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A win is a win is a win. And with that, the Virginia Cavaliers move to 8 – 0 on the season. The last time the women started 8 – 0? The 1991 – 1992 season, for a team that just happened to go to the Final Four.
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This team can score points in bunches. On Saturday, the Cavs broke a close game with Minnesota by going on an 18 – 0 run early in the second period and would lead at halftime (after having been down by 10 points in the middle of the first quarter.) Against East Carolina, the Cavs broke what had been a tight game at halftime by starting the third period 19 – 3 en route to a 22 – 7 quarter.
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After averaging 13 turnovers a game for the seven games of the season, the women had 30 turnovers. Yikes! This was the first the team had seen of a zone all year and they really struggled with the length of the East Carolina back court. Everybody got into the act as all 10 players who played recorded one.
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McKenna Dale opened the season going 0 – 15 from deep. She was just about 40% from beyond the arc in her three-year career at Brown, so she can make the shot. We just hadn’t seen it til today. She made three of her first four attempts, two of which came in the that third quarter spurt. She also had 8 rebounds for the second time in three games. When she’s playing the 2 she poses matchup problems due to her height.
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This Virginia team is not good at the free throw line, so breaking the 70% barrier is cause for celebration. The team was 17 – 24 from the free throw line, and the 17 – 8 made free throws disparity was a big reason Virginia was able to comfortably walk away with the win. You know, despite those 30 TOs.
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This team is still very much a work in progress. The team did a better job not recklessly pushing the ball up in transition – a bugaboo for them from previous games – but several players showed a complete lack of situational awareness for their third foul. In a sixty second span two minutes into the third quarter, Taylor Valladay picked up her third foul, Mir McLean picked up her third, and Sam Brunelle picked up her third. Valladay was trying to intercept an in-bounds pass 40 feet from the bucket. There was no need to make that play. McLean’s came under the basket and was a case of pique after she’d been beaten on the boards. And Kayden Lawson forced a 2 v 4 fast break making Brunelle have to get out of her way and into a moving screen.
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McKenna Dale. Again. She scored in double figures and she is now the 10th player (of the 11 on the roster) who have reached double figures this young season.
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Mir McLean had her third double – double of the season. She is an absolute beast on the boards, working harder than anyone else on the floor. And she doesn’t seem to break a sweat.
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Kayden Lawson’s minutes. Coach Agugua-Hamilton is playing a lot of lineups and she’s still tinkering with her rotations, but I don’t understand how she’s playing Lawson. Lawson had five quick points in the first three minutes of the game, and she made two of Virginia’s seven three-pointers, but her minutes have drastically dropped the past three games. Carole Miller was apparently out for this game, and yet Lawson still only logged 16 minutes, or far less than any other starter.
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Rebounding. Virginia outrebounded ECU 56 – 25. That’s not a typo, that is a +31 margin. Despite Minnesota having two players reaching double digit rebounds on Saturday, the Cavaliers out-rebounded them as well. While London Clarkson, Camryn Taylor and Brunelle might all be a little undersized in the low post, Lawson, McLean and now Dale give the Cavaliers a lot of height across the board. This team is very strong off the glass.
Up Next: Virginia takes on Penn State in the annual ACC v B1G 10 Challenge, Wednesday, November 30th. Game time is 7:00pm and is on the Big 10 Network.
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