Freshmen’s Contributions Crucial in Comeback Win

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — With his team trailing by a point in an unexpectedly tight game, Elijah Saunders went to the line for two free throws Thursday night. After making the first, Saunders missed the second, but Jacob Cofie soared for the rebound and then passed the basketball out to Ishan Sharma on the right wing.

Sharma’s fourth 3-pointer put the Virginia Cavaliers ahead to stay, at 40-37, and they went on to post a 59-41 victory over Bethune-Cookman at John Paul Jones Arena.

On a night when UVA (6-4) missed 14 of its first 15 shots from the floor and trailed by three at the half, its two first-years helped the home team avoid having to endure any undue late-game suspense.

“We got a great lift from the freshmen today,” interim head coach Ron Sanchez said. “You gotta go through some experiences in order for you to grow, and Ish is a hard worker. Jacob is a really hard worker as well.”

The 6-foot-10 Cofie, who’s from Seattle, contributed 12 points and 10 rebounds—his second double-double as a Cavalier—in 20-plus minutes off the bench.

The 6-foot-5 Sharma didn’t start, either. With sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames sidelined with an ankle injury, however, Sharma played a season-high 25 minutes and 36 seconds. He made 4 of 7 shots from beyond the arc and finished with 12 points, also a season high.

“What you saw today is what he’s done in practice many times,” Sanchez said of Sharma, “and it’s just a matter of time. We like to say that hard work is rewarded when the opportunity presents itself.”

With Ames out, “Ish was asked to do more,” Sanchez said, “and he stepped up. He was the next man up and he did a really good job.”

Sharma said: “I was ready to do whatever the team needed. So when my number was called, I was ready to go.”

In the frontcourt, 6-foot-11 sophomore Blake Buchanan “is usually our defensive anchor,” Sanchez said, “and he was a little off today, and Jacob stepped in and did a really good job as well. Those two guys, we’re very pleased with what they did for us today.”

Sharma, the consummate gym rat, often can be found getting up extra shots at JPJ. He came into the game shooting only 21.4 percent from 3-point range, but his self-confidence never wavered.

“It’s just a matter of staying ready,” said Sharma, who’s from Toronto. “So you trust the work you do, and eventually it’s going to go in.”

Ames, a transfer from Kansas State who’s averaging 8.1 points per game, sprained his ankle in the first half of Virginia’s game at SMU on Saturday afternoon. Sanchez said it’s not considered a long-term injury.

“I just felt that he was a little sore, and [playing against Bethune-Cookman] might have set him back further,” Sanchez said, “so we wanted to be really smart with his recovery.”

Little came easily for the Wahoos against the Wildcats (2-7), who compete in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. With 8:00 to play in the first half, Virginia had twice as many turnovers (six) as points (three), and the crowd’s uneasiness was palpable.

“We didn’t get the best start,” Sanchez said in a colossal understatement.

Final exams are under way at the University, and Sanchez, tongue in cheek, said he thought some of his players “were still studying when they were sitting on the bench today. At least they looked that way.

Sharma helped the Hoos stay connected. His first 3-pointer cut Bethune-Cookman’s lead to 12-6. His second made it 14-11, and his third tied the game at 14-14.

At that point, the Cavaliers looked ready to take control of the game, but they stumbled again. Virginia’s eighth turnover of the first half led to a layup that sent Bethune-Cookman, whose head coach and athletic director is former UNLV star Reggie Theus, to the locker room with a three-point lead.

The Hoos took better care of the ball in the second half, but turnovers have plagued them in their losses this season, and they have to learn “to value every possession,” Sanchez said. “We’re turning the ball over way too much right now, and we have to continue to clean that up.”

He didn’t mince words with his team at halftime. “Sanchez came in with a lot of energy to wake us up,” Cofie said. “I felt like a lot of us were asleep and weren’t ready to start off the game, and we came out and showed out [in the second half].”

The team’s veterans spoke up in the locker room too, Cofie said, and that “was a wake-up call for me and some of the younger guys. It woke me up for sure, and from there I was ready to go.”

Bethune-Cookman shot only 28.1 percent from the floor in the first half, and that kept Virginia’s deficit in single digits.

“I think our defense kept us in there … and then we just had to the battle in the second,” Sanchez said. “That was the message at halftime: ‘Just keep guarding. We’re going to find ways to score. We’re going to find a rhythm.’ And I think they did a really good job of handling the adversity that they faced in the first half, because they could have kind of faltered there for a minute.”

Saunders, a 6-foot-8 junior, scored 13 of his game-high 15 points in the second half. The transfer from San Diego State finished with nine rebounds, matching his career high.

“Elijah played a lot more physical in the second half,” Sanchez said.

So did Cofie, who scored all 12 of his points after the break.

“Jacob and Elijah did a good job getting in the paint, converting on plays down there,” Sharma said. “I feel like we’re looking for more physical, aggressive plays down there, and I think that they were big.”

Sharma finished with three assists. One of them set up a three-point play by Cofie, who made an off-balance layup with his left hand while being fouled.

“Man, I have no clue,” Cofie answered with a smile when asked how that shot went in. “I want to go watch that again, but I got my two points, so I was happy.”

The game was the Cavaliers’ first at JPJ since Nov. 29. They were coming off an extended road trip on which they lost to then-No. 13 Florida and, in their ACC opener, to SMU. The defeats were painful, Sanchez acknowledged, but “the truth is that losing kind of teaches you some things, and through adversity is where you grow.”

Sharma said the Hoos must “continue to build chemistry, both defensively and offensively, learn how to talk to each other more, learn how to just keep our competitive nature for the length of the game and not let up during certain times. Because sometimes we have teams [down] and we let up.”

With 25 seconds left, the game stopped for a timeout, and Sanchez inserted walk-ons Bryce Walker, Desmond Roberts and Eli Bennett, whose father, Tony, is the program’s all-time winningest coach.

For the younger Bennett, it was his first appearance as a Cavalier, and with his parents watching from director of athletics Carla Williams’ suite at JPJ, he came up with a steal.

“There are few things that you can do as a coach that really kind of bring you tremendous joy,” Sanchez said, “and to award a guy a jersey is one of those things. And the second thing is when you can award a guy a scholarship. But one of our pillars is servanthood, and we have guys that show up to practice every day that half the people around here don’t even know their names ,and they work so hard. They’re here early, they leave late. Eli Bennett is one of those guys. So what we decided to do is every home game, we’re gonna dress a different guy to give those guys the opportunity to get on the floor, even if it’s just to warm up. If they have a chance to get in, if we have an opportunity, we’ll find a way to get them there. It’s our way to say thank you for all that they do to serve this team.”

UP NEXT: Exams end Tuesday at the University, and the Cavaliers are back in action Wednesday. At 7 p.m., in a non-conference game to air to ESPN2, Virginia takes on Memphis at JPJ.

For the Tigers, that will be their second straight game against an ACC team. Memphis (7-2) plays at No. 16 Clemson on Saturday.

Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway’s assistants include Mike Davis, whom Sanchez knows well. Sanchez spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant on Davis’ staff at Indiana in the early 2000s.

This will be only the third meeting between UVA and Memphis. The first was in March 2014. In Raleigh, N.C., Virginia ousted Memphis 78-60 in the NCAA tournament’s second round.

They clashed again last December at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tenn. On a night when the Hoos committed a season-high 18 turnovers, they lost 77-54 to the No. 23 Tigers.

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