Cavaliers surge past Broncs

Bub Evans. Tom Jonke. Thomas Kody. Doug Browman and Solomon Tat.
For those keeping scoring at home, that’s a freshman, three walk-ons and a little-used senior.
With less than three minutes to play on Thursday night at John Paul Jones Arena, it was the unit that Virginia coach Tony Bennett had out on the floor — and this was a good thing.
Virginia, behind 17 points and nine rebounds from Mike Scott, 12 points from Sammy Zeglinski and a spark off the bench from walk-on Will Sherrill, led Rider almost from wire to wire and notched the first blowout win of the Bennett era — a 79-46 dismantling of the Broncs.
“Even the walk-ons were taking us off the dribble and making shots,” Rider coach Tom Dempsey lamented. “We just got our butt kicked.”
Rider’s 46 points were the lowest by a Virginia opponent in the John Paul Jones Arena.
After a so-so win over Longwood and a poor loss at South Florida to start the season, Virginia’s performance against Rider seemed like a sigh of relief to Bennett.
Rider (2-1) had come into the game on the heels of an impressive upset win at then-No. 18 Mississippi State.
After watching his team fire bricks against USF, Bennett saw his squad shoot 52 percent from the field.
It all started with Scott. A game after fouling out, the junior forward gave the Cavaliers a much-needed low-post presence.
“Mike showed some pretty good poise tonight because when we’d throw in, they’d really, we say ‘choke’ or raid down and try and double him…Mike had enough presence of mind to kick it back,” said Bennett, whose team hosts Oral Roberts on Saturday.
“Good things happen when the ball touches hands.”
It was early in the second half when Virginia (2-1), behind Zeglinski, turned the game into a blowout. UVa went on an 11-3 run to take a commanding 50-25 lead.
“We really wanted to make sure we didn’t let them back in the game,” said Zeglinski, who scored eight points during the spurt. “In the Longwood game, we kind of came out flat [in the second half]. We wanted to fix that tonight and sustain good defense throughout the night.”
Virginia held Rider to just 33-percent shooting.
For the first time in three games, Bennett
didn’t go with a small-ball lineup featuring four guards and a big man. He inserted senior center Jerome Meyinsse for guard Jeff Jones and slid Scott back to his natural position of power forward.
The reconfiguration seemed to work well. Virginia jumped out to an early 13-6 lead.
“The reason I went with two bigs was because we were 17 of 52 [from the field] versus South Florida,” Bennett said. “If you’re not going to make a lot of shots, then maybe there’s a chance to get some offensive rebounds and score points that way.”
The surprise of the half was when Bennett called on junior walk-on Will Sherrill to replace Meyinsse. Sherrill, who had played sparingly in the first two games, did a lot of little things and finished with a career-high six rebounds.
“We’re missing two big guys on the front line,” Sherrill said. “I knew coming into the game that we were going to try and have two bigs on the floor as much as possible. whereas in the first two games we mostly had four guards…
“I knew there was a chance [to play], but I go into every game with the same mindset that if I get called in the first five minutes or the last five minutes, I’m going to play the same way. When my name got called, I was just excited to get in there and help us out.”
One of the highlights of the game came toward the end of Sherrill’s stint in the first half. Scott took a lob pass from Zeglinski on the run and threw down a one-handed jam. It was the second game in a row where Scott and Zeglinski connected on an alley-oop.
“Me and Sammy have that connection, ever since South Florida,” Scott said. “I didn’t think he was going to throw it, but he just tapped the ball up and I just went up and got it.”
After the play, Scott did a little showboating. That irked Bennett, who came running on to the floor after a timeout was called to talk to Scott.
Bennett wanted Scott, who had done something similar against USF, to hustle back on defense.
“He kind of stopped,” Bennett said. “I don’t know if he struck a pose or what it was, but I was screaming, ‘Get back!’
“It was a teachable moment.”
Dunks
For the second straight game, Virginia forward Jamil Tucker was in attendance. The forward sat behind the UVa bench in street clothes. ... The announced attendance was 8,061. ... Virginia freshman Tristan Spurlock scored his first college basket — a 3-pointer — late in the game.