Virginia was in the driver's seat for the first half and the first four minutes of the second half of the women's basketball game against No. 8 North Carolina last night, pushing their lead to 39-33. Then, as Virginia coach Debbie Ryan put it, "the doors came off."
The Tar Heels (19-3, 7-2) increased the defensive pressure, using a mixture of half-court and full-court trap presses, and attacked the porous Virginia defense in the post. Using two runs, first a two minute, 8-0 spurt then a two minute, 9-0 run, North Carolina pushed its lead to 58-43 with 9:20 left in the game.
The Tar Heels then used tough defense and sharp free throw shooting to put the Cavaliers (16-7, 5-4) away, eventually pushing the score to its final, 76-56. North Carolina shot 80 percent from the free throw line, with sophomore guard Ivory Latta leading the way, shooting 8 for 8 from the line down the stretch.
The key to North Carolina's pressure defense was its ability to score off turnovers. The Tar Heels forced 19 takeaways and converted those turnovers into 21 points. Virginia, by stark contrast, could only muster seven points off 18 forced turnovers.
"In the second half, we were trying to force things too much," Ryan said. "We were going a little too quick. We had too many turnovers, and that's tough against them because they turn turnovers into points. That's really what hurt us -- we just weren't attacking."
Virginia's offense in the second half came to a screeching halt as well. Often, the Cavaliers could only get their offense started from some 40 feet away from the basket. North Carolina's increased defensive intensity played a role, but Virginia senior forward Jocelyn Logan-Friend pointed the blame right back at herself and her team.
"I think they threw a couple of different defenses at us and that might have gotten us out of our flow," said Logan-Friend, who led Virginia with 13 points. "I think it was more about us and our execution. We didn't do the same things in the second half as we did in the first half."
Senior forward LaTonya Blue, the Cavaliers' second leading scorer, had a particularly tough game, going 0-7 in the second half and 1-13 on the night.
For the Tar Heels, Latta led her squad with 22 points and six assists, clearly outplaying her Virginia counterpart, freshman Sharnee Zoll, who finished with three points and seven assists.
"Ivory [Latta] is a great guard," Ryan said. "The difference between Ivory Latta and Sharnee Zoll was that Sharnee played a half and Ivory played two."
For Virginia, that proved to be the difference for the entire squad. While the Cavaliers started out playing well -- defending North Carolina's post players effectively and letting the scoring come through the offense -- the second half saw a complete offensive and defensive meltdown.
"This is definitely gut-check time," Ryan said.
For the Cavaliers, now is definitely the time to look at themselves in the mirror. While they're at it, they might also want to try to make sure no more doors go flying off for the rest of the season.
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