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After the Buzzer: Virginia

By Justin Renck
Louisville v Virginia Photo by Ryan M. Kelly/Getty Images

Quick Hitters

-By now, you probably know how I am when I do these after losses. Let’s get this over with and move on to the ACC Tournament, shall we?

-Louisville trailed 43-29 and it felt like this one was over. They fought back to tie the game at 51. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it was tied at 51 with 5:11 left to play. Louisville finished with 54 points because Samuell Williamson hit that three with 0.3 remaining. Fight all the way back to tie it up, and then the offense just disappears faster than hand sanitizer off the shelves of your local grocery store.

-I’ll go ahead and address the guard play now. I really think Darius Perry and Ryan McMahon may have been the best combo out there. Fresh did some things on defense as always, but we all saw the last few minutes. There is a play on the film review where he dribbled 27 times and forced a shot. We all wondered where David Johnson was and then he came in and gave up the dagger three to Clark.

So we are just left with questions. Is there even a chance for a dagger if DJ is in longer because maybe the Cards pull away with it? Or if he is in longer, does Virginia score even more because of that? I don’t know. I would hope that with a three-guard lineup that DJ is one of the three, but he just didn’t play well on defense and Virginia is a team that will find your weakness and expose you. Either way, just awful execution down the stretch, regardless of who was in the game. Everyone seems to think we need to point to one person to blame when things go wrong. I’m not going to do that. I’ll just say it was bad all around and more than one person can share the blame.

-More props to Darius Perry. He struggled mightily in the last matchup against Virginia when it came to staying with Kihei Clark. He made sure that didn’t happen this time. I thought he played really well.

-Jordan Nwora was good in this one. He played all 40 minutes and had 12 of his 18 points in the second half. He came to play and did his part. He also grabbed 11 rebounds. The next highest on the team was Dwayne Sutton with five.

-Dwayne Sutton didn’t seem to do much. He didn’t make plays that necessarily hurt us. He just didn’t do a lot that stuck out either. I know he played hard; we never have to question that. But three points, five rebounds, and no assists just doesn’t seem right for him.

-Malik Williams was clearly not himself. Hopefully he will be soon, even if it’s not in the ACC Tournament. There are bigger things ahead. Don’t make the ankle worse.

-You’d like for your team to make more than 19 baskets, but the 14 assists is a good thing.

-Not a fan of Jay Huff staring down Dwayne Sutton.

-Not a fan of Mamadi Diakite making the “he’s too small” gesture after every made basket, even if he took four or five steps he takes to get there.

-Nobody wants to read anymore about this game. Let’s just make some noise in the ACC Tournament and get ready for the Big Dance.

-As always, thanks for reading and Go Cards!

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