Virginia head coach Tony Bennett made an interesting reference to playing with your tuxedo off/getting it dirty on defense following the Cavaliers’ 70-68 road win vs. the Michigan Wolverines earlier this week.
(via Virginia Sports TV):
“I thought in the 1st half, credit to Michigan, they had us spread out and hit shots. But as my father would have told me many times, ‘Take your tuxedo off and start getting gritty, and playing some real defense.’ Because I thought we were playing with our tuxedos on. We didn’t want to get dirty. We weren’t pressuring the ball. We weren’t bothering shots. And my fault, because we talked about, ‘Well, we went to trap the post and they skipped it out so fast and hit some threes. Let’s try to play them one on one with guards digging.’ And then Hunter [Dickinson] just had his way with us. We kinda weren’t taking anything away.
“So at halftime we just said, ‘Look, either we’re gonna toughen up and try to make them earn and get stingy defensively, or we’re not gonna be able to get back in this thing. Let’s make it hard.’ They missed some shots, but I thought defensively guys stepped up. Our offense kinda kept us in it in the 1st half, Reece [Beekman] really had some great basketball. It was unfortunate at the end of the half when they rip us and go up double digits. But I thought we pressured the ball more in the 2nd half. Just flew around, made catches harder for the interiors, got to shooters, and on ball. It was just more of the way it needs to be if you’re going to have a chance in a situation like this.”
