Once upon a time, early season tournaments proved problematic for the Virginia basketball program. Over the last three years, however, the Hoos have erased those concerns with three straight tournament titles in November.
In 2013, the Cavaliers took home the Corpus Christi Challenge trophy. In 2014, they added the Barclays Center Classic title. UVA claimed the 2015 Charleston Classic crown Sunday night for the trifecta with an 83-66 victory against George Mason.
For this year’s team, pulling off three wins in four days on the heels of a loss at George Washington is part of the early season growth process.
“We’re trying to take a step in the right direction,” Cavalier coach Tony Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “We’re continuing to define ourselves and find ourselves. A team that wouldn’t go away. They made some tough shots. They’re scrappy. Very well coached. We had to battle. You keep working and eventually hopefully you start getting momentum. … We got a nice lift from everybody. I think that’s what it taught us, this tournament, we’ve got some different guys that can impact the game at different times in different ways.”
One thing opponents are quickly learning about this year’s Hoos is that they are capable of scoring points in bunches. Virginia surpassed 80 points in all three games in Charleston and averaged 84 points for the tournament. The Cavaliers have reached the 80’s in four of five games after doing it twice in 34 games last season. During this event, UVA shot better than 55% in all three games, including 57.1% against George Mason.
Part of that offensive power surge can be attributed to more opportunistic transition possessions. Virginia is actively looking for chances to run, which paid dividends in the title game Sunday. Two of the more impressive plays in that regard against the Patriots came after intermission. Early in the second half, Malcolm Brogdon corralled a one-handed defensive rebound and tossed it out to London Perrantes all in one motion to start the break. Perrantes fired it across the court for a Marial Shayok layup that gave the Hoos a 51-39 lead.
Later in the half, Perrantes caught an outlet pass and took the ball across halfcourt before firing a sharp diagonal pass to Mike Tobey, who slammed it home with authority. Tobey had contested a corner 3-pointer on defense before sprinting the floor to receive the rim-running dunk. That bucket was part of an 8-0 run that responded to an identical 8-0 Mason surge that had cut UVA’s lead to 55-48. After that dunk, the Patriots never really threatened again.
“I think it just goes with the comfort with Coach Bennett,” Perrantes said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “I feel like we did a lot of work on our offense during the summer. We’ve been doing so much work offensively and I think he’s got more trust in all of us. We have a lot of upperclassmen and even Marial has a year under his belt so he has a longer leash this year. I feel like everybody’s playing with confidence right now and coach is instilling a lot of confidence in us. Being able to go out and run, we have a lot of people that can finish and take care of the ball. If we take care of the ball, he’ll let us run as much as we want. We also know when to bring it back, slow it down, and get the ball into the post, run our offense, and tire them out as well so I think we have a good balance right now.”
Perrantes proved to be a big part of that balance during the Charleston Classic. He finished with his second career double-double with 16 points and 11 assists against George Mason. That came after 12 points and 8 assists against Bradley and 15 points and 2 assists against Long Beach State. He also made 8 of 13 3-pointers in the tournament, a sizzling 61.5% clip.
That earned him tournament MVP recognition.
“I feel like my role has definitely grown, but I’m still playing within the team and the system,” Perrantes said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “The system puts us in a perfect opportunity to get open shots and I’m just knocking them down. Then keep getting the team involved, getting the ball to people at the right times and in the right spots so they can score, and I’m just playing freely.”
Perrantes got plenty of help in the win. Malcolm Brogdon scored 21 points on 9-of-16 shooting and added 3 rebounds and 3 assists. Brogdon joined Perrantes on the all-tourney team. Anthony Gill came through with 15 points and 5 rebounds, while Mike Tobey came off the bench for 14 points and 8 rebounds. Gill crossed the 1,000-point barrier for his college career in the win.
Shifting Tobey to a reserve role marked the second time in this tournament that Bennett shuffled his starting lineup; he inserted Marial Shayok in the first five for Darius Thompson to open the tourney too. In this case, Bennett said he liked to pair Gill and Jack Salt, the starter in Tobey’s spot, as well as Tobey and Isaiah Wilkins.
“I put Jack in there. First of all, I like pairing Anthony’s offense with Jack’s physicality and alertness defensively and then I like Mike paired with Isaiah – I think they’re a good pair,” “We went with that,” Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “Mike did a good job coming off the bench. To me that doesn’t matter, he was active and alert.”
