UVA vs. Syracuse

With all the talk about this game, I thought I would weigh in before us sports fans have something else big to talk about. With all the talk about the possibility of fixing games, questionable calls (see photo below) and late game collapses, nobody seems to be talking about a brutal mistake that may have cost UVA the game that was NOT made by a player or referee. Many people refuse to believe that Tony Bennett failed to coach his way around a surging Syracuse team (for the record, 'Cuse is a great team that deserved to be in the tournament) and was a main cause of UVA's demise. If you look at the numbers, the glue that held UVA together was senior center Mike Tobey (who SHOULD hold a future in the NBA, if GMs had any sense). However, Tony Bennett played Big Mike sparingly in times when he should have been featured in a starring role. Tobey had 10 points, 4 boards, 1 highlight reel assist and multiple blocked shots in only 18 minutes of action in his final game. If you look at the games when Tobey got real minutes, a pattern starts to emerge. 26 minutes against Georgia Tech netted a final line of 7 points and 7 boards. 20 minutes against Clemson? 6 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 steals. 25 minutes on senior day against Louisville? 15 points and a whopping 20 boards. Tobey was also averaging 11.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in the NCAA Tournament while playing only 15.5 minutes per game. Now, one would think that a 7ft powerhouse on a hot streak would be playing crunch time minutes against a Syracuse team that lost it's best rebounder to foul trouble. However, Bennett saw that 'Cuse center Tyler Lydon had a good shooting touch and decided that they would sacrifice post dominance for a slightly better perimeter defender and benched Tobey. That, in part, cost them the game. Tony Bennett is a tremendous coach, and is partly responsible for getting Tobey on this streak in the first place. However, I am now hypothesizing that Bennett has "frozen up" during the tournament and has caused his team to make repeated early exits as 1 or 2 seeds. For instance, he couldn't adjust his team's defensive strategy to Travis Trice's hot shooting for Michigan State in a previous tourney, which caused a bracket busting early loss for his team.  I can't put the blame on Bennett alone, a team is usually the main force behind it's own collapse. However, multiple mistakes were, in my opinion, made by Coach Bennett that in a way "helped his team down". Another one of those mistakes was not making sure that London Perrantes, who had made 5 consecutive long bombs at one point in the game, took the final three. As we all know, he did not, and the game was left up to a far less consistent shooter.

Food for thought- Mike Tobey averages 18.7 points, 11.1 rebounds, 1.5 blocks and 1.7 turnovers per 40 minutes, per sports-reference.com. Considered one of the best big men in the NCAA, Notre Dame's Zach Auguste averages 18.9 points, 14.5 rebounds, 1.5 blocks and 3.3 turnovers per 40 minutes. NBA prospect Kaleb Tarczewski out of Arizona averages 13.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, 2.0 blocks and 1.9 turnovers per 40 minutes. Cal star center Ivan Rabb averages 17.5 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 2.1 turnovers per 40 minutes. I just compared Mike Tobey's numbers to the numbers of three NCAA bigs that are considered elite, and he seems to fit in quite nicely.



Courtesy of AP and NewsOK