Though Florida State came out victorious in its 73-62 win against the Virginia men’s basketball team, the ‘Noles weren’t the only ones in Charlottesville with reason to celebrate. The biggest winner of the afternoon was — you guessed it — AutoZone.
With the score 30-16 at halftime and Virginia having shot a putrid 3 of 22 from the field — including a 1-of-19 start — the oft-seen, generally inspiring halftime promotional message from AutoZone appeared on the JumboTron. Should Virginia score 80 points that afternoon, it said, fans in attendance could redeem their ticket stubs for a free bottle of windshield washer fluid at their local AutoZone.
I can just see the manager at AutoZone following the score on Gametracker and leaping for joy. “Cancel that shipment!” he’d say for the first time in the history of the promotion, when he realized that the Cavs would have to put up an absurd 64 second-half points — that’s four times their first-half production, for you anthropology majors — to hit the 80-point mark.
That, for me, was the low point of the game, but there were others to choose from. Perhaps it was looking up at the scoreboard and realizing Virginia was shooting 5.5 percent from the field with two minutes left in the first half. Maybe it was the opening 1:33 of the game, which featured a turnover and the following Virginia “field goal attempts” — Mike Scott’s contested, turnaround fade-away air-balled a foot short, a Calvin Baker baseline floater off the side of the backboard and a wide-open Sammy Zeglinski 3-pointer also missing the basket short, in that order.
With the score 18-5 midway through the half, the worst moment might have been Mustapha Farrakhan’s failed attempt to draw a shooting foul on the baseline, only to heave a shot so lame that it barely even reached the key. Perhaps it didn’t even come until the second half, when Virginia’s one opportunity to get back in the game lasted all of 19 seconds; a Jamil Tucker steal and dunk brought the Cavs to within 13 but was followed by Florida State senior guard Toney Douglas’ three, plus a foul courtesy of Zeglinski.
Then again, maybe the worst moment of the game wasn’t located on the floor. Perhaps it was the fans booing Virginia into the huddle of a 30-second timeout Dave Leitao called at the 6:40 mark of the first half, with the score 24-5. Or it was when a friend of mine — an avid Virginia fan — texted me saying he was rooting for the Cavs to not make field goals. Perhaps it was the “Virginia first half highlights” shown on the JumboTron — a misnomer, because the only scoring highlight that was shown was Sylven Landesberg’s buzzer-beating layup at the end of the half to cut the deficit to — gasp! — 14. Maybe it was when one fan, walking by the media as he left the arena a few minutes early, turned to reporters and said, “They should be payin’ us to come to these games.” Perhaps it was yet another fan and friend of mine informing me that he started the Seminole Tomahawk Chop as time wound down.
The bottom line? I have seen my share of basketball and, relative to the level of competition, the first half yesterday was the worst single half from a team I have ever seen. I have always been an avid supporter of following your team through thick and thin, but for any Cavalier fans who walked out at halftime, for once I don’t blame you.
I would hope the team was just as humiliated — not just by the score or the statistics, but by the fact that they were associated with the school name on their jerseys. In an attempt to shed some light on what the Cavs were thinking, I asked Landesberg what the locker-room conversation was like at the half.
Leitao “just came in there and told us, this was a gut check — we were either gonna man up now or never,” Landesberg said. “They were blowing us out — embarrassing us — at home, in our gym.”
Talk about a gut-check — with no games in the middle of the upcoming week, the Cavs’ next game is, of all places, at Cameron Indoor Stadium Sunday. Virginia plays a Duke team that was the only ranked team in the nation yesterday to allow fewer points in the first half than Florida State did — 15, in a 40-point blowout against Maryland.
This team is young — Leitao has been saying that all year, and in times of trouble, it has comforted me into thinking there are better days ahead.
But if Virginia wants to win another conference game, it better figure out how to play a first half. Growing up fast doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“We’re young, but that excuse is getting old,” Landesberg said. “The season is more than halfway done, so that excuse of youth, I don’t think we should be able to use that anymore.”
While I appreciate Sylven’s remarks as a competitor, I can only hope youth is indeed the source of Virginia’s problems. This year, Virginia is a bad team — that was a consensus opinion going into the season. But if it’s not inexperience, there’s only one possible conclusion remaining. Instead of the Leitao era being the time Virginia turned its basketball program around, it will be remembered as the time the athletic program hired an accomplished coach and built a $129-million arena only to have the program get worse.
Read More
Cavaliers collapse, lose 3-2 in walkoff to North Carolina
By Xander Tilock | YesterdayVirginia will head to the loser's bracket Sunday after a disappointing loss to North Carolina.
Gertrude out for season after scooter accident
By Michael Liebermann | YesterdayThe hype around his second season will have to wait.
Tony Bennett’s contract extended to 2030
By Xander Tilock | 2 days agoWith the legendary coach secured in Charlottesville, the Cavaliers can focus on returning to a standard of postseason success.
