Hoos Find Winning Formula in Commanding Performance

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

PITTSBURGH — The outcome of the game was no longer in doubt when the basketball came loose after a missed free throw by Pitt, but Virginia center Blake Buchanan didn’t hesitate. He dived to retrieve the ball, wrestled it away from a Panther and, from the floor, passed ahead to Dai Dai Ames, who dribbled in for a dunk that pushed the Cavaliers’ lead to 73-52 with 2:35 to play.

“That’s the kind of effort you need,” interim head coach Ron Sanchez said after Virginia’s 73-57 win.

Buchanan, a 6-foot-11 sophomore, finished with his second career double-double (10 points and 11 rebounds), and he wasn’t only the Wahoo to play with energy and passion Monday night at the Petersen Events Center. The Hoos outrebounded the Panthers 33-21 and played the tenacious man-to-man defense that’s long been the program’s trademark.

“That’s what we as a staff and as coaches want to see,” Sanchez said. “They played a fantastic game today together as a group. Whether it was diving on the floor, rebounding with two hands, setting great screens, finding the right guys, this was on them.”

The Cavaliers (11-12 overall, 4-8 ACC) were coming off a disappointing defensive performance. Virginia Tech feasted on open looks Saturday and shot 52.4 percent from 3-point range in a 75-74 win over UVA at John Paul Jones Arena.

Against Pitt, Virginia asserted itself defensively from the start, challenging shots and switching on every screen. The Panthers shot 41.9 percent overall and 30 percent from long range.

“Really, we were just super locked-in,” said Ames, a sophomore who’s in his first season at UVA. “Losing at home to Tech, that really hurt us.”

When the Hoos met Sunday, junior guard Andrew Rohde said after the Pitt game, they talked about “how we can try to maintain that brand of Virginia basketball on defense, and I think tonight we all really bought into that and we were really focused on getting stops.”

The Cavaliers went ahead to stay on an Ames 3-pointer at the 15:45 mark of the first half. That was part of a 17-0 run that put the Hoos in control of a game in which their opponent was heavily favored.

“It starts with the stops,” Sanchez said. “You can’t go on a 17-0 run unless you can start [a possession) with a stop. We did that part, and then on the offensive side we took care of the ball. We didn’t turn it over. We got shots for the right guys.”

With the Panthers (14-8, 5-6) focused on limiting junior guard Isaac McKneely’s looks, opportunities arose for his teammates, and they capitalized.

“I think other guys just stepped up and made plays,” Sanchez said. “I think Dai Dai Ames was a big part of that today. He was fantastic in the first half. He made one-on-one plays, he hit a couple of 3s. The guys continued to find him and they played unselfish and they played for each other.”

A transfer from Kansas State, Ames came to Pittsburgh averaging 6.2 points per game. By halftime he had 16, tying his career high, and he finished with 27. No. 7 was 11 for 16 from the floor and 2 for 2 from the line, and he made a season-high three 3-pointers.

“He’s a natural scorer,” Rohde said of Ames. “So just to see him get his confidence like that and keep going is amazing.”

Two days earlier, in the Hoos’ loss to the Hokies, Ames had scored nine of his 11 points after the break.

“That little spark I had in the second half, that really boosted my confidence,” Ames said Monday night. “So coming into this game, I was just trying to repeat the same thing that I did last game, and then I just got it going.”

Especially pleasing to Sanchez was Ames’ play on defense.

“Hopefully he can repeat this [offensive showing],” Sanchez said, “but what I really want from him is for him to guard, and I think he did a good job today.”

The Cavaliers went into halftime leading 34-19 with their best offensive weapon, McKneely, scoreless. “That’s one of the things we talked about at halftime,” Rohde said.

The Hoos were confident McKneely would get hot in the second half, which made their position at intermission “really encouraging,” Buchanan said. “Once Mac gets going, it’s a different game.”

