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J.R. Reynolds, shown in this season’s exhibition game, had 26 points on Monday night. |
Western Kentucky’s men’s basketball team plays in the Sun Belt Conference, but a variety of other weather conditions knocked out Virginia on Monday. The Hilltoppers were raining 3-pointers, scoring in flurries, and eclipsing shots (7 blocks). In the end, the Cavaliers were sent home in the cold, 78-68, despite 26 points from J.R. Reynolds.
“You hope that you play well enough where it comes down to having to make plays in the last two or three minutes of the game and we battled hard enough to make that a possibility,” Virginia coach Dave Leitao said in his radio interview after the game. “But throughout the game, I thought we made too many mental errors, and I keep saying this over and over, we don’t have the luxury of making errors like other teams do. They probably made as many errors along the way in getting themselves in a position to be up three with 2:47 to go, but because they’re experienced, because they have depth, because of certain other things, they can play through it. We don’t have that luxury so we have to play as close to perfection as we possibly can every single day and try to avoid those late-game situations where we have to come from behind and those sorts of things.”
Reynolds had a strong shooting night for Virginia, going 9 of 15 including 4 of 7 from 3-point land. Sean Singletary struggled more with his shooting (5 of 17) as the long-armed guards of Western were able to fluster his shooting touch a bit. Singletary (6 assists) used his quickness to create problems, however, and finished with 20 points thanks in part to an 8-of-9 night at the free throw line. Also for the Cavs, Jason Cain, Laurynas Mikalauskas , and Tunji Soroye had good outings. Cain had 10 points and 3 rebounds before fouling out, while Mikalauskas posted 8 points (4-of-5 shooting), 9 rebounds and 1 block. Soroye had 3 blocks.
The one-two punch of Anthony Winchester and Courtney Lee led a balanced WKU effort as the hosts avenged an 80-79 double overtime loss in last season’s thriller at University Hall. Winchester and Lee, who both had big games in that 2OT showdown, were again stellar shooters and this time it resulted in a win. Winchester, who had 30 vs. UVa last year, scored 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting (plus 3 of 5 treys and 4 of 4 free throws) and Lee, who had 20 last season, finished with 21 on 8-of-13 shooting (including 5 of 7 treys). In the end, the Toppers shot 55.2 percent (32 of 58), including 47.6 percent from 3-point land (10 of 21).
Elgrace Wilborne added 14 points and 5 blocks, while Benson Callier had 7 points.
But Winchester, in particular, got hot down the stretch with several key baskets:
“What happens is when those guys play well, it rallies the other team and a guy like Wilborn hurt us a little bit today at key spots and some other people,” Leitao said. “I’d like to think that’s how we have to construct our team where J.R. and Sean have to be a real good one-two punch. … We’ve got to continue to get Sean and J.R. to play as a one-two punch and then get people behind them to contribute a little bit more.”
Of course, Winchester’s hot stretch shooting was necessary thanks to a never-say-die effort from the Cavaliers. After leading in the early stages of the game (3-0, 5-2, 6-4 and 8-6), Virginia was in an uphill battle on the scoreboard for the final 45+ minutes and the visitors trailed by double digits on two occasions (44-32 and 51-41).
Still, each time the lead grew, the Cavs chipped away to get back into it. After trailing 44-32, Reynolds ripped off nine straight points to key a 9-2 Cav run that made it 46-40. Then after five unanswered WKU points made it 51-41, UVa made another surge (10-2) to cut the lead to two points. This time, Reynolds and Singletary each hit 3-pointers and Mikalauskas and Cain each had inside buckets to make the score 53-51.
But that’s as close as the Cavaliers could get. Each time they’d cut the lead down to two points in the final 11 minutes, Western Kentucky had an answer.
Perhaps the most crucial sequence came with less than 3 minutes remaining. Cain had scored on a press-break layup to make it 67-64 when Adrian Joseph stepped to the line for a pair of free throws that could cut the lead to one. Joseph (2 points on 1-of-6 shooting) came up empty on both shots coming out of the 4:00 media timeout and Winchester immediately magnified those miscues with his last 3-pointer at 2:13.
“We missed some free throws at the end and we gave up a couple of open shots that we hadn’t given up during the previous eight or ten minutes and it obviously cost us,” Leitao said.
The loss sends Virginia into ACC play with a 6-5 record. Clemson comes to Charlottesville on Saturday at high noon.
“This game was played at a pretty high level and now that we’re facing ACC play, the games will continue to be played at a high level … [and] you’ve got to bring it every night,” Leitao said. “We only play a few people and we have some inexperienced guys, so we have to continue to look for a way to get more contributions from more people.”
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