Virginia Improves to 8-0 with 22-Point Victory Against ECU

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia women’s basketball team (8-0, 1-0 ACC) closed out the 2022 Cavalier Classic Tournament with a 72-50 victory against East Carolina (5-2, 0-0 AAC) on Sunday (Nov. 27) at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va.

Virginia held a six-point lead at halftime and went on a 17-3 run to open the third quarter to build a 20-point advantage. They led by as many as 27 points in the fourth quarter.

The Cavaliers had four players finish in double figures led by a 15-point performance from Sam Brunelle. Mir McLean had a double-double with 11 points and 14 rebounds. Kaydan Lawson scored 11 points with McKenna Dale coming off the bench to score 10. Danae McNeal led the Pirates with 14 points.

This is the first 8-0 start to a season for Virginia since 1992.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Lawson was an early spark for the Cavaliers, scoring five points in the first four minutes of the game, but it was a 6-0 run that gave UVA its first significant lead, a 14-7 advantage on a Camryn Taylor layup with 1:47 remaining in the first quarter. ECU made two layups in the final 50 seconds of the quarter to make it a 14-11 game heading into the second period.

A three-pointer from Cady Pauley gave UVA a 17-11 lead early in the second, but the Pirates cut the deficit to two points with 7:22 remaining in the half. The Cavaliers scored seven points in a 48-second span. Taylor Valladay had an and-one, but missed the free throw. She grabbed her own rebound and then dished the ball to Dale, who hit a three-pointer. Brunelle added a layup to give UVA a 28-17 lead with 3:43 remaining. Dale’s second trey of the quarter gave UVA a 31-21 lead with 1:08 remaining, but ECU scored the final four points of the half to trail 31-25 at the break.

Virginia opened the second half on a 7-2 run, building back up a double-digit lead on a layup from McLean with 7:17 left in the quarter. Dale’s third three of the game gave the Cavaliers a 43-28 lead midway through the period. A free throw from London Clarkson with 3:40 remaining built UVA’s lead to 20 points.

The Cavaliers had a 53-32 lead at the start of the fourth period. UVA’s defense held the Pirates to 1-of-7 shooting to start the final period as the offense built up a 62-35 advantage, their largest lead of the game, with 5:12 remaining in the contest.

CAVALIER NOTES

• Virginia held a 56-25 edge in rebounding (+31)
• UVA had 19 offensive rebounds, scoring 25 second-chance points
• UVA shot 43.6 percent (24-of-55), while ECU shot 31.3 percent (20-of-64)
• East Carolina was 2-of-16 (12.5 percent) from three-point range. Virginia was 7-of-21 (33.3 percent)
• Virginia committed 20 turnovers in the first half. The team was averaging 12.9 turnovers per game heading into the contest. They had 30 for the game
• Mir McLean’s double-double was her second of the weekend and third of the season
• McKenna Dale is the 10th different Cavalier to score in double figures in a game this season (on a roster of 11 players)
• Dale grabbed eight rebounds. She also had an eight-rebound performance on Wednesday against Campbell
• Both McLean and Kaydan Lawson were 4-of-6 shooting. Sam Brunelle was 5-of-7 from the field and 4-of-4 from the free throw line
• The last time UVA started the season 8-0 was the 1992-93 season
• The eight-straight victories are the longest win streak for the team since winning eight in a row during the 2017-18 season (Dec. 17- Jan. 11)
• UVAWBB alumna J’Kyra Brown (’18) is in her first season as the Director of Recruiting at East Carolina. ECU head coach Kim McNeill and associate head coach Corey McNeill spent five seasons on Joanne Boyle’s coaching staff at UVA (2011-16), with Kim being promoted to associate head coach in 2013

FROM HEAD COACH AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON

“I’m definitely proud of our team. In the second half we got considerably better. It’s been a long month as far as how many games we’ve been playing and we’ve had quick turnarounds, including having only one day to prep, so we haven’t really had a chance to work on ourselves. I say that a lot here because it’s important. Until today, nobody has played a zone against us, and we knew they’d probably play us 40 minutes in zone. We haven’t gone against zone or practiced it since probably preseason. In the first half we really needed to settle in and find our rhythm and then we did that in the second half.”

ON THE HORIZON

• Virginia plays at Penn State on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. in the ACC/B1G Challenge. The game will stream on B1G+ ($)
• The Cavaliers return home to host UNCW on Sunday, Dec. 4 at 2 p.m.