Virginia Opens Season With Frontcourt-Fueled Win Against Campbell

Behind a strong showing from a trio of frontcourt players, the Virginia basketball team secured a 65-56 victory against Campbell on Wednesday at the John Paul Jones Arena. UVA improved to 25-2 in its last 27 season openers and gave interim coach Ron Sanchez the win in his debut.

Jacob Cofie, Blake Buchanan, and Elijah Saunders did the heavy lifting on the scoreboard with 38 combined points. The Hoos outscored the Camels 28-12 in the paint thanks in large part to that trio, which lined up with the game plan coming into the contest.

"We decided to play more of an interior game today," Sanchez said. "You saw we ran some post-ups and some high-lows and we wanted to get in front of the rim. We felt like that was part of our advantage today."

All three frontcourt players took advantage of that approach as each reached double figures with 15 combined buckets. Cofie posted 16 points in his true freshman debut to lead all scorers. He was incredibly efficient to get to that mark, going 7-8 shooting on a night where he made his first 5 shots. That included a pair of first-half 3-pointers.

Cofie also tallied 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, and 1 steal as he made a quick impact for the team. He committed just 1 foul. On a team with just three players at 6'10"+, Cofie's play was a welcomed sign out of the gates.

"He was excited all day. He wanted to get on the floor," Sanchez said. "He played well. Had a couple of defensive breakdowns. Again, that just comes from being a young player and understanding the moment. I'm hoping this is just the beginning for him and he can springboard into better performances than this one. I think he's definitely capable of doing it."

"I was overall excited. I played pretty well in the scrimmages so going into this game I was excited and confident," Cofie said. "I feel like Ron Sanchez does a good job of instilling confidence in me to be ready to play out there."

Buchanan and Saunders made key contributions too. Saunders overcame some foul trouble to get his 11 points in 17 minutes. He made his only free throw and put in 5 of 8 shots, including a right-handed half-hook on post-up moves at least three times. Saunders had 5 rebounds as well before fouling out.

Buchanan reached double digits for just the second time in his career as he made 3 of 6 shots on the way to 10 points. He could have put up a bigger line but connected on just 4 of 9 free throws. The sophomore did churn out 7 rebounds and a career-best 5 assists with 3 blocked shots to boot. Both Cofie and Buchanan logged 28 minutes.

"I thought we did good the first half. The second half was a little bit more of a struggle," Buchanan said of UVA's offense. "I obviously have the ball a lot more this year in my hands, which is fun, but I thought we did a good job. We had a lot of good looks, we got a lot of easy baskets so we've just got to keep getting to that."

With the frontcourt clicking, Virginia also picked up some balanced contributions elsewhere as it used nine players in the rotation. Isaac McKneely hit double figures with 11 points on 4-6 shooting on a mostly quiet night. He added 2 assists. Freshman Ishan Sharma knocked down a pair of first half 3-pointers to score 6 points alongside 2 assists in his debut, while senior Taine Murray also came off the bench for 5 points.

Overall, UVA shot 57.1% in the win (24-42) with 29 points coming from the bench. The Hoos made 6 of 13 3-pointers (46.2%) and 11 of 18 free throws (61.1%). They dished out 17 assists on 24 made baskets. The team had 11 turnovers.

While the offense made a high percentage of shots and had an advantage in the paint, the Virginia defense couldn't get the clamps on Campbell until late in the game. The Cavaliers did produce a couple of shot clock violations and key stops later in the second half to make sure to get the winner's circle. That pulled down the visitors final shooting number to 37.5% on 21-56 shooting.

The Camels stayed within striking distance the whole way, however, thanks to a barrage of 3's. They made 11 of 29 triples (37.9%), including 10 of their first 20 in the game. Eight different players contributed at least one 3-pointer, but no one made it to double figures in the scoring column in the end.

It all added up to a season-opening win for a team still in a transition phase after Tony Bennett retired just weeks before the start of the campaign.

"I liked that we had multiple guys in double figure scoring. We shared the ball well," Sanchez said. "When we ran our stuff, we ran it well. ... Overall, honestly, we took care of the basketball, did a decent job there. Did a decent job on the glass. I thought we should have grabbed a few more offensive rebounds, something we'll address. But overall, we'll just look at the film, we'll celebrate what we did well, and we'll get to work on the things that need improvement."

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