Cavaliers tumble into long break

One of the positives from Virginia’s 66-56 loss to Minnesota in the ACC/Big 10 Challenge on Tuesday night?
Not a lot of people probably witnessed it.
With a start time of 9:30 p.m., many Cavalier fans were likely asleep by the time the game ended. In addition, no local media were on hand in Minnesota.
Virginia, which doesn’t play again until a Dec. 17 home game versus Longwood, continued its struggles, dropping its third straight game.
“The game played out exactly how I thought it would,” Virginia coach Dave Leitao told virginiasports.com. “Minnesota was very well coached and efficient with the ball. I knew that at the end of the night it would come down to which team would make the least mistakes. Minnesota was that team.”
Those who didn’t catch the game on ESPN2 didn’t miss very much.
Virginia (3-3), which had dropped games to Liberty and Syracuse, committed 19 turnovers and shot just 31 percent from the field.
“We’ve seen pressure defense already this season but Minnesota was more aggressive,” Leitao said. “We didn’t attack the pressure the way we should have and that made them more aggressive with the pressure. The crowd got into it more and it put us back on our heels.”
Guard Sylven Landesberg, who came into the game averaging 20.8 points, looked out of sync from the get-go. The freshman was just 1 of 11 from the field and finished with a season-low of 10 points.
Meanwhile, starting forward Mike Scott was held scoreless for the first time in his career.
Virginia’s brightest spot was Jamil Tucker, who had a team-high 12 points on 4 of 6 shooting from 3-point range. The junior’s performance kept the Cavaliers from getting blown out.
Sammy Zeglinski continued his solid play, scoring 10 points, although he had five turnovers.
Mamadi Diane, who had gone 1 of 18 in his previous three games, showed signs of breaking out of his stupor. In the first half, he had a nice block that resulted in a breakaway dunk. However, he was a non-factor after the intermission and finished with just four points in 15 minutes off the bench.
One of the surprises from Tuesday was sophomore Jeff Jones not getting into the game, although a closer look at his recent numbers may explain why. Jones had shot just 7 of 28 from the field, including 4 of 17 from 3-point range in his previous five games. The DNP was the first of his career.
“I think a lot of it was coach’s decision and matchups,” said Virginia assistant coach Bill Courtney, who filled in for Leitao on his “Cavalier Call-In” show on Wednesday evening. “I don’t think it was any negative toward Jeff or anything he had done, but it was what was best to win the basketball game.”
Virginia senior Tunji Soroye was also a DNP. Courtney said that Soroye had missed a couple of practices heading into the game and may not have been physically ready to play.
Soroye may have helped on the defensive end where Virginia had trouble with Minnesota freshman Colton Iverson (14 points, seven rebounds).
“It is a good win for us against a quality team,” said Minnesota coach Tubby Smith. “They are a very young team similar to us. We did the things we had to do to get the win. We played defense, we were focused, and we were a little anxious with our shot selection early on. The key was that we eventually settled down.”
An interesting sidebar to the game was Virginia facing Ralph Sampson III, the son of the former UVa legend. Sampson, who was coming off a career-high of 12 points in Minnesota’s last game, didn’t score but had two blocks.