Elite Eight Arrives for 'Hoos
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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Three times during the regular season, the University of Virginia men’s basketball team hosted an ACC game at John Paul Jones Arena on a Saturday and then played a formidable opponent on the road two nights later: first North Carolina, then Virginia Tech and finally Syracuse.
The results of those Monday night games? Three UVA victories. And so the Cavaliers are not especially concerned about the physical demands placed on them during the second week of the NCAA tournament.
About 44 hours after they secured a Sweet Sixteen win over 12th-seeded Oregon early Friday, the top-seeded Wahoos (32-3) will take on third-seeded Purdue (26-9) in the Elite Eight at 8:49 p.m. Saturday. TBS will televise the game. The Boilermakers advanced with an overtime win over second-seeded Tennessee in the first game at the KFC Yum! Center on Thursday night.
The quick turnaround isn’t ideal, UVA head coach Tony Bennett said Friday, but his team should benefit from its regular-season challenges. In early February, for example, Virginia fell to then-No. 2 Duke on a Saturday night at JPJ. About 48 hours later, UVA knocked off then-No. 8 North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
“You have to rely on those experiences to sharpen you,” Bennett said.
After losing at home to Duke, the Cavaliers bused to North Carolina the next afternoon. Before the game in Chapel Hill, junior guard Ty Jerome recalled, Bennett addressed his players.
“He said, ‘This is just like a two-day NCAA tournament weekend. You play a really good team the first day. Hopefully you win that and get to advance. Then you get one day of preparation and play another really good team,’ ” Jerome told reporters Friday.
Redshirt junior forward Mamadi Diakite said: “When I was going through it, I was tired, and I thought it was really hard. But Coach said to embrace the challenge and take it personal. You don’t know why this is happening. Maybe this is something that’s supposed to help us in the future, and we’re here today, with the same schedule.”
This is essentially another road game for the Cavaliers. They have a vocal cheering section in Louisville, but Purdue had a huge turnout for its game against Tennessee and figures to have many more fans at the KFC Yum! Center on Saturday night.
“I think everybody knows that any school from Indiana is going to have a good fan base, and they’re crazy around West Lafayette,” said UVA guard Kyle Guy, a junior from Indianapolis. “I don’t know exactly how far [Purdue is from Louisville], but I know it’s a lot closer than Virginia is.
“We’re expecting them to have more fans and for them to come out with a lot of energy, so we’re going to try to match that.”
The stakes could not be much higher in this matchup. A win would send UVA to the Final Four for the first time since 1984. Purdue hasn’t reached the NCAA semifinals since 1980.
Once the game begins, Jerome said, “you have to block it out, because as soon as the ball is tipped, nothing else matters. But I’m embracing it. I think everyone’s embracing it. Just being on this stage is an amazing opportunity, and we’re thankful to be here. I think you have to embrace it and let it fuel you.”
Guy agreed. “I think we’re doing a good job of just taking it a moment at a time, trying to have fun with it and enjoy and cherish every moment. Obviously, when the ball is tipped, it’s all business. Anything that comes into your mind about the future has to go right out, because we take it one possession at a time.”
This is the Cavaliers’ second Elite Eight appearance in 10 seasons under Bennett. In 2016, in the Midwest Region final, top-seeded UVA gave up a double-digit lead in the second half and lost 68-62 to 10th-seeded Syracuse in Chicago.
“What we learned from that is, you can’t take anything for granted,” said Diakite, who redshirted in 2015-16. “You’ve got to keep knocking, keep working hard, and have more energy than the other team in order to go past that round.”
For the season, the ‘Hoos are averaging 71 points per game. Only once in their past four games, however, have they scored more than 63. Redshirt sophomore forward De’Andre Hunter said the Cavaliers know their margin for error shrinks when their offense sputters.
“It’s going to be hard to win games in the 50s,” Hunter said. “We did that [against Oregon], but it’s going to be hard to do so [again]. But we know guys on the team are going to shoot a lot better than we did [against the Ducks], so we’re not too worried about that.”
