Virginia is trying to bounce back from one of the most embarrassing halves of ACC basketball its played in years, scoring just 9 points over the game’s final 13+ minutes as it watched an 8 point lead flip to a 14 point loss in that span, going over 7 minutes without a point in one stretch where the Hokies scored 19 straight. It was the worst UVA has played in an ACC game in arguably 4 years, its worst conference loss since a 24 point drubbing in Chapel Hill in 2017. Wednesday night, UVA tries to get right in Raleigh, against an NC State team also desperate to get back in the win column.

Game Details:

Date/Time: Wednesday, February 3rd, 9:00 pm EST
Location: PNC Arena, Raleigh, NC
TV: ACC Network

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of NCSU:

A) They’re shorthanded. State’s season was already a bit of a disappointment this time a week ago, fighting to get to a winning position in the standings. And then disaster struck last Wednesday when star wing Devon Daniels was lost to the season with an ACL tear. The 6’5″ senior was leading the team with a stat line of 16.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg, and 3.1 apg, proving himself one of the best, if still relatively unsung, guards in the ACC. His loss left a giant hole in the Pack perimeter rotation, no one else available with his size and forcing the Pack to play small in a 3-PG lineup, promoting rookie Hayes into the starting lineup alongside Beverly and Allen. Things got worse before their trip to Syracuse this weekend when it was announced that veteran big man DJ Funderburk would miss their game with a suspension of unspecified duration. The Pack battled hard and fell by only 3 in the Carrier Dome, but the absences were felt.

B) They’re coming at us with a dangerous front court. Let’s not beat around the bush, this UVA team is lacking a truly consistent paint defender in the vein of past shutdown bigs like Braxton Key, Mamadi Diakite, Isaiah Wilkins, Darion Atkins, or Akil Mitchell. Those guys could defend against traditional back-to-the-basket centers and face-up power forwards alike, shutting down scoring and keeping them off the glass. Jay’s a talented shot blocker at the 5 to be sure, and has had good defensive games this year against the likes of Aamir Simms (2 points), but in many cases the league’s better 5-men are reaching double digit scoring consistently. The concern is doubled for power forwards, where understandably no one is overly excited about Sam Hauser’s defense.

Enter the NC State frontcourt, who boast a talented, efficient, veteran trio in Hellems at the 4 and Bates and Funderburk at the 5. Funderburk and Bates actually boast the top two offensive efficiencies in ACC play this season, scoring on 59% and 68% shooting respectively, and each boasting a league-Top-12 offensive rebounding rate. Bates also boasts the league’s best block rate. Funderburk gets to the FT line at a higher rate than anyone else in the ACC. Hellems is a face-up threat who’s shooting is average but does play aggressively downhill, drawing whistles and grabbing offensive rebounds as an effective complement to the true centers. A few days after UVA was embarrassed by VT center Keve Aluma, there’s real cause for concern that NC State’s bigs could be similarly effective. Obviously Funderburk’s availability, yet to be determined, plays a role here, but Bates just went for 17 points on a mere 9 shots plus 14 rebounds as a marathon man against Syracuse in DJ’s absence.

C) Their defense has been an Achilles Heel. ACC opponents are scoring at 55% effective field goal percentage against the Pack, the highest rate for any defense in the league. Teams are shooting 54.3% on 2’s and 38.2% on 3’s, both bottom-third rates in the league. And for the most part, it’s simply been effective hero ball by opponents. Interestingly enough, the Assist-to-FG-allowed rate for NCSU’s defense is a league-low 45.5%, so in theory they’re not giving up a ton of devastating ball movement, but really it’s only because opponents don’t often need to make that extra pass. Additionally, no defense gives up a higher percentage of shots in the paint that State’s does; ACC foes take 69% of their shots against the Pack inside the arc. This means the State defense is really bad at keeping opponents out of the lane where they can find high percentage shots. Sometimes its opposing bigs doing the damage (UNC’s Bacot and Sharpe shredded the State interior), but usually it’s opposing guards on the dribble-drive just getting to the rim. State nominally tries to gamble on forcing turnovers, but they’re only marginally above average in their success, instead usually just giving up a path to the basket instead.

