The Virginia Cavaliers followed up their 22-point defeat to Tennessee on Thursday night with an even worse 25-point blowout loss to the St. John’s Red Flame on Friday evening, falling 80-55. The ‘Hoos are now 3-2 this season and will head back to Charlottesville licking their wounds ahead of two buy games against Manhattan and Holy Cross next week.

Following the loss to the Red Flame, we have five takeaways for the Cavaliers moving forward.

Virginia doesn’t have the athletes to hang

St. John’s put on an athletic display against the ‘Hoos on Friday night. While the Red Storm was swinging from the rims, dominating the paint, and running in transition, Virginia was completely stuck in the mud.

St. John’s finished the game with six dunks, 13 steals, three blocks, and 11 points in transition. Virginia totaled one dunk, four steals, one block, and zero points in transition while turning the ball over 16 times.

There are more issues with this UVA team than its lack of athleticism. And St. John’s is above average in that regard. But Virginia’s inability to play above the rim, match foot speed, and win an individual matchup anywhere on the floor was debilitating and projects to continue to limit the team’s potential this season.

All UVA’s offense has is three-point shooting

On that note, this loss was further confirmation that Virginia’s only (somewhat) reliable source of offensive production is its outside shooting.

When UVA generates an open look from deep, its shooters have tended to knock it down. The issue has been creating shots. Virginia has no real post presence. The Cavaliers cannot consistently beat a man off the dribble or via a ball screen. Piece those deficiencies together and the presence of shooters such as Isaac McKneely, Andrew Rohde, Taine Murray, Elijah Saunders, and Jacob Cofie doesn’t matter.

UVA’s offensive scheme has been revamped to be more perimeter-based. From an ideology standpoint, the offense is far more efficient than it’s been in recent seasons. With more shooters on the floor, there is more space to attack and there are more opportunities for efficient shots.

In execution, however, Virginia’s personnel has not been able to exploit these schematic updates. The ‘Hoos scored a mere 12 points in the paint versus St. John’s. Having shooters make some shots has been nice. But that’s all they’ve been able to do.

UVA’s newcomers haven’t brought enough to the table

With only three rotational players returning from last year’s team, Virginia was always going to be awfully reliant on transfers and, potentially, freshmen.

Unfortunately for the Wahoos, production from those players was lacking in The Bahamas. Duke transfer TJ Power scored three points in two games while shooting 1-for-9 from the floor. On the season, he’s scored 14 points in five games while shooting 25% from three – where he’s supposed to be elite.

Fellow transfers Saunders and Ames have provided more of a tangible boost. Yet Ames is averaging 3.7 turnovers per contest in his last three games while Saunders has been exploited on the boards and played inefficient offense. He’s shot just 43.5% from the floor as the team’s best post presence. Meanwhile, the freshman Cofie had a welcome-to-the-league moment at Baha Mar. He scored four total points (while shooting 2-for-10 from the field) in two games as St. John’s and Tennessee’s physicality down low overwhelmed him.

These players are hardly the only ones who underperformed in The Bahamas. And they’re only five games into their UVA careers, so they deserve a much larger sample size before passing true judgement. Nevertheless, this pair of losses was a wake up call.

The Cavaliers looked like a defeated team

For 30 minutes against Tennessee on Thursday, the ‘Hoos hung around. After cutting their deficit to just one point at the end of the first half, they were down a mere five points with roughly ten minutes remaining in the second. Then, the wheels fell off late as the Vols dominated the glass and got hot from deep.

Friday night’s contest seemed like a continuation of those last ten minutes against Tennessee. UVA managed to take a 7-6 lead at the 15:58 mark of the first half before St. John’s found its offensive footing. The Red Flame proceeded to go on a 33-to-19 run to close out the half which included an 8:52 scoreless stretch for Virginia. The second period was more of the same. Saunders scored UVA’s sole six points across the first six minutes while St. John’s extended its lead to 23.

Bottom line, once St. John’s went on its first run, the ‘Hoos looked down for the count. McKneely had a few big individual plays. Yet UVA never truly mounted any tangible comeback effort.

Per David Teel, this is the first time in 14 years that Virginia has lost back-to-back games by 20 or more points.

For a young team that is so new to one another and just lost its Hall of Fame coach to retirement 35 days ago, back-to-back performances like this establish the potential for the ground to fall out beneath them. Of course, a relative turnaround could be coming once the Cavaliers get more time together and play less daunting opponents. Still, these two games and the way Virginia collapsed in both don’t leave much room for optimism.

Ron Sanchez misses out on a signature win

It’s no secret that interim head coach Ron Sanchez is coaching for an opportunity to remove the interim title following this season. Winning a game in The Bahamas would’ve been a meaningful development in his quest for the athletic department’s stamp of approval.

Losing both games – and losing them badly – puts the basketball program and the athletic department one step closer to conducting a national search for its next head coach. Nothing is in stone, of course. It was only two games and against good competition at that.

Every data point matters, though, and these two certainly weren’t in Sanchez’s favor.