McKneely got going about 90 seconds into the second half, taking a pass from Rohde and burying a 3-pointer to make it 37-20. McKneely finished with eight points and four assists. That marked the first time in six games that he didn’t reach double figures, but the Hoos had plenty of offense against Pitt.

Virginia shot 56 percent from the floor overall and 45.5 percent from 3-point range. With Rohde directing the offense, 20 of the Cavaliers’ 28 baskets were assisted.

“That’s the quality of basketball that we want,” Sanchez said. “We want to play unselfish, we want to share the ball. “We feel like the ball has energy and the more the guys touch it, the better they feel, and we want everybody to be incorporated and involved in the offense.”

Rohde finished with a career-best nine assists and also contributed nine points and seven rebounds. He didn’t turn the ball over. In his past 11 games, Rohde has totaled 57 assists and only eight turnovers.

“He has great vision,” Buchanan said.

Rohde’s improvement as a ball-handler and a decision-maker has been dramatic. Early in the season, he had four turnovers against Campbell, four against Tennessee, four against SMU, and five against Memphis. Since Dec. 18, he hasn’t had more than two turnovers in a game.

“I think I’m just becoming more comfortable, especially with my teammates,” Rohde said.

“Some of it is just understanding,” Sanchez said. “Guys get better year to year. Rohde is a fierce competitor. He competes really hard. I’m not sure that anybody is a bigger critic of Rohde than Rohde.

“His desire to take care of the ball has always been there. Do we drill it every day? Yes. Do we talk about it, do we show film, do we study? Yes. He spent the time that he needed to and works on it every day in practice. I think what you’re seeing is a result of his work.”

Junior forward Elijah Saunders, the Cavaliers’ leading rebounder and second-leading scorer, missed his third straight game with a lower-leg injury. His absence has meant a larger role for Anthony Robinson, a 6-foot-10, 250-pound redshirt freshman who’s the most physical of Virginia’s big men. Against Pitt, Robinson scored a career-high nine points and pulled down six rebounds in 16:52 off the bench.

“I think the more you play, the more comfortable you become,” Sanchez said. “The game is slowing down for him a little bit. He still has to learn how to play through fatigue, still plow through, but he did a really good job today. I think this might have been his best game.”

The same might have been true for Sanchez’s team as well. After falling behind by 13 with 6:20 to play in the second half Saturday against Virginia Tech, the Hoos posted a spirited rally and had a chance to win the game at the buzzer.

“We found something towards the end of that game,” Buchanan said, “and we wanted to carry it over to this game. It was a quick turnaround, but we just went out, we started off strong and just kept it going.”

UVA had a light practice Sunday in Charlottesville, but the players “were really focused,” Sanchez said Monday night. “I think from Saturday to today, there was a step in the right direction for a couple of different guys. I think we guarded our yard better today, but I do think that we rebounded well. We finished [defensive] possessions with the rebound.”

Virginia, which had lost two straight to Pitt, increased its series lead to 20-6. The game drew an announced crowd of 9,075, and many of the home fans left in the second half when it became clear the Hoos were in command.

“It was a great feeling,” Rohde said, “and I hope we can keep this run going.”

SPECIAL DAY AT JPJ: Former head coach Tony Bennett will be honored Saturday during UVA’s game against Georgia Tech at John Paul Jones Arena, and each fan in attendance will receive a commemorative banner.

Bennett retired in October after 15 seasons at Virginia. During his record-setting tenure, the Cavaliers posted a 364-136 record, won the ACC tournament twice, captured six regular-season conference titles, and advanced to the NCAA tournament 10 times. The Hoos were crowned NCAA champions in 2019.

In a game to air on The CW, the Hoos will meet the Yellow Jackets (10-12, 4-7) at 5:30 p.m. Georgia Tech, which plays at Clemson late Tuesday night, is coming off a 77-70 upset of then-No. 21 Louisville in Atlanta.

The Cavaliers have won 12 in a row over the Jackets and lead the series 49-40.

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