The Virginia men’s basketball team played its first game in the inaugural ACC-SEC Challenge on Wednesday. The Hoos’ night resembled many of the games in the old ACC-Big Ten event as a smothering defensive effort led the way to a 59-47 win against Texas A&M.
UVA went 15-8 against the Big Ten in these challenge settings, which included 10 victories in the Tony Bennett era. The Wahoos made sure to get off to a similarly successful start against the SEC by riding their defense. They held the Aggies to fewer than 30 points in each half when Texas A&M entered the game averaging 79.3 points per game.
With Wednesday’s win, Virginia improved to 111-2 under Bennett when limiting foes to fewer then 50 points.
“I hope our defensive activity and the idea of not yielding played a part in that,” Bennett said. “It’s a hard-playing team. I’ve coached against Buzz [Williams] and I know he’s a terrific coach and his teams are well prepared. So it was can we match that? We talked about identity, a group identity, and I thought that was the message, our identity showed the way it needed to in a game like this.”
Defense is certainly a big part of UVA’s identity under Bennett and Wednesday’s performance hinted at the potential for this group on that end of the floor. The Hoos allowed just 30.4% shooting overall (17-56) and 17.4% 3-point shooting (4-23), while they collected 8 blocks and 8 steals. They helped force 16 turnovers in total too. The only weak spot was once again defensive rebounding as A&M grabbed 18 offensive rebounds on the way to 16 second chance points.
Williams, who faced Bennett and the Pack-Line numerous times while coaching at Virginia Tech, knew the type of challenge that awaited. He told his players that playing Virginia is akin to taking a 25-question test instead of 100-question test due to the tempo and lower possessions. He also said he let them know that like any good classroom test, the questions would get harder in the second half.
That’s exactly how it played out too. The Cavaliers held the visitors to just 24.1% overall shooting (7-29) and 16.7% 3-point shooting (2-12) after intermission. The game’s decisive stretch included the opening moments of the second half too.
After Texas A&M forward Henry Coleman III scored with 1:23 to go in the first half for a 26-24 lead, Virginia allowed just one bucket over the next 7:02 that bridged the halves. That stretch included 1-8 shooting and 3 turnovers.
Coleman was the only Aggie to find any consistency as he made 8-14 shots to fuel a double-double of 16 points and 14 rebounds. No other player on the A&M roster shot above 50% on the game and no one made it into double figures either.
UVA held combustible scorer Wade Taylor IV to 9 points on 2-10 shooting, just days after he poured in 35 against Florida Atlantic. Reece Beekman, Isaac McKneely, and others spearheaded the defensive effort for that match-up, while Ryan Dunn flew around everywhere being a disruptor.
“He’s a talent,” Bennett said. “Without Dante [Harris, who was out with an ankle sprain,] we were like that’s one of our best on-ball defenders and Reece was a little questionable with his leg and it was like ‘wooh, who’s going to match up on him. I thought Isaac did a good job the minutes he was on him and Reece did do the job when he was there. We just knew Reece would do as best as he could and respond to the challenge and we’d help him and just make him earn all of his looks because he is a guy that can get it going.”
With its defense locked in, Virginia grew its lead during that same stretch thanks to some timely offense.
Dunn nailed a 3-pointer late in the first half to give his team a 27-26 halftime advantage. Jake Groves started the second half with another triple, while Beekman came through with back-to-back layups moments later. An Andrew Rohde 3-pointer, a McKneely jumper, and another Rohde bucket pushed the lead to 41-28 at the 14:53 mark. Texas A&M played catch-up the rest of the way and could never get closer than a 5-point margin.
All five of those players reached double figures in scoring for Virginia. Rohde led the way with 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. Beekman, Groves, and Dunn all scored 12 points. Beekman added 5 assists, 2 blocked shots, and 3 steals. Groves produced 4 rebounds and 3 assists, while Dunn had 5 rebounds, 5 blocked shots, and 3 steals. McKneely posted 10 points and 2 assists. UVA had 14 assists while shooting 41.5% overall (22-53) and 36.0% from 3-point range (9-25).
Those Hoos carried the entire scoring load as no one had any points off the bench, while Bennett chose to play each of the five players above for 31 minutes or more.
“I thought Jake, some of the action we ran, we needed his ability to stretch it and make some plays – he had a couple nice pull-ups and his smarts, either on the wing or what we call the mix, he did that,” “Ryan was all over the place. He was so active. That was great to see. I thought Rohde really played a tough, good game. You saw that. Certainly, Reece he did the job defensively and just played; he’s not full strength so hopefully he’s coming around. Then Isaac was tough too. Those guys in this game did the job.”
No mention of Gertrude?
In a game recap where he did little statistically, no.