Despite having only five scholarship players available and starting a walk-on at point guard, the Virginia men's basketball team routed Big Apple Basketball, 84-60, in an exhibition game at University Hall yesterday.
The game was close for the first seven minutes, but Virginia used a 17-0 spurt to pull away from Big Apple. Virginia senior forward Travis Watson scored nine of his game-high 36 points during this run.
In this stretch, the Cavaliers held Big Apple scoreless for over seven minutes as they pulled out to a 34-18 lead with five minutes left in the first half. Virginia took a 47-28 lead into halftime and cruised in the second half.
"I thought we saw some good things," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "We had to play what we had. We played two walk-ons, but I thought we did a pretty good job given the circumstances."
Sophomore forward Devin Smith and freshman forward Derrick Byars both missed the game with injuries. Smith still is recovering from knee surgery. Byars sprained his left ankle in practice and was on crutches this week, but he expects to be ready by the time the season starts. Sophomores Jason Clark, Jermaine Harper and Keith Jenifer were all suspended for this game for violating team rules.
With four guards and a small forward unavailable, Watson, junior center Nick Vander Laan, and sophomore forward Elton Brown all started, giving Virginia three starters over 6-foot-8.
"It's an effective lineup when you got three big guys who just crash relentlessly," Brown said. "Whatever the starting lineup is, we're going to crash the boards."
Watson finished with 17 rebounds and Vander Laan had 14 points and 24 rebounds, 13 of which were offensive.
Nick's "a person with a lot of energy and he goes hard for the ball," Watson said.
Virginia out-rebounded Big Apple, 63-37, and had 29 offensive rebounds.
"I thought we played pretty good," Gillen said. "We had certainly a different group in there. We had three big strong guys playing together, which is a different lineup. We played a walk-on [freshman guard Bill Campbell] and [junior guard] Todd Billet, so we had a choppy group, but I thought they played hard defensively and they shared the ball. There were some good positives in our first exhibition."
Watson finished 14-of-22 from the field, hitting three three-pointers as well. Brown added 23 points and Billet had 13 points.
The Cavaliers struggled from the free throw line, making only nine of 22 shots. After only six turnovers in the first half, Virginia had 12 in the second half, a cause of concern for Gillen.
Virginia will return to action next Sunday against the One World All-Stars in another exhibition game.
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