Cavaliers hoping for complete game

TAMPA — Today’s forecast for the Tampa/St. Petersburg area is sunny, with temperatures reaching the low 80s, and a light breeze coming out of the northeast at 6 miles per hour.
Sound good?
Not for the Virginia men’s basketball team.
During the last four seasons, for whatever reasons, there’s just been something about nice weather that hasn’t agreed with the Wahoos.
During the Dave Leitao era, Virginia went 1-9 in games played in Florida, California and Puerto Rico. The lone victory was a squeaker over Division III Puerto Rico-Mayaguez at the San Juan Invitational in 2006.
Tonight, the Cavaliers, with first-year coach Tony Bennett, hope to put the trend behind them when they play at the University of South Florida. UVa has a 10-game losing streak in the Sunshine State. The Cavaliers’ last win came in the 2000-01 season under former coach Pete Gillen.
If Virginia can play like it did in the first half of its season opener against Longwood on Friday night, you’d have to like its chances of getting off the schneid. UVa shot 59 percent from the field and held the Lancers to 40-percent shooting in building a 22-point lead at the half.
The second half, however, was a different story. Virginia allowed Longwood to shoot 54 percent. Luckily, the Cavs shot 62 percent themselves.
Bennett said the opening game was somewhat of a microcosm of what he’s witnessed behind closed doors.
“We’re good in stretches and then we lose it,” he said. “Whether it’s the focus or the concentration, I think we have to keep fighting that tendency. If there’s a bad stretch, or shots aren’t going down or whatever the case — [they] have to really come together.
“I saw some long looks in their faces [against Longwood]. We’ve just got to keep coming together and get them believing that, ‘We’ve got to get stops.’ We’ve got to have our defense hold us in there. We’re not there yet.”
South Florida, meanwhile, is coming off a season-opening win on Friday night at SMU. The Bulls, behind Augustus Gilchrist’s career-high 23 points and nine rebounds, won by six.
USF, which finished 14th in the 16-school Big East last season, will be an entirely different kind of challenge for Virginia than Longwood. The Bulls have legitimate size, including the 6-foot-10 Gilchrist.
Against undersized Longwood, Bennett went with a four-guard allignment to start the game. That will likely change tonight. Bennett could insert big man Jerome Meyinsse for guard Jeff Jones or Mustapha Farrakhan.
After Friday’s win, Virginia players seemed aware that their level of competition was about to increase.
“They’re definitely a better team — a good team,” said guard Sylven Landesberg, who had the game-winning layup against USF last season. “They’re in the Big East and have big players.”
“It’s definitely going to be a test to see where we’re at,” added guard Sammy Zeglinski.
Zeglinski remembered last year’s victory over USF at John Paul Jones Arena.
“They’re physical,” he said. “It was a physical game, and they have some good guards. We’re going to have to strap up and play some defense.”
When asked after the Longwood win what his team needed to work on moving forward, Bennett had a succinct answer.
“Everything,” he said. “We have to being sounder, develop a tougher mindset, sustain more on the defensive end and the offensive end…
“If they could only go hard for 20 minutes, well then we’ve got to get up to 25 and 30 by the time we get into conference play.”
Landesberg summed things up. “We were all happy that we got a win, but it wasn’t a great win,” he said. “We got a little lazy in the second half.”
Clearly, that can’t happen again if Virginia wants to stop its slide in the Sunshine State.
Dunks
Virginia was 1-1 against Big East teams last year, defeating USF and losing to Syracuse. UVa is 54-57 all-time against the Big East. ... UVa shot 60 percent from the field against Longwood. The last time the Cavs had shot 60 percent or better came against Long Island in 2000. ... Sammy Zeglinski had a career-high six rebounds against Longwood.