Their season to date:

NC State is 7-6 on the season, 3-5 in ACC play. They lost to the only KenPom Top 100 non-conference team they played, St Louis, by 11 on the road, after a 2 week COVID pause. In league play, they opened with a good home win over UNC and then BC before dropping four straight, including a bad loss to Miami, an FSU blowout, and another brief COVID pause. They beat Wake last week by 5 before dropping a squeaker at Syracuse on Sunday night.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Play offense at the rim. NC State coach Kevin Keatts is going to take one look at the VT loss game tape and get a very clear message; make life hell on UVA in the paint to the point, make us settle for contested jumpers. It’s not like this is a new book on UVA; our offenses over the years have occasionally been able to frustrate UVA’s offensive movement to the point that we just become complacent and timid offensively, settling for out of rhythm jump shots. It’s really a theme of some of our worse losses over the years. Tech just executed it to perfection. The entire purpose of the 5-out offense is not necessarily to hit a lot of 3’s, but to stretch out a defense so both big men and slashing guards can play offense at the rim, balancing out that perimeter shooting. UVA didn’t do that against VT. The Hoos need to run offense with a paint-oriented mindset, finding creative ways to move Bates’ rim protection around and then find high percentage looks using the pass rather than hero-ball. The 3-ball will be a part of the win, I’m sure, but just like they used penetration to set up the 3-ball successfully against the Syracuse Zone, they’ll need to do so again in PNC.

2) Don’t lose shooters to help on the post. What we’ll see from NC State’s offensive strategy in theory shouldn’t deviate too far from what we saw vs VT. They’re going to try and run offense through their big (VT used Aluma, State will use Bates and if available Funderburk) to try and collapse UVA’s defense, then hopefully creating soft spots on the perimeter for State’s shooters to make things interesting. State’s not known as a shooting team, largely because their bigs aren’t stretch threats (neither Funderburk or Bates will shoot 3’s, and Hellems is at best inconsistent from deep), but they’ve got some snipers. Beverly’s hitting 44% on his 3’s this year and Allen is hitting 42%. They’ll miss Devon Daniels’ shooting, of course, but even rookie PG Cam Hayes is occasionally opportunistic, 35% on low volume that figures to increase with his promotion to starter. I understand the temptation for the UVA defense is going to be to collapse on Bates to prevent him from doing what Aluma just did to us, but losing shooters in the process is a tradeoff we can’t take, lest they get hot on their home rims.

3) Start hot. State’s fragile right now. They’ve lost five of their last six, most narrowly (by 3 at Cuse, in OT at Clemson, by 5 to Miami), though they did get spanked in Tallahassee and UNC kept State at a safe distance in the Heels’ 10-point of victory. They’re missing their senior star in Daniels and maybe their most experienced big in Funderburk. The remaining players will have a big chip on their shoulders, I’m sure Devon Daniels will be on the sideline coaching and motivating his teammates, and they’ll play hard for him in his absence. But if we can frustrate them, stymie their offense early, and make some buckets to create a respectable halftime lead, this should be a game UVA can salt away in the second half provided they survive one last desperate Pack attempt at a run to start the second frame. State beat UVA last year in Charlottesville, actually its last ACC loss prior to our Blacksburg beatdown a few nights ago, and with UVA’s blood in the water after Saturday they’ll be hungry to beat the Hoos to put their season back on track. Virginia needs to be the more effective team right out of the gate like they were against Syracuse, otherwise we could be in for a long, tough evening.

Predictions:

The Hoos have a toughness issue this year. They’ve got no problem handling their business against some of the league’s more finesse teams: Syracuse, Notre Dame, Boston College. But Wake came to fight and put UVA in a hole early, as did Georgia Tech, and Virginia had to come back to win both those games down the stretch. Virginia Tech in their home gym found that nasty gear in the 2nd half and shut the Hoos down. Clemson is really the only outlier here, a team that had a blue collar reputation prior to our game that UVA handled flawlessly, but let’s be honest, Clemson’s looked Charmin soft in most of their games since coming back from their COVID suspension.

So that leaves us with two questions. Is NC State a team that can drag UVA into a dogfight, and if so, is UVA up for it?

My concern primarily lies with Bates and Funderburk. The 5-spot has been the most consistent source of production for State on both ends of the floor, scoring, rebounding, and blocking shots. The Pack’s perimeter lacks go to guys in Daniels’ absence, but tough, effective play in the middle will push the rest of State’s players to up their games as well, just as Aluma’s big night inspired big second halves from role players on the perimeter.

This puts a lot on Huff and Caffaro to slow Bates (and possibly Funderburk) down, frustrate him, and by extension frustrate the entire NC State operation. The lone silver lining is that State’s bigs are a marginally more appropriate draw for Caffaro. I’m going to wager we see UVA’s defense do a solid but not quite great job defending the paint, something along the lines of what we saw UVA do to somewhat slow down GT’s Moses Wright recently (13 points on 15 shots, 4 rebounds, 5 blocks). But whereas GT was able to balance Wright’s hard-fought night with tenacious perimeter defense and a killer night from Jose Alvarado, I don’t think State brings quite the same balance to this matchup.

Virginia comes out energized after two days of hard, motivated practice, NC State’s bigs are warriors but can’t do enough, and UVA builds a small first half lead then keeps State at arm’s length in the second half.

Hoos Win – 65-57