Purdue head coach Matt Painter praised the Cavaliers’ consistency and commitment to Bennett’s system. “If you’re going to be able to beat them, you’re going to have to have more discipline than them,” Painter said. “You’ll have to be tougher than them. That’s a tough challenge.”
In the 6-2 Guy and the 6-5 Jerome, UVA has two of the nation’s premier guards. But Guy is looking to break out of a prolonged shooting slump. For the season, he’s shooting 42.7 percent from beyond the arc, but he’s made only 3 of 26 shots from 3-point range in this NCAA tourney.
Still, his self-confidence hasn’t wavered, and neither has his teammates’ faith in No. 5.
“It’s Kyle,” said Hunter, who like Guy was named to the All-ACC first team and earned All-America honors. “At the end of the day he’s going to keep shooting. He doesn’t care if he makes 20 in a row or misses 20 in a row, he’s going to keep shooting. It’s just our job to keep his confidence up and keep feeding him the ball when he’s open.”
The Boilermakers also have a sharpshooting guard who grew up in the Hoosier State. Ryan Cline, a 6-6 senior from Carmel, Ind., made 7 of 10 shots from beyond the arc against Tennessee. For the season, he’s shooting 41.8 percent from long range.
Cline and Guy played for rival high schools – Carmel and Lawrence Central, respectively — and were AAU teammates on Indiana Elite.
“He’s obviously an incredible player, an incredible shooter,” Cline said of Guy. “It’s going to be a lot of fun being able to go against an old buddy [Saturday night].”
Painter, who landed Cline, also tried to interest Guy in becoming a Boilermaker.
“So I’ve seen them a lot, both of those guys,” Painter said. “They both can catch and shoot off the move really well … But Kyle can hurt you in a lot of different ways. You have to be there on the catch and make it difficult for him.
“Cline’s the same way. Cline’s very unique. I’ve always said his jump shot, I’ve never seen somebody shoot the basketball in his fashion. Looks like he’s fly fishing to me. So I’ve never once said one word to him about his shot, because I don’t know what the hell to say to him.”
Purdue has another standout guard in Carsen Edwards, a 6-1 junior from Texas. Edwards is the first player since Davidson’s Stephen Curry to score at least 25 points in four straight NCAA tournament games, a streak that began last year.
Edwards, who scored 42 points in Purdue’s second-round win over defending NCAA champion Villanova, had 29 against Tennessee.
UVA point guard Kihei Clark, a 5-9 freshman from Los Angeles, is likely to draw the assignment of defending Edwards.
“He’s a great shooter, and he comes off a lot of off-ball screens,” said Clark, the Cavaliers’ most tenacious on-ball defender. “So I’m going to have to stay on his hip pocket and make sure I get a hand up and contest.”
Bennett said that “when you play players that are that special, that can shoot from unlimited range, you just do your best as a team to make it hard for him, and then individually to make him hit tough, contested shots. That’s always the goal of the defense.”
Painter’s mentor in coaching is Gene Keady, who preceded him at Purdue and who attended the game Thursday night in Louisville. Bennett’s mentor is also his father, Dick, a coaching legend who devised the Pack Line defense for which the Cavaliers are known. Dick Bennett sat behind UVA’s bench during the Oregon game,
“It will be a mystery if he’ll show up for the next one,” Tony Bennett said Friday.
The younger Bennett was a volunteer manager on his father’s Wisconsin team that in 2000 advanced to the Final Four. The Badgers’ opponent in the Elite Eight that season?
Keady’s Boilermakers.
UVA, as has been exhaustively chronicled, made history last year by becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament. That humbling experience, Bennett said Friday, “created a fire in me that wanted to become a better coach and pursue trying to get these guys to as far as they can, a Final Four, a national championship.
“It’s burning hot, but it did something I think maybe is as significant or greater. It made me realize that if that never does happen, I’ll still be OK. Because I’ve been blessed beyond what I deserve. And I think it’s freed me up to go after this as hard as I can, as hard as we can.”
What the Cavaliers went through last year affected the players, too. Jerome said it’s made him “that much more thankful to be here. A year ago, I was at home watching these games, and to be here playing in the Elite Eight is just an awesome opportunity, and I should be thankful for it.”