The Virginia men's basketball team (2-1) looks to rebound after a tough loss to No. 9 Arizona Sunday night when it hosts Northwestern tonight as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The Cavaliers defeated Northwestern last year 48-44 in Evanston, Ill and hope to have the same success tonight, only this time on their home court in University Hall.
Virginia comes into tonight's game with very little room for error. The Cavaliers are playing with a short bench, as injuries have sidelined junior guard T.J. Bannister and junior forward/center Donte Minter.
"We don't have a very large margin of error," head coach Dave Leitao said. "Essentially, we played seven guys [against Richmond], and I wanted to get more full court pressure in, but I didn't want to wear them out."
To help this problem, certain players, including junior forward Jason Cain, need to step up.
"Hopefully, he has responded," Leitao said. "The other Saturday [after the Liberty win], we were watching tape to point out some of his mistakes. He's been conscious to work on some of those, and as a result, I think he had a little more energy in his body and was a little more conscious of what he was doing. He took a step, but we need everybody to play a good level."
Virginia also will need to see improvement from freshmen Mamadi Diane and Lauryna Mikalauskus, as they will likely play for the majority of the game. Mikalauskus did not score in the 81-51 loss to Arizona, and Diane only posted four points.
"I told him that I don't have time for him to go through freshmen learning curves," Leitao said of Diane. "We're going to need him to be pretty good, and we are going to need everybody."
The relative inexperience of such a young team showed against Arizona as 24 Cavalier turnovers were converted into 32 opposing points. Virginia also did not score in the second half until about seven and a half minutes into play.
"We're growing, hopefully," Leitao said. "I think I see that in practice, which to me is much more of a determinant that we can get more consistent, especially on defense."
Before the Arizona loss, Virginia held its last two opponents to under 30 percent shooting. This included Richmond shooting 28.8 percent at home.
"We're a young team, and I think we played well against adversity [at Richmond]," sophomore guard Sean Singletary said. "I think we're going to have to get more experience to help with that."
Northwestern is coming off a 59-49 loss to DePaul and enters tonight's game with a 3-2 record. Last season, the Wildcats finished with a 15-16 overall record and a 6-10 record in the Big Ten. Their leading scorer is senior forward Vedran Vukusic. Vukusic has averaged 25 points per game and has .589 field foal percentage. Virginia's offense is lead by Singletary, who is averaging 17.7 points per game.
Tonight, Virginia looks to cut down on errors and have a complete and solid team performance. These factors, along with the return of Virginia's shutdown defense from its first two games, are key focal points to leading the Cavaliers and the ACC to a win.
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