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CHARLOTTESVILLEThe Virginia men’s basketball team caught its breath after Wednesday’s 77-75 victory over the University of South Florida at John Paul Jones Arena and then began preparations for Friday’s (Nov. 21) home game with Radford.
The Radford game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on ACC Select at www.accselect.com.
Friday is a Family Night at John Paul Jones Arena. Family night tickets are $12 each. A minimum of four tickets must be purchased. Each family night game ticket also includes a concession voucher redeemable for a 22-ounce soda, a hot dog, and a box of popcorn.
The Cavaliers and Highlanders enter Friday’s game with identical 2-0 records. Virginia has home victories over VMI and USF, while Radford has home wins over Brevard (74-55) and Bridgewater (86-46).
Freshman guard Sylven Landesberg’s layup off a pass from junior guard Calvin Baker with 13 seconds left to play gave the Cavaliers a 76-75 lead in their win over USF. Landesberg made a free throw six seconds later to provide Virginia with its final margin of victory.
Landesberg led the Cavaliers with 21 points in the victory over the Bulls, while adding four rebounds and three steals. In Virginia’s season-opening 107-97 victory over VMI, he scored 28 points, grabbed eight rebounds and had eight assists. His 28 points in that game are the most by a UVa freshman in the first game of a career and ties for second most in ACC history.
Landesberg is the first Cavalier freshman to open his career with two 20-point games and he is the first Virginia freshman since Gary Forbes in 2003-04 to lead the team in scoring in each of the first two games of the season.
Three other players scored in double figures for UVa in the victory over USF. Junior forward Jamil Tucker scored a career-high 15 points and had a team-high seven rebounds, senior guard/forward Mamadi Diane scored 13 points, and sophomore forward Mike Scott scored 10 points and had six rebounds. Freshman guard Sammy Zeglinski scored nine points, had five rebounds and a team-high four assists.
Virginia trailed the Bulls by six points (61-55) with 9:06 left to play before rallying for the victory. The Cavaliers had only 10 turnovers in the game.
With the victory, Virginia is now 15-3 in November under head coach Dave Leitao. The Cavaliers have won 35 consecutive November home games dating back to a 94-83 loss to Ohio on Nov. 18, 1994.
UVa leads the series with Radford 4-0 and all four games in the series have been played in Charlottesville. The teams haven’t met since the 1996-97 season when the Cavaliers won 95-47 at University Hall.
Brad Greenberg is in his second season as the head coach at Radford. He is the brother of Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg. Radford finished the 2007-08 season with an overall record of 10-20 and had a 5-9 record in the Big South Conference. All five starters return from that team and the Highlanders were picked to finish second in the conference in 2008-09 in a preseason poll.
Through two games this season, four players are averaging in double figures in scoring for Radford. Senior guard Kenny Thomas leads the Highlanders in scoring with an average of 17.0 points a game. Junior center Artsiom Parakhouski is averaging 15.0 points, junior forward/center Joey Lynch-Flohr 11.5 points and 6.5 rebounds, and senior guard Martell McDuffy 11 points a game.
As a team, Radford is averaging 80.0 points a game and shooting 48.2 percent from the field.
After the Radford game, Virginia concludes a season-opening four-game homestand by hosting Liberty University on Tuesday (Nov. 25). The Liberty game is also a Family Night at John Paul Jones Arena and the game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.