Despite being understaffed again, with Mike Scott still recovering from an ankle injury earlier this season and news coming that Jamil Tucker had been dismissed from the team, Virginia played fundamental basketball to easily take care of Hampton, 80-54.
Virginia took 6 minutes to get to a 12-0 lead before Hampton ended the dream of a shut-out. Still, the Pirates were unable to recover, and were only able to pull within 5 before the Cavaliers just broke free, at one point doubling the Pirates 60-30.
For the second game in a row, every player (except Mike Scott, who did not dress) saw playing time, as Virginia shot 50%, including a season high 11 of 23 (47%) from beyond the arc. That's free Raising Canes for sure!
Virginia had an impressive and season-high 22 assists on the night. This is the type of unselfishness Tony Bennett was looking for from his offense, as earlier in the year he stressed the importance to Sylven Landesberg that good players can make buckets, but great players can bring everyone else up with him.
With 14 points and 12 rebounds, Landesberg picked up his first career double-double.
“Early on I thought that was the most unselfish our team had been. The ball was touching the paint – guys were making the extra pass and getting rhythm shots. Then we got on the offensive glass and fell into some easy rebounds. We had one of the best halves of sharing the basketball and I think our assist-to-turnover ratio showed that in the first half when it was 14-to-2 – I don’t know how we finished, but that was nice to see.”
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Virginia will take a break for Christmas, but looks to take on a very dangerous opponent in UAB on December 30 in John Paul Jones. The Blazers are 11-1, including victories over top-20 Butler and then-top 25 Cincinnati. By no means will this be a walk in the park for Virginia.
