Cavaliers pull out a squeaker

For much of Wednesday night’s game against South Florida, very little of what Calvin Baker did on the court was very pretty or seemed to come easy.
Baker, who is playing with a stress fracture in his left foot, seemed out of sync.
So it was somewhat of a surprise when Baker was on the court for Virginia’s most important possession of the game.
“Calvin is more in a leadership role as a captain and a guy in the forefront,” UVa coach Dave Leitao would explain afterward, “so I trust that he’s a little bit more solid because of experience on defense to be in there at the end.”
However, it was on the offensive end where Baker came up huge.
With 13 seconds remaining in the game, the former walk-on found Sylven Landesberg wide open underneath the basket for a layup that gave Virginia a 77-75 win in front of a crowd of 8,810 at John Paul Jones Arena.
“Without playing particularly well today, we were still able to win and do it a little bit gutty,” Leitao said. “The last five minutes we were finally getting some stops that we weren’t real successful in stringing together in the previous 35 [minutes].”
Baker finished with just three points in his 17 minutes, but his assist is the reason Virginia now sits at 2-0 heading into Friday night’s game against Radford.
“To make that assist shows that he has great resiliency,” Leitao said, “because obviously he didn’t have a great day and I think when you don’t have a great day and can still make plays at the end, it shows enough character that a coach can believe in you.”
Landesberg is certainly somebody Leitao is believing in. For the second straight game, the freshman from New York City led Virginia in scoring, dropping in 21 points.
In addition to the game-winner, Landesberg scored on an offensive putback to put UVa up 73-71 with just under 2 minutes to play.
“I didn’t expect that he would get 28 and 21 in his first two games,” Leitao said, “but I never worried about his presence. He’s got a quiet, without cocky, presence about him as a basketball player. I noticed that early on.”
On the final play, Virginia was looking for senior Mamadi Diane to take the big shot. When Diane failed to get an open look, Virginia went back into its motion offense.
“We felt ourselves kind of improvising,” Leitao said, “and Calvin just made an individual play from there.”
Landesberg said he was shocked at how uncovered he was.
“I was just running up and down the baseline,” said Landesberg, who also had four rebounds, three steals and just one turnover in his 31 minutes, “He penetrated and he just saw me open and that was it.
“It was just a wide-open layup.”
USF had a chance to tie the game, but Dominique Jones’ floater bounced off the back of the rim as time expired.
“It was scary,” said Landesberg, when asked about the final sequence. “It was like slow motion. I was like, ‘I just can’t wait for this to hit off the rim.’”
Midway through the second half, USF opened a 61-55 lead after two jumpers by Jesus Verdejo.
But Virginia, behind solid play off the bench from Jamil Tucker (15 points, seven rebounds), clawed back.
“The Tucker kid was the biggest surprise,” said South Florida coach Stan Heath. “He did more than we thought or expected.”
Early in the first half, USF jumped out to a 10-2 lead. It wasn’t until Landesberg checked into the game that Virginia developed any kind of offensive rhythm. The freshman, who had 28 points in his debut against VMI on Sunday, scored seven quick points to pull the Cavaliers within three.
Landesberg doesn’t seem surprised by his quick success.
“I’m just going out and there and being productive and doing whatever I have to do to get the team a win,” he said.
And, on Wednesday, he had a little help from a teammate named Baker.