Inside Hunter Cattoor's Career Night to Beat Duke For the ACC Tournament Title

On a night that will be remembered by Virginia Tech fans for ages, Hunter Cattoor was the star of the show with a 31-point outing in Saturday’s ACC Tournament title game victory against Duke. The stage featured its fair share of stars on the other side. Potential number one pick in the upcoming NBA Draft Paolo Banchero was joined by four other potential first rounders in AJ Griffin, Mark Williams, Trevor Keels, and Wendell Moore Jr.

However, the former three star recruit from Orlando, FL in Cattoor outshined them all. He did it with a combination of lights out three point shooting, stellar off ball movement, and active defense.

Call this play the “ole reliable” for the Hokies against Duke. They ran it three times to success and the first two clips are on back to back possessions. This kind of a play is labeled as zoom action in college basketball and it’s used to create quality shots for an offense.

Zoom action simply involves three players and it has a screener set a pindown for a shooter who then engages in a dribble handoff off the screen. In this case, Justyn Mutts sets the pindown screen for Hunter Cattoor who then goes into a DHO with Keve Aluma. Virginia Tech’s goal on this play was for Mark Williams to have to switch out and guard Cattoor off this action.

On the first play, Wendell Moore Jr. was taken out of the play by a hard screen from Mutts. Cattoor gives a nice fake like he’s going baseline then perfectly curls off the action, sets his feet and knocks down his first of four spot-up triples. The play worked because since Cattoor’s defender Moore Jr. was screened out of the play, Williams had to get out of his comfort zone by defending on the perimeter. On the very next possession, they go with the exact same play with one change.

This time, Moore Jr. is able to dip his shoulder around Mutts’ screen just enough so Aluma has to screen him after he hands the ball off to Cattoor. The zoom essentially becomes a double off-ball screen action, but it creates the same issue for Duke. Williams is forced to step up to Cattoor but once again, he leaves him with too much space. In the final clip, it goes much like it did in the first one with Moore Jr. getting stuck on Mutts' pindown screen and Williams giving Cattoor enough room to stay hot from three.

Out of Cattoor’s seven canned threes, four of them were spot-up shots where he just caught and fired from distance. In the two clips above, Cattoor does a great job of relocating to an open area of the court and setting up his deadly heater of a jumper.

In the first play, Storm Murphy has Williams on a switch so Duke wants to overload on help defense so Tech can’t generate an advantage. They successfully cut off the drive, but Moore Jr. helps off Cattoor way too much and leaves him open. Cattoor capitalizes off this mistake by flaring out to the top of the key where Murphy can make an easier pass.

We see more dribble drive from Murphy on the next play and Cattoor knows if he relocates to the corner, they’ll have a chance at an open shot. This shows Cattoor’s proactive off-ball play that goes along with his shooting.

Perhaps the cherry on top of Cattoor’s shooting eruption was this sweet step back on Paolo Banchero. Cattoor ghosts the screen (slips out without actually screening) and pops out to the three point line. This forces Duke to switch with Banchero and Griffin. Banchero goes from guarding Murphy to Cattoor on the play. Cattoor then hits Banchero with a right footed jab step and takes a step to his left like he’s going to drive that way. Except, he ends up planting that right foot on the hardwood and using it as a springboard to create space on his step back triple.

While Cattoor’s box score looks excellent, this is a play that won’t show up in it. Murphy kicks to Aluma off the dribble drive along the baseline. Aluma patiently notices Murphy is intent on getting to the corner so he holds with just enough time. When Cattoor sees Murphy is heading to his area, he vacates the space. But not only does he leave the corner, Cattoor sets a pin-in screen for the corner shooter in Murphy. Give Cattoor an honorary screen assist on this play.

Another play that captures Cattoor’s craftiness and basketball IQ is this move he put on Duke’s defense. When nothing comes up on the Maddox Aluma action they were trying to set up, he takes matters in his own hands on Jeremy Roach.

Cattoor drives left and spins to his right. At this point, Cattoor has to make a decision. If he keeps to the right, then he will drive straight into Williams who has a 7’7 wingspan. If he spins back left however, this forces the weaker defender in Banchero to rotate over.

Cattoor makes the right decision by spinning back to his left and Banchero doesn’t help while Williams doesn’t get over in time. He also displays so much body control on this play as it’s tough to keep your composure with the ball off two spin moves to get to the rim.

Here’s a stagger screen action Tech ran for Cattoor which included Maddox and Murphy as the screeners. Cattoor uses the first screen but instead of coming off both, he wraps around the first one and cuts to the rim. This play works for three main reasons.

First, Aluma is spaced out in the weakside corner which pulls Williams away from the paint so Cattoor has the space to finish cleanly. Next, Mutts unsurprisingly delivers a great pass to the cutting Cattoor.

Finally, Cattoor makes a great decision to curl off the first screen rather than come off the second. Keels was positioned to meet Cattoor right as he came off the second screen which showed Duke was ready for him as a shooter. He took advantage of this overplay with that smart curl and cut for the and one finish.

Cattoor’s defense can’t be forgotten either. He racked up three steals on the night including this one which sparked an electric fast break for the Hokies. Cattoor helps off his man and cleanly strips the ball from Keels to generate the turnover. From there, he ends up with the ball and is able to outrun Williams and Griffin to the basket in transition.

Cattoor is able to finish at the rim despite Williams' last ditch hack which gave him another and one layup which he cashed in at the free throw line. Cattoor was a one man show here and did a great job of turning defense into offense.