As winners of seven in a row and 12 of the last 14, the Virginia Cavaliers (23-3, 11-2) now have an opportunity for not only another home win, but a chance to add some cushion between them and the third-best team in the ACC. The Miami Hurricanes (21-5, 10-3) travel to JPJ in what looks to be one of the better games of the entire college basketball slate Saturday.<\/p>\n
UVA enters the weekend off of a dominant win at Georgia Tech, a game in which the Yellow Jackets didn\u2019t touch double digits until the 5:50 mark of the opening half, with UVA\u2019s lead climbing as high as 38 at one point. The Cavaliers went on to drill 14 threes and dominated the rebounding battle, per usual, by 17 boards.<\/p>\n
Ryan Odom and the \u2018Hoos have continued to what\u2019s most important throughout the heart ACC play (win ball games) but after finally beating the brakes off a bad team for the first time in a while, perhaps it can provide a jolt as a challenging three game stretch begins this weekend.<\/p>\n
While Duke, North Carolina, and UVA have garnered most of the headlines for the league this year, Miami has silently put together a respectable resume in Jai Lucas\u2019 first year as head coach. The Canes have won four in a row, including a nine-point \u2018W\u2019 over UNC to go with narrow escapes of NC State and Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n
Offensively, the Canes own the best field goal percentage in the ACC at 50.5%, with five of their rotation guys shooting 31% or better from three. Malik Reneau (19.7 PPG) and Tre Donaldson (16.4 PPG) lead the offensive push and have alternated who did the bulk of the scoring in the team\u2019s past two games with Donaldson pouring in 32 against the Hokies and Reneau dropping 26 on NC State. Donaldson has emerged as one of the best passer\u2019s in the league in his first year in Coral Gables, dishing out almost six assists per night.<\/p>\n
Tip off in Charlottesville is slated for 2PM on ESPN2. Wes Durham and Randolph Childress will have the call. Here are two keys and a prediction for the game.<\/p>\n
Can UVA Neutralize Ernest Udeh Jr. on the glass?<\/p>\n
While the 6-foot-11, 266-pound senior hasn\u2019t been much of a scoring threat the last two games, he\u2019s been critical when it comes to cleaning the glass. Udeh pulled down nine boards against the Hokies and eight against the Wolfpack. He\u2019s also had games of double digit boards against two ranked teams in UNC (who employs two of the ACC\u2019s best in the rebounding category) and Clemson.<\/p>\n
Udeh\u2019s season average stands at 9.5 rebounds per game, trailing only Duke\u2019s Cam Boozer. He outweighs both Onyenso and Grunloh by 20 pounds, so not only rebounding positioning, but UVA\u2019s overall defensive attitude towards Udeh Jr. will need to be physical from the moment the ball passes mid-court to ensure one and done trips for the Canes. With a bout against Boozer and Duke looming, this should be the best dress rehearsal the \u2018Hoos can get in terms of containing a bigger body for loose balls.<\/p>\n
Dallin Hall and Chance Mallory\u2019s defense against Tre Donaldson<\/p>\n
UVA held Georgia Tech to 38% shooting from the field, allowing only 27 first half points. The combination of solid on-ball defense with the reliable rim protection on the back end kept the Jackets from finding the bottom of the cup for the vast majority of that game.<\/p>\n
Miami\u2019s scoring in the past four games hasn\u2019t eclipsed past the 77-point mark, despite the Hurricanes averaging around 83 per game on the season. A big part of what makes this offense go is the passing of Donaldson all over the floor. He\u2019s dished out five-plus assists eight times throughout conference play, but was held to only two his last time out. Whether it\u2019s as the trigger man for Miami in the half-court or another night where he looks to be the main man in the scoring department, Dallin Hall and Chance Mallory will have an important task on their hands to contain him, or at least force him to score on his own in or around the paint, where Ugonna Onyenso, has been on a tear as of late as a shot blocker.<\/p>\n
With UVA set to officially name the court inside JPJ after Tony Bennett before this game tips off, maybe that means we\u2019re due to see a second consecutive defensive gem, not only from Mallory and Hall, but the team as a whole.<\/p>\n
Given the physicality of both teams, particularly in the front court, I think this game ends up looking like a fist fight in a phone booth. A win here would be a one giant step closer to a potential conference-deciding game with Duke next weekend. I\u2019ll take the \u2018Hoos in a close one, with a sold out JPJ proving huge to go with big-time scoring lifts from the supporting cast of Sam Lewis and Jacari White.<\/p>\n
Prediction: \u2018Hoos 73, \u2018Canes 66<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As winners of seven in a row and 12 of the last 14, the Virginia Cavaliers (23-3, 11-2)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,73063],"class_list":["post-163617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-virginia-mens-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}