Tennessee Takes Out Virginia

Sean Singletary ‘s final shot wouldn’t stay down as the Hoos fell to Tennessee.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – No one expected the Virginia Cavaliers to reach the NCAA Tournament this season. That doesn’t mean it hurt any less when Sean Singletary ‘s tying attempt caromed off the rim, giving Tennessee a 77-74 win and a berth in the Sweet Sixteen.

Singletary collapsed to the floor. Face down. Thousands of eyes upon him and the surrounding drama of the NCAA Tournament. Virginia coach Dave Leitao quickly walked out onto the floor and helped his star guard off the hardwood. He hugged him and patted him on the head. Singletary buried his face.

Leitao said his immediate reaction was to reach out. To offer support. To be there. To be there like he said he would. To do what family does.

“I think that, I feel like anyway, and I’m sure that he would agree that we’re connected emotionally to one another and I think one of the reasons why this has worked for the two of us as well as for the rest of the guys on the team is because we understand each other,” Leitao said. “And whether he played well or whether he plays well or not is of less consequence to me than what he’s given to our team and our program.”

“I understood at that moment in time, because he is so hard on himself, that immediately he would take blame, and that’s the last thing I wanted him to do,” Leitao continued. “So I wanted to be there for him, to say, hey let’s help the guy up, let’s embrace him, and make him feel better because we’ve all been there. I’ve been there and it’s an awful feeling and I wanted him to know just like I’ve tried to be there for him every day that I’m still going to be there for him.”

Hurts more. More than you thought it would.

“I thought especially for this group, because most of what we did during the season was with our heart on our sleeve and when you put it out there, it sometimes can reward you in the very best of ways, but when it doesn’t, it could also break that heart in the very cruelest of ways,” Leitao said. “Today was a day where we kind of got our heart broken and particularly for J.R. and Sean who have led a two-year charge that a lot of people didn’t think was possible.”

Everyone thought the final shot was going in. It looked to be on line with the right distance, but it just rimmed out. Singletary thought he had made it.

“I thought it was good,” Singletary said. “I got a head of steam and a good pick from Jason Cain and pulled it up deep. I felt as though I got good elevation in my shot and good rotation, but it went in and out so I missed it.”

Singletary’s final miss ended one last rally by these Cavaliers, who had overcome daunting deficits in games against Clemson, Duke, and Georgia Tech earlier this season. UVa trailed by as many as 10 points in the final 15 minutes as the Volunteers bridged the halves with a 29-8 run en route to a 54-44 lead.

UVa didn’t roll over, chipping away at the deficit over a 10-minute span to climb within two points on two different occasions before the late game situations of the final two minutes. Both times, Adrian Joseph provided the offensive bucket. The first came on a short shot in the lane after Singletary fell to the floor on a rebound and found the forward. The second was a seeing-eye 3-pointer directly in front of the Hoos’ bench. That trey capped an 18-10 scoring surge for the Cavaliers and the score stood at 64-62 with a UT lead at the 2:47 mark.

Both times Joseph scored, however, the Volunteers had an answer. The answer was JaJuan Smith from 3. With the Vols leading 61-59, he banked in a falling away 3-pointer late in the shot clock to push the lead to five points.

“Not really,” Smith said with a wide smile when asked if he thought he had a chance of banking it in. “It was the first time in my career I ever heard a coach say shoot it with me that far out, so I just let it go. I had the green light and it was just one of those things that went in at the right time.”

The second trey came out of a Cavalier timeout and the 64-62 score. UT went to a screen and pop play designed to get the Hoo defense moving in rotation. The ball went to the screener on a pop to the wing, then to the middle of the lane for Dane Bradshaw and then quickly to the opposite wing for Smith.

J.R. Reynolds ended his career with a 26-point outing.

Swish. 67-62. Free throws sealed the deal from there despite UVa’s best efforts – and a Singletary’s final shot that just wouldn’t go down.

“We ran a set play and I was actually supposed to be on the perimeter but there was an opening, I flashed to the lane and Smith did a good job of recognizing that and once I flashed to the lane, there was just a lot of traffic in there. Everyone seemed to collapse,” Bradshaw said before adding with a smile, “and I can always count on JaJuan to be barking in my ear in the corner. He yelled Dane, Dane and I knew he was open. He knocks down open shots very consistently for us.”

Tennessee’s victory brought two Virginia seniors’ careers to an end as Jason Cain and Reynolds donned the uniform for the last time. Both played well in their final game. Cain scored 9 points on a 9 of 10 night at the free throw line and grabbed 5 rebounds while also taking some charges. Reynolds poured in 26 points on 8-of-16 shooting, giving him back to back 25-plus outings.

Unfortunately for the Hoos, Reynolds started the day on fire before an ankle injury slowed him significantly late in the first half. Reynolds could only think “What next?” at that point he said after the game – after all he had battled a hip injury coming into the NCAA Tournament.

Before the ankle misfortune, he had erupted for 22 points and the Vols didn’t seem to have a defensive answer for him. He shot over guys, drove around defenders, and made every free throw that came his way. But he stepped on a UT player’s foot and felt something pop.

“I couldn’t believe it. At first, I thought I had broken it, the way I heard something pop,” Reynolds said. “I was able to walk on it so I knew it was fine, but it was painful. I just tried to push through and to block it out.”

Still, Reynolds returned and gutted out 34 minutes, ending his career with the best back-to-back scoring performances in the NCAA Tournament since Bryant Stith in 1989 (26 vs. Middle Tennessee State and 28 vs. Oklahoma). Yes, UVa fans saw Reynolds – the real Reynolds, not the one who struggled to 9-of-44 shooting entering the Big Dance – finish with a flurry.

“I thought I did a tremendous job of just bouncing back from everything, injuries and everything, of just putting everything aside and playing for the team,” Reynolds said.

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