When Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett met with reporters Monday, preparations for his team’s NIT opponent Mississippi State was already well underway. Not that he needed much video or scouting to have a general idea of what awaits Wednesday night because of who is leading the other sideline.
That’s because Ben Howland coaches the Bulldogs and Bennett certainly has seen his teams up close. Howland and Bennett faced off in the pre-expansion Pac-10 when UCLA and Washington State dueled yearly. In fact, the first conference game of Bennett’s head coaching career came at then No. 1 UCLA on Dec. 28, 2006, a game the Bruins won 55-52 – WSU missed a go-ahead 3-point attempt with approximately 6 seconds to go trailing 53-52 and a second attempt to tie the game at the buzzer. That came during a stretch where UCLA made it to the Final Four in three straight tourneys.
Bennett sees some of the traits that held true for those teams in the mid-2000’s in this Mississippi State team. Virginia and MSU tip off on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at the John Paul Jones Arena on ESPN2.
“Coach Howland, boy when I was at Washington State, he had those UCLA teams that went to three straight Final Fours. He had his teams so ready to play. They were always so physical and so tough,” Bennett said. “I always had great respect for his teams and how hard he got them to play and how well he got them to play. What I’ve watched so far, [Mississippi State] is physical, they’re tough, and they were in a terrific league and played a lot of teams really close and had some big wins as well.”
Some of that physical and rugged style shows up in the statistics. The Bulldogs rank 76th nationally in defensive rebounding percentage (76.4%) and 20th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage (32.8%), meaning they get a lot of rebounds on both sides of the floor. They also get 21.9% of their points from free throws, which ranks 17th nationally.
There are at least three players that could test Virginia in those areas, especially given that this year’s UVA team has struggled at times to secure defensive rebounds and that foul trouble could become an issue for a team not regularly using more than seven players.
At the top of that list is Iverson Molinar, a 6’3″ junior guard that received a spot on the All-SEC First Team this season. He averaged 17.6 points per game and surpassed 1,000 career points this season. He scored in double figures in every game he played this season. Molinar took 31.6% of his shots at the rim this season and converted 63.3% of those attempts per Hoop-Math.com. He shot 25.5% on 3-pointers.
A quick, downhill guard, the Hoos will have to prevent penetration from the Bulldogs’ leading scorer as a priority.
“They have the physicality on the interior and then certainly a number of players that can do things, but he is gifted,” Bennett said of Molinar. “With all excellent players, the job – it’s collectively, but a guy like that you have certain match-ups then there’s help required. We’ve got to make him earn. When I saw some of the clips, you saw some of the quickness and the things he did. It’s noticeable. Heck of a talent. They’ve got a few of those and a great challenge for us.”
Around Molinar in the frequent starting lineup is a quartet of transfers.
North Carolina graduate transfer Garrison Brooks has seen the Hoos plenty in his career. The 6’9″ forward started all 33 games this season for the Bulldogs and averaged 10.3 points with 6.6 rebounds. Per Hoop-Math.com, he scored on 33 putbacks. Fellow ACC transfer Shakeel Moore didn’t play UVA as frequently, but he did play in two games against Virginia in his only season with NC State. The 6’1” guard had 2 points in a loss in Raleigh, but 12 points in a win in Charlottesville. He has averaged 8.8 points this season at MSU.
Tolu Smith, another frontcourt transfer player, sat out last season after joining Mississippi State from Western Kentucky. The 6’11” forward averaged 14.1 points and 6.3 rebounds this season. Finally, D.J. Jeffries joined the Bulldogs after two years at Memphis. The 6’7” forward averaged 9.2 points and 4.3 rebounds before the NIT.
“They’re physical,” Bennett said. “They actually have some guys from the ACC. Shak Moore and Garrison Brooks – his father is on the staff with coach at Mississippi State – from North Carolina. He’s really good and Shak Moore had a terrific game. They’re very athletic, tough defensively, physical on the glass. Again, their league, the SEC, had some talented teams and they either took some teams to overtime or had some wins against some of the best in that league. They certainly have the wherewithal. … Athletic, tough-minded, well-coached. Coaches’ teams always defended. We’d go against each other and it was always a knuckle-buster, I think I’ve used that word before. That’s what I’ve seen.”
Virginia finished the regular season at 18-12 and then split games at the ACC Tournament to enter the NIT at 19-13. That opens the possibility of a 20-win season again. The Hoos have hit that mark in 9 of the previous 10 seasons with only last season’s pandemic-altered schedule below that mark at 18-7.
MSU stands at 18-15 entering the NIT. The Bulldogs are looking for a postseason run for the second straight season. They fell in the NIT title game last season against Memphis, 77-64. There’s one more connection between the teams too. Back in 2018-2019, Mississippi State lost 80-76 to Liberty, coached by former UVA assistant Ritchie McKay, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
