Deja Vu

At the conclusion of Monday night's game against Auburn, one crafty college student held up a dry-erase board with "Deja Vu" written on it. While he was likely referencing the resemblance between the Tigers' recent last-second victory to the one last season in C'ville, the phrase seems to appropriately reference UVa's last two games. Last week, the Hoos dropped a close game to Penn State in the ACC/Big 10 Challenge, and Monday's loss to Auburn was certainly a bit of deja vu. A late flurry of three's from Sammy Zeglinski wasn't enough to complete the comeback against the Nittany Lions. The three free throws he converted after being fouled while shooting a deep three during Virginia's final possession also weren't enough. In both games UVa gave up leads. Each time the Cavs clawed their way back and put themselves in a position to steal the victory, yet they ultimately fell short both times.

Penn State guard Talor Battle erupted for a career high 32 points - a sadly familiar feeling since he only adds to the long list of players who seem to put up career efforts against the Hoos (happens in football too). In the second half of Monday's game, the Tigers twice crashed the offensive boards for impressive stick-back dunks. So, it felt way too familiar when Brendon Knox followed up DeWayne Reed's off-balance runner from the lane for the game winning, yep, you guessed it, put-back with 1.4 seconds left. After both games, terms such as "heartbreaker," and "gut-wrenching" were used to describe the losses. That seems to be a bit optimistic. Both Penn State and Auburn will likely fall somewhere in the middle to bottom of the pack in their respective conferences, and both were squads Virginia should have handled with relative ease.

Offensive Droughts:

Landesberg finished the Auburn game with one assist, three defensive rebounds, and no steals which shows he has yet to figure out a way to contribute when he's not scoring. No assists means he's not creating open shots for his teammates (i.e. drive and kick or slash and dish). Sadly, he is surrounded by shooters like Jeff Jones and Mustapha Farrakhan who struggle to create their own shots and would benefit from a guy who could draw defenses in and help get them open looks. No steals means he is not doing a whole lot to generate offense out of defense or spark the team with some hustle plays. No offensive rebounds means he's not crashing the boards for some stick backs and second-chance points, which can be huge lifts when nothing seems to fall from the outside. When Landesburg goes cold, Virginia's offense becomes very stagnant - it's almost as if everyone starts standing around wondering, "what the hell do we do now?" Everyone always says great players find a way to make the players around them better. Landesburg is good, but at this point, he's not great. Since the offense runs through him, these lulls will continue until he finds a way to contribute outside of scoring, get others involved, and make those around him better.

Defensive lapses:

At times Virginia's guards, especially Zeglinksi, continue to struggle defending the drive and allow too much dribble penetration. In the second half of the Penn State game, no one could stop Battle as he did just about anything he wanted on his way to setting a JPJ scoring record. During the Auburn game, the Tiger guards continually got to lane in the second half which triggered defensive breakdowns. On a couple of occasions, center Assane Sene stepped up and aggressively went for the block, and while he effectively altered the shot, he also left the basket wide open for easy, uncontested stick backs.

The on-the-ball screen at the top of the arc also continues to plague the Hoos. Often, the ball defender doesn't fight through the screen well enough, meaning the big man helping has to hedge too long and both players end up out of position. Other guys sag in to help, and at this point the defense is simply chasing in order to find the open man. This combined with easy guard penetration leads to wide open looks from three, and opponents have been taking advantage. Auburn shot nearly 40% from behind the arc the other night.

While close, Virginia's last two losses were disappointing setbacks to teams they could have and should have beaten. Unfortunately, it is starting to look like another long season is a real possibility, and most Hoos fans would agree that, as Yogi Berra would say, "it's like deja vu all over again."