Hoos Looking to Build on One-Sided Win

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — With losses in six of its first seven league games, the University of Virginia men’s basketball team sunk to the depths of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings. In two of those setbacks—both against SMU—Virginia put itself in position to win before stumbling late, which only added to its frustration.

Tuesday night at John Paul Jones Arena, however, the Wahoos had reason to smile. In the first game of what should be a more forgiving stretch of their schedule, the Hoos never trailed in a 74-56 victory over Boston College.

Virginia (9-10 overall, 2-6 ACC) ended a five-game losing streak, its longest since the 2009-10 season. The Cavaliers are 8-3 at JPJ this season.

“It’s nice to get off that slide and hopefully start a streak,” interim head coach Ron Sanchez said. “Every streak starts with one and we’re here, and now we prepare for the next one and hopefully we’ll get two. And then maybe we’ll attack that. But it’s good for the guys. They deserve to have a little more success. The SMU game [at JPJ on Jan. 15) still kind of sits with us a little bit, because we had that one.”

Junior guards Isaac McKneely and Andrew Rohde, two of UVA’s main offensive threats, were a combined 9 for 37 from the floor in their previous two games. Against BC, they combined for 37 points on 12-for-16 shooting. From beyond the 3-point line, McKneely was 6 for 9 and Rohde was 2 for 2.

“I thought their backcourt outplayed ours today,” BC head coach Earl Grant said. “But those guys are veterans, and they did what they needed to do for their team.”

McKneely (7 for 10) finished with a game-high 21 points. Rohde, who played at St. Thomas (Minn.) in 2022-23, scored 16 points, matching his high as a Cavalier, and also contributed six assists, four rebounds and no turnovers.

“Obviously, we’ve lost a few games in a row,” McKneely said, “but the message we wanted [to send] this game was, get this one and this can carry us in the next few games and hopefully we can get a little win streak going, because we definitely need it, that’s for sure. But we got a few home games coming up. If we can get the crowd behind us, we can continue to play well at home, protect home court, and get a few wins.”

The Eagles (9-10, 1-7) arrived at JPJ with a four-game losing streak, and they found themselves playing catch-up almost from the opening tip. McKneely capped Virginia’s second possession with the first of his six 3-pointers, and neither he nor his teammates cooled off much thereafter.

The Cavaliers hit six of their first 10 attempts from long range and 12 of their first 18 shots overall. UVA led by 18 at the half.

“So the game was over pretty quick,” Grant said. “Not over, but the game was really separated early.”

McKneely said: “We haven’t shot the ball particularly well the past couple games, so it was nice to see our first few shots go down. I know for me in particular as a shooter, you like to see your first couple go down and then you start hunting your shot more. So it was definitely good to get a few shots to go down, and I think it just kind of catapulted our offense for the rest of the game.”

In Virginia’s loss to SMU last week at JPJ, McKneely went 0 for 6 from long range, ending his streak of 33 consecutive games with at least one made trey. Three days later, he was 1 for 5 from 3-point range.

Sanchez’s message to McKneely: Keep firing.

“I tell him, ‘I don’t care how many you’ve missed, if you’re open, Mac, shoot the ball,’ ” Sanchez said. “And I think that that kind of dialogue and that kind of confidence from your coaches maybe helps you just not think about it too much, because we need iMac to shoot the ball, and we need him to make shots in order for us to have a chance.”

For the season, McKneely is shooting 42.5 percent from 3-point range, “so any time we can try to get him open and get him a good look, we’re going to try to do that,” Rohde said. “And when he’s shooting at that clip, it makes us very hard to guard.”

The Hoos’ torrid start offensively Tuesday night helped them at the other end of the court, too.

“It’s a full-court game,” McKneely said. “I think one end can definitely affect the other, and it goes both ways. If you’re shooting the ball well, I think you’re gonna play better defense. But if you’re not shooting the ball particularly well, it can affect the defense at times. But I think our defense affected our offense. We were getting stops and we were pushing the transition a little bit more today as well. That was a focal point for us the past couple days of practice, trying to get early ones.”

Poor rebounding was a significant factor in the Hoos’ losing streak, but they dominated the backboards Tuesday night. Elijah Saunders, Jacob Cofie and Blake Buchanan pulled down six rebounds each, and Anthony Robinson came off the bench to grab four. Virginia finished with 30 boards, to 23 for Boston College.

“So I’m definitely pleased with their effort on the glass,” Sanchez said of his post players.

The 6-foot-8 Saunders (10 points) might well have finished with his third career double-double, but he was ejected with 15:44 remaining for what the officials ruled was a flagrant-2 foul. That came 47 seconds after a video review that resulted in the ejection of the Eagles’ top scorer and rebounder, Donald Hand Jr., who also was deemed to have committed a flagrant-2 foul.

The 6-foot-5 sophomore from Virginia Beach is the son of former UVA standout Donald Hand. The younger Hand left with five points and three rebounds.

“I’m not sure exactly what happened,” Grant said. “I didn’t see anything malicious, and Donald Hand doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body, so I know it wasn’t anything that he was trying to do … I didn’t see anything where it was so outlandish that it needed to be an ejection. But again, I’ll watch the film and make that judgment when I see it. And then with the big kid for them, Saunders, I didn’t see much there either. But they made the calls. We had a high-level official lead the charge in Roger Ayers. Usually he gets it right most of the time, so you’ve got to trust his judgment.”

The win was UVA’s seventh in its past eight games with BC. As Sanchez surveyed the box score at the start of his press conference, he saw much to like, and not only his team’s hot shooting. Turnovers have contributed to many of the Cavaliers’ losses, but they’ve improved in that area of late. Virginia had 11 turnovers against BC.

“As a group, as a team, it’s something that we’ve addressed from the start of the season,” Sanchez said. “We’re definitely pleased as a staff that we are doing a much better job of taking care of the basketball.”

UP NEXT: Virginia plays at home again Saturday. At 6:30 p.m., in an ACC game to air on ESPN2, UVA takes on Notre Dame (8-10, 2-5) at JPJ.

The Cavaliers lead the series 18-4, but the teams have split their past four meetings.

The Fighting Irish are in their second season under head coach Micah Shrewsberry. His associate head coach is former UVA assistant Kyle Getter.

Notre Dame is coming off a 77-69 loss at Syracuse.

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