The Plus/Minus: UVA women’s basketball falls to Miami despite moral victory

Plus

Six. That was the number of Virginia Cavaliers who made the trip to play the Miami Hurricanes. London Clarkson was sitting out her one-game suspension and Yonta Vaughn is under concussion protocol. Six is a pretty small finite number, but the women — say it all together, now — never gave up and were down just four points mid-way through the fourth quarter before stumbling late.

Plus

Foul trouble. As in, it wasn’t. Virginia only had six players. Fouling out was not an option and, while I’ve been critical of a couple of players (ahem, Camryn Taylor), today the ‘Hoos focused on staying on the floor and staying available. The Cavaliers didn’t have an answer for Miami’s Destiny Harden or Kyla Holdacre in the paint, who were both smart enough to recognize the imbalance and bully Virginia down low, but when I heard that Vaughn did not travel, I had visions of UVA completing the game with just four players. That it didn’t happen was a testament to Virginia’s commitment to stay in the game. Now, if this becomes a lesson for UVA going forward, then it will have been worth it. Because…

Plus

This team needs Camryn Taylor. She has got to cut the fouling down for this team to snag a win in the ACC tournament and maybe secure a berth in the NIT. Taylor is a beauty to watch on the offensive end and she can get cooking faster than anyone in the league. After a brutal first half — 1-8 for two points — she got hot in the third quarter, scoring 13 points on 4-4 shooting and converting 5-6 free throws. Next year, I’m going to track how many eight-point in three-minute bursts she has. Off the top of my head, I can think of about six explosions thus far.

Minus

Six. There’s that number again, but it is just awfully hard to compete at this level so short-handed. The Cavaliers packed the paint as much as possible, but that just left Miami with too many wide open shots. At times it was like shooting fish in a barrel for the Hurricanes. This is an athletic Miami team with wins over Florida State, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech. Their ball movement was first rate and Virginia just couldn’t keep up.

Plus

The women came out running. It didn’t seem like the smartest strategy, what with having just six players, but these women have run all season under Coach Agugua-Hamilton, and they didn’t stop now. They were primed. After several players were sucking wind last game out versus Clemson, none of the Cavaliers seemed to be particularly gassed on this day.

Plus

Cady Pauley is certainly not lacking for confidence. After logging just 20 minutes in one six-game stretch, she has played 51 minutes the past two games. And she has launched 22 treys in that time. She’s in the game to shoot, and she had another decent game from deep, going 4-10. Including this gem:

Plus

The Hurricanes and Cavaliers put on a show in the third quarter. Virginia scored 30 points in the quarter (after having scored just 30 in the first half) on 10-12 shooting and going 8- 9 from the pinstripe. Miami was almost as lethal, going 12-17 en-route to a 27-point quarter of their own. In their moments, Virginia can score with anyone.

Minus

Late game clock management. Coming back from a 14-point deficit, UVA made it a two-possession game. Virginia really couldn’t afford to foul late. McKenna Dale and Kayden Lawson both finished with four fouls; and Miami was going to be able to hold the ball longer than would normally have been indicated. But Miami knew that they had to score, they had to get shots to quell the Virginia comeback. Two good defensive stands ended with Virginia fouls with four and five seconds left on the shot clock.

In both cases, Miami’s Haley Cavinder (who is the ACC’s best point guard not named Olivia Miles) was moving laterally at the top of the key with no obvious teammate ready for the buzzer beating shot. Both times the Cavaliers reached and just reset the shot clock. With just under a minute to play and Cavinder dribbling the ball 40 feet from the basket, Pauley let her dribble for six seconds before purposely fouling her to stop the clock. Miami, after starting the game 5-11 from the charity stripe, closed the game converting 9-9. Ultimately, those six seconds didn’t matter. But they might have.

Next Up: Virginia and Wake Forest will kick off the Women’s ACC Tournament on Wednesday, March 1st, at 1:00pm at the Greensboro Coliseum. The game will be on the ACC Network.