Elijah Saunders attacks the rim on the way to 15 points for Virginia. ~ Photo by Kris Wright/TheSabre.com
During a media timeout with less than three minutes to go in the first half of the Virginia basketball game Thursday night, a grocery game promotion took place on the John Paul Jones Arena floor. The two contestants combined for six baskets in the brief segment. The good news is they split the prize. the bad news? Those six baskets were more than the main attraction had at that point in the action.
It was that kind of first half for the Cavaliers. In that timeout with 2:31 to go in the first half, the Hoos had made only five buckets as a lethargic and lackluster 20 minutes unfolded in front of everyone's eyes. By the time they went to the locker room, the final tally had landed at 7-25 shooting (28.0%) with 8 turnovers. Still, the hosts somehow only trailed 21-18 as Bethune-Cookman hit 9 of 32 shots (28.1%) itself.
Virginia (6-4) unlocked a much more energetic and efficient second half to finally pull away to a 59-41 victory. In the final 20 minutes, the Cavaliers went 15-25 shooting (60.0%) with 11 buckets around the rim. They also cut the miscues down to 3 turnovers. In the end, it was enough to win while the Wahoos continue to click through their final exams.
"It's finals week - I think some of them were still studying when they were sitting on the bench today" UVA interim coach Ron Sanchez quipped. "At least they looked that way."
The final numbers shook out like this for Virginia: 22-50 shooting (44.0%), 7-23 3-point shooting (30.4%), and 8-12 free throw shooting (66.7%). Elijah Saunders led the way with 15 points on 6-11 shooting to go with 8 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 steal. Freshmen Ishan Sharma and Jacob Cofie joined him in double figures with 12 points each. Cofie made 5 of 8 shots and posted 10 rebounds too for his second career double-double. Sharma knocked down 4 of 7 shots and tallied 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 steal too.
What else is there to know from the victory? Here are some takeaways from UVA's home win.
More On That First Half
UVA went from the 18:02 mark of the first half all the way down to 7:49 without a field goal. That 11:13 only featured a Blake Buchanan free throw for the Hoos' scoring, while they missed 13 straight shots overall. That included an 0-8 string from the 3-point arc with five different players hoisting up a long-range shot in that stretch.
Even so, the first half was more than just a poor shooting problem. The Hoos' effort was uninspired and unfocused too. Players weren't being physically tough, weren't cutting hard, and settled often for sort of half-hearted jumpers. They ended up with 8 turnovers an only 2 free throw attempts in that first 20 minutes.
The players and coaches said they spent halftime sparking the attitude needed for a comeback.
"[Coach] Sanchez came in with a lot of energy to wake us up," Cofie said. "I felt like a lot of us were asleep and not ready to start off the game."
It took a moment for the Virginia turnaround to start after intermission. Bethune-Cookman, in fact, grew its lead to 25-18 in the first 1:02 after the break before UVA found some easy baskets that finally sparked a comeback. That included a dunk for Saunders off an alley-oop pass, an easy layup on cut off a screen for McKneely, and a tip dunk for Blake Buchanan. Later, Saunders scored on another alley-oop on an inbounds play as part of a 13-point second half surge for the junior.
Ishan Sharma connected on 4 3-pointers in the Virginia win. ~ Photo by Kris Wright/TheSabre.com
More Sharma
The key shots on the night belonged to a freshman. As noted above, Ishan Sharma made 4 of 7 attempts on the way to a career-high 12 points. What wasn't mentioned already, however, is when those makes came through for the Cavaliers.
In the first half during that sluggish showing, it was Sharma that finally snapped the Hoos out of it. He lined up a 3-pointer at the 7:49 mark that cut a 12-3 deficit down quickly. A couple of minutes later, Sharma canned two more triples that brought the score level at 14-14. In the second half, Sharma's fourth and final 3-pointer broke the game's final tie. On that one, Cofie secured an offensive rebound and found Sharma spotting up for a swished trey that made it 40-37 with 9:07 to go.
Sharma's reputation as a sharp-shooter finally seemed to find its mark with those shots. Still, he downplayed it a little bit even as he doubled the amount of 3's he's made on the season in one night. Cofie said that he thought Sharma could "catch fire for even more points" at some point this season too.
"It felt good, but some are going to go in, some are not going to go in so you just try to say level-headed," Sharma said.
Ultimately, Sharma took advantage of a crack in the playing time door. Virginia lost starting guard Dai Dai Ames to an ankle injury in its loss to SMU on Saturday and held the sophomore out as precaution Thursday. In both games, Sharma's minutes went up. He played 15 minutes at SMU and then hit 25 minutes at home against B-C. Those 40 minutes represent 38.8% of his season total to date.
"We like to say that hard work is rewarded when the opportunity presents itself," Sanchez said. "With Dai Dai being out, Ish was asked to do more and he stepped up. He was the next man up and he did a really good job."
Still Too Many Turnovers
UVA's final tally Thursday was 11 turnovers as that problem continues. Against Bethune-Cookman, Isaac McKneely had the most with 3 while Andrew Rohde and Elijah Saunders had 2 each. Some of those in the first half included ill-advised choices such as a difficult one-handed pass trying to feed the post from McKneely and a leaping sort of skip pass directly to a defender by Rohde.
Virginia has 123 turnovers this season for an average of 12.3 per game. Entering the game, the Hoos' 19.9% turnover rate ranked 313th out of 364 Division I teams. While Sanchez said the team does a lot of drills and passing work to try to limit turnovers already, he also said the Cavaliers are turning it over "way too much right now" so they'd have to keep working and finding more drills to try to address the problem.
A Bennett On The Court
After a dull first half, the fans that stuck it out saw an interesting cameo in the final minute of the game. That's when Eli Bennett entered for 30 seconds of playing time, the first of his UVA career. He logged 1 steal while in the game. Eli Bennett is the son of long-time coach Tony Bennett, who stepped down before the season started. He is a manager for the team and the latest to dress out for the Wahoos.
Sanchez said it is always rewarding to get a chance to let those players suit up for games in the JPJ.
"One of our pillars is servanthood and we have guys that show up to practice every day and half the people around here don't even know their names and they work so hard," Sanchez said. "They're here early, they leave late. Eli Bennett is one of those guys. So what we decided to do is every home we're going to dress a different guy to give those guys the opportunity to get on the floor even if it's just to warm up. If they have chance a get in and we have an opportunity, we'll find a way to get them there. It's our way to say thank you for all that they do to serve this team."
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