They've conceded they are not the most athletic team. Or the biggest. Or the most talented. Sixteen games into the season, the Cavaliers took pride in their ability to win games with superior team defense, despite their other shortcomings. It was the 17th that exposed the limitations of a team with only one true player who can create his own shot, and of a team that lacks any significant post game and relies too heavily on outside shooting.
It was the 17th that showed the value of the athleticism and experience that top ACC teams like Wake Forest boast and Virginia clearly lacks, and just how far Virginia can slip when its defense is borderline mediocre. For a team that was decidedly first in the ACC, the 69-57 loss to the Demon Deacons demonstrates Virginia's small margin for error and proves just how precarious its first-place standing in the ACC really is.
Granted, the Cavaliers faced a significant disadvantage after Sylven Landesberg and junior forward Mike Scott got in foul trouble midway through the first half. But even when Scott played, he mostly seemed checked out - content to take outside shots instead of establishing a down low threat.
Scott wasn't the only one who struggled. The vastly improved sophomore guard Sammy Zeglinski, who entered the game leading the ACC with a robust 48.7 three-point shooting percentage after connecting on just 31.4 percent of his attempts a year ago, couldn't find any rhythm whatsoever. With Landesberg and Scott on the bench for much of the first half, Zeglinski appeared to press the issue, forcing shots and making poor decisions. He finished the night with one point on 0-5 shooting, including three missed three-pointers.
"Just all night, we never really got anything going offensively," Zeglinski said.
His counterpart, senior guard Ish Smith, meanwhile, had everything going. Floaters in the lane. Fade-away baseline jumpers. You name it, and Smith had it. As smooth as his name may suggest, Ish was in total control. He knew exactly when to penetrate into the lane for layups, when to find his teammates - always with crisp passes - and when to pull it back and let the clock run. His composure certainly caught coach Tony Bennett's eye.
Smith "lets it come, he doesn't press the issue," Bennett said. "He seems like he has great feel, and I think that has to do with his experience and being a senior - he knows when to be aggressive, when to let it come."
That's exactly the sort of poise Virginia lacked. Everything was forced - junior guard Mustapha Farrakhan's quick jumpers, junior forward Will Sherill's bricks and even Landesberg's play in the second half, when he went into "No-one-else-is-touching-the-ball" mode and scored 14 of his 18 points. I can't exactly blame Landesberg. He was the only Cavalier generating anything on offense. The point, however, is still clear: Nothing came easy for Virginia, while the Demon Deacons - and Smith in particular - let everything come to them.
On one possession late in the game with 1:45 remaining, Smith danced around for 33 seconds, toying with his defenders and launched an acrobatic floater as the shot clock wound down that saw nothing but net. Earlier in the game, he drove through the lane and tossed a perfect no-look alley-oop pass to five-star recruit Tony Woods, who threw it down with 245 pounds of authority.
"I told [Smith] after, I said, 'I played with Muggsy Bogues,'" Bennett said. "I saw his picture up there and I said, 'You're close to as fast as Muggsy, which is saying a lot ... He draws so much attention, he sucks the rest of the defense in with him."
Bennett also commented on Wake's length and how important that was to its defense. Indeed, with 6-foot-9 Al-Farouq Aminu, 7-foot Chas McFarland and 6-foot-11 Tony Woods and David Weaver, the Deacs could out-jump the Cavaliers, own the paint and play impressive denial defense.
So, given Wake's superior athleticism, talent and experience, Virginia needed to clamp down on defense. Which it didn't.
What, in particular, did Virginia fail to do?
"I thought the ball pressure wasn't very good," Bennett said. "The ball got too deep - out of position. At times didn't help on screens, at times didn't get back - there was a lot of break downs, at times didn't block out. It wasn't just one thing that I could point to - it was too many. And a good team exploits you, that's a credit to the way they attacked us. For us to be competitive, you can't have that many."
In other words, Virginia laid an egg. But then again, every other team in the ACC has suffered a loss equally as embarrassing. Duke got throttled on the road at N.C. State. North Carolina clearly hasn't recovered from its Championship Hangover. Every team in the conference has at least one loss, and Virginia happens to be one of the only two teams with only one. But if Bennett and Co. look at their daunting schedule, they'll notice Virginia Tech comes to town Thursday. Then they'll head to Chapel Hill the following Sunday. In other words, the Cavaliers could begin to crumble just as quickly as they built their surprising 3-0 start in the ACC.
I don't think the players would disagree with me about this: If the D doesn't show up during the next few weeks, Virginia will learn just how fast things can fall apart in the ACC.
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