Auburn will play No. 1 seed Virginia (33-3) on Saturday night at 5:09 p.m. in its first-ever Final Four. The Tigers have won 12 games in a row, including a perfect 11-0 March. After finishing as the No. 5 seed in the SEC, the team has showed its the hottest team in the country.
The last three wins have come against Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky, the three winningest programs in college basketball history. Virginia might not have the same historical pedigree, but they’ve been the strongest program in college basketball over the last two years.
Here’s everything you need to know about Virginia.
SCOUTING VIRGINIA
Everyone knows Virginia as the program that lost to UMBC in the NCAA Tournament last season, becoming the first-ever No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed. What people don’t always think about is that Virginia has lost a total of six games in the last two years — all to NCAA Tournament teams. They’re incredibly hard to beat, and rank as the best team in college basketball by most advanced metrics.
This season, Duke and Florida State are the only team to have beat Virginia. They haven’t appeared all that vulnerable to lose games this year. They swept through the Battle 4 Atlantis, won the ACC regular season title, again, and won 22 games this year by double-digits.
The best win this year was against North Carolina on the road. The worst loss came on a neutral court against Florida State in the ACC Tournament semifinals. Virginia got to this point in the tournament by defeating No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb, No. 9 seed Oklahoma, No. 12 seed Oregon and No. 3 seed Purdue — the last win an instant classic that ended in overtime.
Virginia is led by future NBA lottery pick De’Andre Hunter, who broke out onto the scene last year. He’s a great defensive player that has 3-point range and a good inside game. Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy are both three-year starting guards, much in the mold of Jared Harper and Bryce Brown.
The Cavaliers are coached by Tony Bennett, the son of former Final Four head coach Dick Bennett. The younger Bennett is in his 10th season, and actually made the Final Four on Saturday, 10 years to the day he was hired by Virginia after three seasons as the head coach at Washington State.
UVa is known for its packline defense — a system with zone-line principles where the defense condenses in the lane, and expand to whomever has the ball. Virginia has consistently had the nation’s best defense every year.
LAST TIME THEY PLAYED
Auburn defeated Virginia on Dec. 7, 2009, by the score of 68-67. Auburn trailed by 11 points in the first half of that game, only to come back an win at the very end. Brendan Knox had a tip-in for the Tigers with 1.4 seconds left in the game played in Auburn.
The teams are 2-2 against each other, with all the games being decided by five points or fewer. The Tigers have won the last two meetings between the schools. The Cavaliers were ranked the first two times the teams met.
HOW AUBURN WINS
This game is a clash of styles in a huge way. When Auburn played North Carolina, it was two teams of great pace playing each other. Auburn wants a frenetic style, and Virginia wants games played in the half court on both ends. They win those games, and Auburn doesn’t.
The Tigers will need to press on defense, speed things up on offense, and force some turnovers. If this game is played at Virginia’s pace, it’s very hard to imagine Auburn winning the game, especially without its best player in Chuma Okeke.
If the Tigers can force Virginia into turnovers about 20 percent of the time, and make 12 3-pointers, they’ll have a great shot to win. Again, though, UVA will have a size advantage across the board.
It wouldn’t hurt, too, if Brown repeats a similar Carsen Edwards-type performance that the Purdue guard had against UVa, when he scored 42 points.
STAT TO KNOW
Virginia might have the perception of being boring, or having a slower offense. But that isn’t the case, and it’s seen in the way they shoot the 3-pointer.
Virginia has four players that shoot at least 40 percent from behind the arc, and three that shoot 42 percent, at least. Kyle Guy is one of the best shooters in the nation. He’s making 42.7 percent of his 267 attempts.
Auburn has just one player that makes at least 40 percent of 3-pointers (minimum 20 attempts).
The Cavaliers have Kenpom’s No. 2 most efficient offense, out of 353 teams. This is not just a great defense. Auburn is ranked No. 6 in that category.
PLAYER TO WATCH
I’ll give you a matchup to watch. Kihei Clark is Virginia’s starting guard, and is listed at 5-foot-9. Jared Harper might have an inch on him, but it’s pretty remarkable that two starting point guards in the Final Four are playing at this height.
Make no mistake, Clark is not the go-to guard like Harper is for Auburn. That would be Ty Jerome, who has started every game and is a 6-foot-5 guard that has a great chance to play in the NBA. Virginia will start three guards, basically, but still have a lot of height.
https://www.al.com/auburnbasketball/2019/04/everything-you-need-to-know-about-virginia-ahead-of-final-four.html
2019-04-01 20:11:00Z
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