Notre Dame fell at home to Virginia by the score of 71-54, marking the 10th straight game the Irish have lost to the Cavaliers.

So what happened?

Virginia is a very good team. It’s the fourth best team in the country according to KenPom, boasting the 3rd best defense and the 16th best offense.

Virginia plays at the second slowest pace in the country, and with only 63 possessions, this was one of the slower paced games the Irish have been a part of all season. Virginia’s slower pace tends to lead to lower scoring games, but this doesn’t mean this squad can’t be really efficient on offense.

The Cavaliers scored 1.127 points per possession (ppp) against the Irish, Notre Dame’s 4th worst defensive performance in terms of ppp (Villanova, Purdue, Clemson). Only 19 teams in the nation score at a rate higher than 1.127 ppp (the Irish are one of them, 1.156 ppp).

Defensively, the Irish weren’t glaringly bad; Virginia just executed well, hitting 9-19 threes and only turning the ball over 11 times.

The two times the Irish went to the 2-3, it didn’t work too well. Virginia is a good passing team that can shoot the three and doesn’t turn the ball over. I think the Cavaliers are built to perform better against a zone defense rather than even a traditional man-to-man. Both times Coach Mike Brey called for the zone, Virginia’s London Perrantes hit a shot that forced the defense back to man. When the Irish went zone in the second half, I fully expected Perrantes to hit a big three. He’s a 43% three-point shooter who has a tendency to hit big shots. The zone gave him a long, but pretty open and in rhythm look.

The Irish uncharacteristically missed a lot of free throws, making only 11-17 on the game (64.7%). Bonzie Colson made 4-7 and Matt Farrell made only 1-3. Virginia made 12-14.

Virginia had 10 offensive rebounds compared to only 2 for the Irish, and the Cavaliers took advantage of them with 15 second-chance points.

Bonzie Colson had a really good shooting game, scoring 20 points on 8-11 from the floor. Colson deserves a lot of credit, but part of his performance can be attributed to Virginia focusing on defending the Irish’s three-point shooters, and as a result not having defenders help much when Bonzie had the ball. In a sense, Virginia was willing to let Colson try and “beat them by himself” in order to ensure the three was well defended.

This emphasis on defending the three made it difficult for the Irish to find good shots from beyond the arc and resulted in some difficult catch-and-shoot and off the dribble three-point shots. This contributed to the team shooting only 3-18 (16.7%) from long range. This marked the Irish’s worst three-point shooting game of the season in terms of both number of three made and percentage of made threes (also made only 3 threes in opener vs Bryant).

But as well as Virginia defended, the Irish did generate some good looks from three that just didn’t fall. Coming off a career-high 30 points against Syracuse, VJ Beachem went 0-5 from three and 1-10 from the field.

I went through the Irish’s 18 3-pt attempts, and although it’s subjective, I categorized 9 of the 18 as “solid looks.” The Irish went 0-9 on these attempts. The 9 “less solid” looks included two contested threes from Colson (not a great shooter), three off-the-dribble threes (difficult shots), and four shots that were very well contested. Of the 9 “solid looks,” two came in transition (e.g. Beachem above), by far the easiest place to get good looks against Virginia, who is great defending in the half-court. Virginia’s pace prevents opponents like the Irish from generating many of these transition opportunities, however.

Overall, Virginia made getting good looks tough, but the Irish did generate some. They just didn’t capitalize when they did.

Virginia’s pick-and-roll defense was solid as well. It sent two defenders at the P&R ball handler, a strategy the Irish have generated a lot of open threes against. But if a defense doesn’t make mistakes like Virginia, any pick-and-roll defense can be effective.

Below, Virginia demonstrates it’s solid P&R defense. Watch as the defense accounts for the rolling Colson, but then makes sure to get back to their defenders to prevent open threes. The defense is completely in sync.

Even with the loss, the Irish are still a really good team, and I fully expect them to bounce back.