New ‘D’ pays off for Cavs

On paper, it was win No. 694 for Debbie Ryan.

In actuality, it was validation for her addition to the Hall of Fame.

Infuriated by lackluster defense in typical defensive sets, the longtime Virginia women’s basketball coach reached into her bag of tricks to secure a much-needed victory over Virginia Tech on Sunday.

Oddly enough, it was a zone defense — a rarity in Ryan’s tenure — that produced an eight-point win over the in-state foe.

“Sometimes when you look at your team you kind of know things about them,” Ryan said after the 69-61 win. “Watching [Monica Wright] and Lyndra [Littles] and some of the other players, I saw that we weren’t on our defensive game. We just weren’t on it.

“Moni was not staying with [Lindsay] Biggs and we were running into screens and we were not playing things correctly, and I just noticed things that we don’t normally do.”

The changes revved Virginia’s jets after the team had fallen behind by 15 points in the early minutes.

“I went to the zone, and when it worked, I stayed with it,” Ryan said. “I am going to stay with something that works. I am not going to worry whether we are playing man-to-man or not.

“We will go back to man-to-man very quickly, but I just think that we were sluggish to start and I had to do something to get them to wake up. That’s what really woke them up … and if it ain’t broke, I am not going to fix it.”

The Cavaliers, who remained No. 17 in the country in pollsters’ eyes and improved to 19-5 overall and

5-3 in the ACC, also used the energy created by a season-best crowd to their advantage as they mounted a 15-0 run that tied the game and eventually propelled the team to a win. The announced crowd was 6,281 and often sounded even louder.

“It seemed like [the arena] kept filling up as the game went on,” Wright said. “When we went on that run, it really felt like a boys’ game. You could hear it — it was electric.

“That really gave us a lot of energy, especially when we went on that run.”

Virginia certainly needed the victory with a tough slate lined up this week — the Cavaliers play at No. 11 Maryland on Thursday and at N.C. State on Sunday.

For one day, however, those contests were not of concern for Ryan.

“I can’t worry about the future. I just take it one day at a time — one play at a time, really,” she said. “I don’t really pay attention to what is next. I stay right with what I am doing and then I’ll go to Maryland on Thursday and I’ll worry about them, and then whatever comes next after then comes next.

“I can’t have my team looking forward, either, because sometimes when you are doing well that’s really what can be the thing that knocks you off. You can knock yourself off by looking ahead and trying to see where you are going to end up. You just want to stay right with what you are doing or somebody is going to sneak up and beat you.”