Wright leads Cavaliers to exhibition win

Kalika France left John Paul Jones Arena thoroughly impressed with the Virginia women’s basketball team.

A former basketball player at Maryland and later at Purdue, France has seen her share of quality programs and was certainly drinking the Cavalier Kool-Aid moments after her DT3 squad dropped an exhibition game to Virginia 91-77.

Monica Wright paced Virginia with 27 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, and Aisha Mohammed added 27 points in just 24 minutes.

France and her teammates, all of which played recently at various colleges, have a good sample for comparison with Virginia — they lost to Maryland by 11 and beat George Washington and Richmond in the past week.

“Virginia is by far the best. They are in great condition,” said France, who scored a team-best 23 points. “Maryland is my old team, so I’m not hating on them, and Maryland has some great players, but in terms of organization and playing together and running the floor hard and playing intense every possession, Virginia is by far the most competitive team.”

That is the difference a week can make during the preseason.

“Obviously when [DT3] played them matters, too,” Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. “They played Maryland a week ago so that changes the complexion. If you played us a week ago we wouldn’t be that far along either.

“It’s not a real good gauge as to who is where and what is going on, because everybody plays them at a different time.”

Comparisons aside, Ryan was pleased with her team’s performance in the second half, something that was needed after trailing DT3 at halftime 35-34.

The 15th-ranked Cavaliers pushed the tempo in the second half, shooting 65.7 percent from the floor as they forced nine steals and scored 19 points off turnovers.

Virginia, which dressed 10 players, was forced to battle the entire game. DT3 actually cut the margin to five, at 78-73, with just 3:23 left before the Cavaliers finished the game on a 13-4 run sparked by six of Mohammed’s points and a 3-pointer from Enonge Stovall.

Knowing Virginia opens the season at home Friday against High Point at 7 p.m., Ryan was happy her team was tested.

“I would rather come in here and play somebody really good and lose,” Ryan said. “Even if you lose you learn so much if you play somebody that is at your level or above, even.

“You want somebody to challenge you and put you in a close situation; you want to see what type of character your team has.”

Layups …

… Virginia played without senior forward Lyndra Littles and senior guard Kristen London. Ryan said Littles did not play due to “personal reasons” and she did not specify when the team’s second-leading scorer last season would return. “We will have to wait and see,” Ryan added. “That is all I can say right now.” … London missed the contest due to a “violation of team rules” and will be out for “several games,” according to Ryan. … Virginia struggled with free throws, missing 14 of its 27 attempts. … The Cavaliers starting lineup consisted of Britnee Millner, Ariana Moorer, Kelly Hartig, Mohammed and Wright. Ryan said she went with three guards to add extra ball handlers, which was needed against an athletic foe.