Virginia women’s basketball suffered a frustrating 75-74 loss to Washington State on Friday evening in Puerto Rico. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down UVA’s defeat.
Minus
Some days you just lose. Down by one point with 14 seconds remaining, Virginia had the ball out of bounds and a timeout. Coach Agugua-Hamilton got the play she diagrammed as Kymora Johnson had a nice weakside drive to the rim. Where she missed. Then with the ball out of bounds, and another timeout, Virginia got a second chance and drew up a play for Latasha Lattimore. Lattimore got the shot she wanted. She just missed.
These were contested shots, but Lattimore and Johnson were Virginia’s two steadiest performers on the day, and these were makeable shots. Some days you get the bear; some days the bear gets you.
Plus
Another day at the Discover Puerto Rico Shootout, another very entertaining game. The score was tied seven times and there were nine lead changes. If you’re keeping score at home, that is 22 lead changes and 16 times tied just in the past two days for the Cavaliers.
Minus
Four and half minutes left in the game and Virginia down 71-64, Kymora Johnson got the ball tried to go coast-coast before feeding it to Lattimore at the rim. Johnson had Lattimore at the top of the key, but held on to the ball too long and clattered into a defender for the charge. Next Virginia possession, Breona Hurd got the rebound, tried to go coast-coast and facing a 1 v 2, hooked her defender, for, you guessed it, an offensive foul.
Virginia’s lack of discipline on the break is a feature, not a bug, of this team. Here, watch the plays for yourself.
Back to back offensive fouls doom Virginia in one-point loss to Washington State.
Oh, Coach Mox getting T’ed up didn’t help either.#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/D0zmuNQ0Z8
— jerzy walker (@Jerzy_Walker) November 30, 2024
Minus
Following the Hurd foul call, Coach Mox got called for a technical. The Cougars had opened up a seven-point lead on the strength of a 12-4 run to start the fourth quarter, and Coach Mox gets T’ed up and sends Tara Wallack, who has ice water in her veins, to the line for two free points. In a one-point ballgame, Mox just gave this game away. For the record, the two calls were not outrageously wrong.
Minus
Virginia went 7/15 from the free throw line while Washington State went 12/14. A day after knocking off Green Bay, largely on the strength of a 10/11 4th quarter performance at the charity stripe, this was definitely a step back. Lattimore was 4/8 and Casey Valenti-Paea was 0/4. Valenti-Paea was especially puzzling. She is a career 85% free throw shooter, she made her first nine free throws this season en route to converting 87% this year, and she has beautiful form. And yet she missed four free throws. In a one point loss. That’s the ball game.
Nah. This one’s on Mox. I bet she wouldn’t tolerate one of her players jawing at the ref that way.
Minus
Payton Dunbar has missed the last two games. The video quality the past two days has been poor, but I cannot tell if she is on the bench or not. Edessa Noyan missed her fourth straight game.
Plus
Taylor Lauterbach got to look an opponent right in the eyes, in this case, Washington State’s 6’6” Alex Covill. Taylor had a rough day notching goose eggs in both points and rebounds, but she needs this kind of exposure. The ACC is going to be smaller this year – Virginia Tech’s Liz Kitley and NC State’s River Baldwin have graduated, Miami’s Kyla Oldacre has transferred and UVA has Miami’s Latasha Lattimore – but it will nevertheless be more physical than Lauterbach has experienced this year. Lauterbach can be a very important role player for this team and this was about as perfect a matchup challenge as she could get.
Plus
Paris Clark continues to work her way back to full fitness and on this day, she scored a season-high 13 points on 6/9 shooting. She is Virginia’s ultimate glue player in that she also had five offensive boards and two steals. Coach Mox is still taking baby steps with the full court press, but Clark’s open court defense could allow Mox to deploy pressure more than half a dozen times a game.
Plus
Johnson had 20 points on 8/20 shooting while Lattimore was more efficient (7/13) en route to 19 points. Outside of a poor day at the line, Lattimore handled the size of Alex Covill pretty well.
Minus
It was another 39-minute performance from Johnson. I’m very interested in seeing how she performs in crunch time on Saturday.
Next Up: Day 3 of the Discover Puerto Rico Shootout pits Virginia against Wyoming on Saturday. Game time is 12:30 and the game is on FloSports.
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