Notebook: Rough Patches Against UVA’s Pack Line Defense Made the Difference
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Publisher
Clean offensive starts have come at a premium for Boston College men’s basketball this season. The Eagles got one Tuesday night at Virginia.
They were moving the ball, finding gaps in Tony Bennett’s fabled pack line defense and creating shots off penetration. BC made three of its first five shots. DeMarr Langford Jr. hit a jumper, James Karnik found TJ Bickerstaff on the baseline for two and Karnik backed down UVA center Francisco Caffaro in the post before finishing at the rim.
The Eagles held steady for a while. That was, until the Cavaliers made their move: a 7-0 run late in the first half.
“We had a patch where we needed to pass more and dribble less,” first-year BC head coach Earl Grant said. “They went and pressured us full court so a few of our decisions got sped up. The crowd got into it a little bit, and we just lost some composure and some poise.”
Here, Langford tries to take on Reece Beekman—one of the best on-ball defenders in the ACC—and ends up airballing a stepback jumper over the rim. At the start of this sequence, Langford had 12 seconds left on the shot clock. In other words, he had more than enough time to swing the ball around the perimeter to create a better shot or dribble-drive opportunity. Instead, he tries to do too much.
Similar result on the next possession. Only this time, Langford loses his dribble and, fortunately for BC, freshman guard Kanye Jones was there to scoop it up. But he didn't learn from his teammate's mistakes. Jones essentially ran right into a brick wall by driving into the meat of UVA's pack line. Cavaliers forward Kadin Shedrick stepped in, stripped Jones and UVA pushed the ball in the transition, leading to a fastbreak 3-pointer from Kihei Clark.
Just like that, a tied game was opened up. And while BC entered halftime with a five-point deficit, it would never get within one possession of the Cavaliers again, and the Eagles fell, 67-55, in John Paul Jones Arena.
Turnovers bit BC in the butt, especially in the first half
BC tries to stay under 12 turnovers per game, currently its season average. At UVA, however, the Eagles coughed up the ball 14 times. And that's against a team that ranks last in the country in adjusted tempo, according to KenPom."In a 57-possession game, to give away 14 possessions is really hard."
BC committed eight first-half turnovers, which the Cavaliers converted into 15 points—half their scoring output in the opening frame. It was a tough pill to swallow for a team that prides itself on taking care of the ball. After all, the Eagles had turned the ball over just 10 and nine times, respectively, in their previous two games.
Grant switched to a zone at times, except the execution wasn't there
It's no secret that BC is a man-to-man defensive team. But the Eagles turned to a 2-3 zone for parts of Tuesday's game. For one, the formation, if carried out correctly, can counteract the athleticism of opposing drivers (in this case, namely Jayden Gardner and Clark). Also, it can protect your bigs if they're in foul trouble, which BC's were. TJ Bickerstaff and Quinten Post both had two personals before the midway point of the first half. So the defensive adjustment made sense on paper. The problem was, the Eagles' execution of the 2-3 zone didn't measure up."We really never got organized in the zone," Grant said. "We're a man-to-man team, we work on the zone for a matchup, but we never really got organized. We actually gave them some stuff, where, you know, we had our communication—we had three or four guys in the zone and one guy man-to-man. So we gave up a couple baskets when we went to it, so that's something we gotta do a better job of communicating."
Langford wasn't perfect, but he's growing his game
Langford went a month and a half without reaching double figures. He's done so in each of his last two games. The sophomore's 11-point outing at UVA wasn't as eye-catching as his 17-point outburst against Pittsburgh, yet he was BC's second-best offensive weapon. He netted 4-of-7 shots, including a 3-pointer to beat the shot clock. Langford has now made a triple in three of his last four games. Before that stretch, he had two all season.There were opportunities for Langford to post up smaller guards, like Beekman (6-foot-3). And that's something we could see more of, especially against zone-heavy teams (think Syracuse next week). Still, his offensive growth his noticeable.
Galloway's drought from long range is finally over
Brevin Galloway's streak of missed 3-pointers ended at a whopping 20—it was a drought that started after his heroic performance at Clemson, where he went 5-of-10 from downtown. The College of Charleston grad transfer, who seemingly always has the green light, continued to fire away at UVA and made a pair of first-half 3-pointers. The first was off balance and right before the shot clock expired.But Galloway finished with only eight points on 2-of-8 shooting. Often, the best way to beat a team like UVA is with great 3-point shooting, and the Eagles aren't a good 3-point shooting team. They were 5-of-21 from long range on the night. BC needs more shooters. Having Langford take a few 3-pointers a game helps. But the Eagles need others to be more aggressive, like freshman forward Gianni Thompson, who has displayed a nice stroke in his limited minutes this season. Thompson had an open look in the first half of Tuesday's game and passed it up.
The uneven free throw split continues
BC has attempted significantly more free throws (382) than its opponents (346) this season. The last three games, on the other hand, have seen the Eagles' foes end up with several more trips to the charity stripe. In fact, in that span, BC has attempted 32 free throws. Its opponents? 73. At UVA, the Cavaliers were 26-of-29 from the line, whereas BC was 12-of-12. Some of that was BC fouling too much around the rim. Some of it was the reality of playing on the road, Grant said.The most critical call of the game came with 1:55 left. Jaeden Zackery went up for a layup and leaned into Shedrick, drawing contact in the process. His shot fell but didn't count. Instead, Zackery was tagged with a flagrant one offensive foul for inadvertently elbowing Shedrick. If the and-one had been completed, BC would have pulled within six points of UVA. It went the other way, and the Eagles never got closer than eight points.
