As coach Tony Bennett enters his fifth season at the University with sky-high expectations, here are five takeaways from Virginia’s sloppy season-opening victory.
In his first game since missing all of last season with a foot injury, redshirt sophomore guard Malcolm Brogdon finished with nine points on 3-of-4 3-point shooting to lead Virginia to a season opening 61-41 win against James Madison Friday night.
After a 73-68 win against then-No. 3 Duke in front of a raucous crowd at John Paul Jones, it appeared that the Virginia men’s basketball team could make an ACC and even NCAA Tournament run behind the hot hand of then-junior guard Joe Harris and the steady post presence of then-junior forward Akil Mitchell. Instead, the Cavaliers were stood up for the Big Dance after dropping two of their final three games to close the regular season and getting thrashed by N.C.
**Last March, Virginia got thumped by a disappointment. N.C. State had entered the 2012-13 campaign as the first consensus ACC favorite not hailing from Tobacco Road since roughly the Paleolithic Age.
Virginia fans, do you know what the Charlie Brown walk is? If you answered no, you’re probably more familiar with it than you think.
A special men’s basketball edition!
Last season’s finish may have been a disappointment for the No. 24 Virginia’s men’s basketball team — they missed the NCAA tournament and lost in the semifinals of the NIT — but for the Cavaliers, it was less the end of a journey than a step in the development of the program. The team lost four players going into the season — two to graduation and two to transfer — but a talented recruiting class and the addition of redshirt sophomores Malcolm Brogdon from injury and Anthony Gill from transfer may ease the absence.
A panel of 54 media members pegged Virginia men’s basketball to finish fourth in the revamped ACC Wednesday at the conference’s Operation Basketball media day event in Charlotte.
As Jones enters his sophomore season competing for playing time at point guard with sophomore Malcolm Brogdon and freshmen London Perrantes and Devon Hall, he has made it his priority to become a lockdown defender.
Few jobs are as prestigious as being a professional sports player. Fewer jobs require the same level of unceasing physical and mental exertion. Two former Virginia stars, basketball player Mike Scott and football player LaRoy Reynolds, are putting in the effort and living the life so many people wish they could have.
As the final seconds ticked away from Virginia’s NIT quarterfinal game, coach Tony Bennett wrapped Jontel Evans in a hug.
As soon as the curtain closed on a surprisingly successful 2012-13 Virginia men’s basketball season, the team and its supporters turned their attention eagerly to next season, when the team was initially expected to return all starters except for senior point guard Jontel Evans and add a slew of talented contributors.
Back in January 2007, before I could grow more than a creepy strip of blond peach fuzz above my lip and when all I knew about the University was that its main building looked sort of like a brown Jefferson Memorial, I attended the New Orleans Saints’ 39-14 drubbing at the hands of the Chicago Bears at the NFC Championship game.
From the moment the Virginia basketball team learned its season would culminate not in its second straight NCAA berth but rather in the NIT, the team set its sights on making the trip to historic Madison Square Garden that had eluded them earlier in the year. Wednesday’s season-ending 75-64 loss to Iowa at John Paul Jones Arena once again snuffed out those hopes, but the result was far more painful this time around.
Two and a half weeks ago, Charlottesville bid farewell to its basketball team. After scrambling to erase a 17-point deficit and edge Maryland 61-58 in overtime March 10, Virginia left John Paul Jones Arena and a regular season-closing 17-game home win streak behind for the next weekend’s ACC Tournament — presumably before moving on to the NCAA Tournament.
Simply put, this game belonged to freshman forward Justin Anderson. And Anderson, though far from the perfect player, harbors a passion for basketball which epitomizes everything sports could and should be.
Led by another assertive effort by budding star freshman guard Justin Anderson, the Cavaliers (23-11, 11-7 ACC) coasted past St. Johns (17-16, 8-10 Big East) 68-50 for their 19th straight home victory, the fourth longest active streak in Division I men’s basketball.
Four months after losing to Delaware in the NIT Season Tip-off, Virginia finds itself two wins away from making amends for that disappointment by advancing to New York in the postseason NIT Tournament.
If the motto for March is “Survive and Advance,” the Virginia basketball team should have left John Paul Jones Tuesday night pleased with the result. But after beating overmatched Norfolk State in the first round of the NIT Tournament 67-56 in an all-around eyesore, the Cavaliers could hardly mask their disappointment.
It’s hard to believe the seismic shift in the fortunes of Virginia basketball from just more than two weeks ago.
