Cavaliers crushed by Wolfpack in what has turned into topsy-turvy season

N.C. State 77, Virginia 63

Virginia got blasted by N.C. State in Raleigh on Saturday in the latest display that we are living in a topsy-turvy world when it comes to UVa basketball this season.

The weird part is it seemed like a ho-hum road contest until late in the first half. Virginia (11-8, 5-4 ACC) actually led 26-18 with nine minutes before the break. But that’s when the switch flipped for the Wolfpack (10-10, 3-6), and they decided to become the Monstars and go on a 25-6 run to head into the locker room up 43-32.

It was one of those games in which the opponent was able to throw up some crazy 3-pointers, and they simply went in. Virginia didn’t guard each shot in the best way, but some they did. It just didn’t matter. Unfortunately, Virginia also had its best 3-point shooting game of the season in terms of number of makes, 10, and still lost by 14. So the result could’ve been worse.

N.C. State guard Casey Morsell, a transfer from UVa, goes up strong against Jayden Gardner (1) and Francisco Caffaro. Morsell had 12 points and hit two 3-pointers against his former team. (Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer)

The second half was no better than the first. N.C. State actually only made three 3s in the second half after nine in the first, but Virginia never cut the lead to single digits. Instead, much like the UNC loss, it seemed like UVa obliged N.C. State and didn’t really make much of an effort in the second half to really come back. I thought the Cavaliers played sloppily and without focus and much fire. And that’s disappointing. Not so much the loss, but the way it happened, how bad it was, and the fact that absolutely no interest was required in the game’s final minutes.

Even if your fandom goes back to before the Tony Bennett era, you had gotten used to lots of winning over the past decade. What was once rare is becoming commonplace in 2022.

That’s now three double-digit ACC losses for the Wahoos before even reaching the second half of the conference schedule. The last time the Cavaliers lost three ACC games by double digits was 2016-17 — London Perrantes’ last year — but those defeats came over the course of the entire regular season. It seems highly likely this group is in for some more big losses. You have to go back to Bennett’s second year, 2010-11, to find more than three double-digit ACC losses.

And in 16-17, two of those three double-digit setbacks came against top-12 teams Duke and North Carolina, and only a couple of weeks later, Virginia avenged the loss to UNC. Two of this year’s three double-digit losses have come against Clemson and N.C. State, a pair of squads that could finish below .500 in the conference. N.C. State has probably played worse than its talent level, but it doesn’t matter. That means Bennett lost to a not-so-great coach in Kevin Keatts, even if his guys did get hot. This team hasn’t even gotten to the tough part of its schedule. You have to go all the way back to Bennett’s first year in 2009-10 to find at least two double-digit losses to teams that finished with losing ACC records.

The worst thing about this season is not competing and these games not coming down to the end. It was early in the second half of the Clemson, UNC, and State games when we had to throw up our hands and throw the white flag. Close heart-breaking losses arguably sting more than blowouts — when you know well before the buzzer your team is going to lose — but that sting usually wears off quickly when you see how good and relevant your team is over the course of a season.

A road loss against a top-10 team — the type of defeat we have grown more accustomed to — doesn’t hurt an NCAA tournament resume and often, we were able to look and see that despite such a loss, UVa was still say, 18-3 on the year and 10-1 in the conference. This year, there is no tournament resume to speak of, and Virginia is not relevant in the top of the conference standings. At this point, it is looking like the drama will be seeing if the team can cobble together an NIT resume and stay above .500 both overall and in the conference.

Next up, Virginia has a quick turnaround as it hosts Louisville tonight at 7. The Cardinals have the same 11-8 record (5-4 in conference) as the Wahoos. The Cavaliers have struggled recently on less rest (playing better on Wednesdays than on Saturdays), so I'm definitely wary of how they'll perform with only one day between games.