Art’s Angle: Time To Man Up (Again)

Virginia has now played 73 basketball games in Chapel Hill since the first in 1911. The Cavaliers have won eight times, including Monday night’s 75-64 surgical execution of the Tar Heels in the Smith Center.

Ironically, UVa won that first visit on February 24, 1911, by the score of 18-15, which sounds every bit as painful as the recent slicing and dicing of the Tar Heels by the best (coached?) team in the ACC.

The next home loss to Virginia was more than 60 years later in 1973, when freshman Wally Walker led the Cavaliers over a Carolina club rebuilding from the senior-laden team that reached the 1972 Final Four.

Then came the classic Carmichael Auditorium overtime loss to Ralph Sampson and Virginia in 1981 (which Carolina avenged at the Final Four in Philadelphia behind Al Wood’s famous 39 points), and two decades later when the Wahoos whipped Bill Guthridge’s last team that was trying to find itself before rallying to reach UNC’s sixth Final Four over a 10-year span.

Ironically, Carolina played one of its best games in Matt Doherty’s disastrous 8-20 washout year by losing only 71-67 to then seventh-ranked Virginia. And in Roy Williams’ only non-NCAA Tournament season at UNC, the unranked Cavaliers spanked the NIT-bound Heels by 15 points in 2010. That was the last home loss to Wahoo-Wa until Monday night.

Rarely has a Virginia team come into Chapel Hill and outclassed a capable Carolina opponent as it did this time. Like Mike Krzyzewski revolutionized the ACC with an in-your-face, man-to-man defense that led to dozens of turnovers and fast break baskets, UVa coach Tony Bennett is doing the same with the other side of the spectrum.

Entering the game, the Cavaliers were next-to-last among 350 Division 1 college basketball teams in the number of possessions per game. Yet they were close to the top in offensive efficiency and, obviously, damn good defense. This from a roster without a single McDonald’s All-American and only one so-called marquee player, 2014 All-ACC guard Malcolm Brogden. Having lost fellow All-ACC guard Joe Harris and solid center Akil Mitchell, it is almost inconceivable that the Cavs are better than the team that finished first in the ACC last season and won the ACC Tournament championship over Duke.

Inconceivable but true.

Bennett was virtually unknown outside basketball circles when he arrived in Charlottesville from Washington State, a basketball outpost that he and his father had put on the map. Bennett was 63-33 in three years at Pullman, earning National Coach of the Year honors in 2007.

Dick Bennett was long hailed as one of the best tacticians in coaching at Wisconsin and Washington State and, as you see all the time, the son learned his trade from a very young age. Tony was a good enough player to star for his father at Wisconsin-Green Bay and played a few seasons for the old Charlotte Hornets. But coaching was in his DNA, for sure, and he joined his dad’s staff at Washington State before succeeding him in 2006.

In his sixth season at Virginia, Bennett is the new real deal in college basketball, and like opposing coaches (including Dean Smith) had to make serious adjustments to confront Krzyzewski’s passing-lane defense, ACC foes and all other coaches now have to figure out the pack line defense Bennett inherited. It is a defense that basically moves when the ball moves, so Virginia is rarely out of position.

The pack line makes easy shots much harder and more contested, as Carolina learned in the second half Monday night when it shot under 40 percent. And Virginia’s unselfish offense of picking-and-rolling against the Tar Heels’ oft-beaten big men and its relentless offense of passing, cutting and finding the open man is almost poetry to watch (unless, of course, you are rooting for the other team).

Virginia, 20-1 and 8-1 in the ACC, should still be undefeated. Its worst lapse of the season came after they led Duke by 12 points late in the second half and could not counter the Blue Devils’ suddenly torrid outside shooting, outscored 11-0 to the end of the game. A great win for Duke but, clearly, an aberration that the Cavaliers rectified and reset 48 hours later in the Dean Dome.

Carolina losing an 18-point lead to a Louisville team it had on the ropes is more damaging now than at 6 o’clock Saturday afternoon, because after a six-game winning streak on the up-tick, the Tar Heels have now lost two straight to fall to 17-6 overall and 7-3 in the ACC, with dangerous road trips to Boston College (Saturday) and Pitt (the following Saturday) before visiting Duke on February 18.

With confidence dashed and their manhood again on the line for some very talented but a few admittedly soft players, the Heels have five days to get ready for a 9-11 BC team that has already given Virginia, Syracuse and Louisville close games and then a full week to prepare for 15-8 Pitt that upset Notre Dame three days after the Irish defeated Duke. In the torturous ACC race, UNC almost has to be 9-3 going to Duke to stand any chance of finishing in the top four and drawing a bye into the ACC tournament quarterfinals.

As inexplicable as winning only 8 games at Carolina in 115 years, Virginia is now unfathomably the best team in the ACC. How the Cavaliers defend and execute on offense is no less than remarkable to watch and even harder to defeat. They have created a new standard in the ACC, while Carolina and others will have a hard time living up to theirs that were established decades ago.