Perimeter defense was a glaring problem for Northwestern, and Virginia exploited that weakness Tuesday night at John Paul Jones Arena.
“Clearly their offense and our defense was the story of the game,” Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said. “Virginia is a great three-point-shooting team, and we just were not able to do anything about it.”
The Wildcats’ 94-52 loss was a tale of woe from start to finish. It was the most lopsided game in the nine-year history of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
Virginia (6-1) made three-point shooting look as easy as sinking layups for the first nine minutes. In seizing a 26-11 lead, the defending Atlantic Coast Conference co-champions made 8 of 12 three-pointers. Their only other shot in that span was a successful drive by Calvin Baker.
“We have a lot of options on the perimeter,” said coach Dave Leitao, who came to Virginia from DePaul before the 2005-06 season. “We were the best in the league at three-point shooting last year. We took 32 tonight because they played a lot of zone. As long as we’re shooting them in rhythm, I encourage guys to do that.”
Tearing Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone defense to shreds, the Cavaliers made 16 of those 32.
Mamadi Diane was 6-for-9 from beyond the arc in scoring a game-high 22 points, Baker was 4-for-4 and point guard Sean Singletary was 3-for-6.
“If it’s just one guy you can mark him, but they spread it around and different guys were hitting,” Carmody said. “Our 1-3-1 does open a lot from the corner. That’s the vulnerability of that defense. Our back guy wasn’t getting out in time.”
Singletary had a career-high 10 assists, one fewer than the team total for Northwestern (1-4).
“They were aggressive on the ball,” Diane said. “It left openings on the sides, and Sean would drive and find the open shooter.”
Singletary said a 70-64 loss Saturday night to Seton Hall provided the emotional fuel that enabled the Cavaliers to get off to a fast start.
“We’ve got one loss, and we don’t want any more,” he said. “We wanted to come out like gangbusters.”
The Cavaliers’ exceptional marksmanship overshadowed the other huge disparities on the stat sheet. They had a 43-28 advantage in rebounding and hit 14 of 16 free throws, while the Wildcats missed 11 of 15.
“We were just trying to stick with the game plan and run our offense,” said freshman point guard Michael Thompson, the Wildcats’ leader with 14 points. “But we were taking our shots too fast. The entire game we were trying to come from behind.”
With the game out of control early, Carmody resisted the temptation to experiment with a different defense.
“We’re going to play the 1-3-1 this year, so we just stuck with it,” he said. “I just don’t think we can keep our bodies in front of guys on a man-to-man.”
Leitao was sympathetic.
“They’re playing young guys, and their potentially best player (Kevin Coble) is off the team right now (while his mother is undergoing breast cancer chemotherapy treatments), so they’re not at full strength physically and I’m sure not at full strength emotionally,” he said. “They’ll get better when he comes back and they get a little older.”
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nmilbert@tribune.com
