensely talented teams, sure. But nothing the Hoos couldn’t handle. After Kansas State beat Creighton earlier Friday, fans started speculating about what the Wildcats would have to do to upset the country’s best team. UMBC, Virginia’s opening opponent, was an afterthought.
A 16-seed had never beaten a 1-seed, and it would have seemed foolish to suggest the streak would end in Charlotte. Even with ACC Sixth Man of the Year De’Andre Hunter sidelined by a late-season wrist injury, KenPom predicted Virginia would win their tournament opener by 20 points. That became their margin of defeat. When the final buzzer sounded in the Spectrum Center, the scoreboard read the improbable: UMBC 74, Virginia 54.
The Hoos looked lost early on, allowing the Retrievers to sink 3 after 3, and struggled to generate enough offense to pull ahead. Each team scored 21 points in the first half. In the second, Virginia was outscored 53-33. Jairus Lyles—UMBC’s do-everything senior guard—finished with 28 points on 9-for-11 shooting, and delivered some of the game’s defining blows. Each time the Hoos had a window to claw back within striking distance, the Retrievers slammed it shut.
Hunter’s absence wasn’t a good excuse for UVA. The Hoos had plenty of talent. Kyle Guy was a first-team All-ACC selection. Devon Hall was on the conference’s second team. Ty Jerome was on the third. That trio combined to score 32 points against the 188th-best team in the country. They shot 2-of-17 from deep, collectively, and had as many combined fouls and turnovers (14) as they did field goals.
Despite having the top-rated defense in the country, Virginia allowed a season-high 74 points to a squad whose best win before Friday came in the America East Conference championship in an upset of Vermont. The same system that suffocated superior opponents like Duke and North Carolina allowed the 212th-best offensive team in the country to shoot 50 percent from beyond the arc.
Since Tony Bennett installed his system in Charlottesville, his team’s deliberate pace of play drew ire from pundits and spectators. Year after year, the Hoos were among the slowest teams in college basketball. During the past two seasons, no team moved more glacially. While conference opponents and national contemporaries pushed the pace, opting to give their stars space to work, Virginia pushed back. At first, the style of play served as a way to balance the playing field; the less-talented Hoos could challenge rosters filled by McDonald’s All Americans so long as they could limit their scoring. As the years progressed and Bennett’s recruiting classes became populated by better recruits, the system got stronger. The defense was smothering. Virginia’s surprising results—the conference titles over blue-blood squads and high seedings on Selection Sunday—became expected.
The tradeoff was simple. Fans endured a less-than-enjoyable viewing experience, but were given a team that could win 30 games a season without breaking a sweat. The postseason success hadn’t come yet, but it surely would. In five years, Bennett’s Cavs had earned three no. 1 seeds and a no. 2; they’d made a Sweet 16 appearance and a trip to the Elite Eight. The breakthrough would come eventually. And it seemed like this might finally be the year Virginia would end up in the history books.
In a cruel twist, that’s exactly what it got. With the loss, the Hoos became the first no. 1 seed to lose to a no. 16 seed. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been a handful of close calls. In 1989, Princeton came just one shot from knocking off top-seeded Georgetown. In 1990, Murray State nearly took out Michigan State. In 1996, Purdue almost fell to Western Carolina. But each of those times, the no. 1 seed won. There were 135 wins. And now, one loss.
What happens next will hurt for Virginia fans. Their team is saddled with the weight of history, and they join teams like the 2007 New England Patriots and 2015 Kentucky Wildcats as legendary losers. There will be no faux celebration parade to honor their accomplishments, nor reasoning among the faithful that this could have been worse.
This was the worst-case scenario. A game wherein Virginia not only lost to an inferior team, but did so because its system—the vaunted schematic that allows it to control and bend opponents to its will—kept them from being able to climb out of their second-half hole. Minimizing possessions relies on a bet that no team can score as efficiently as the tortoises dictating play. On nearly every night against nearly every foe, that bet paid off. But Friday night, when it mattered most, the system finally failed.