Wahoo Wire

Courtesy of thesabre.com

It may be a cliché, but the phrase “it ain’t over ’till it’s over” was on full display tonight at the John Paul Jones Arena.  In the opening game of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Virginia refused to go away until the bitter end, falling to Penn State 69-66.

The first half was dominated by Virginia, and in particular Mike Scott who had 12 of his 17 points before the break.  The only defense the Nittany Lions could muster against him were cheap fouls called against Scott that relegated him to bench.

The rest of the Cavaliers were relatively cold in the first half, but they managed to take a six point lead into the locker room after twenty minutes.  The Wahoo defense was typical of what Tony Bennett’s teams are known for: solid defense that consumes the shot clock and forces bad shots.  Unfortunately for Virginia, many of those contested jump shots went in, and those that didn’t were put back by sloppy rebounding.

These two factors really knocked the Hoos back coming out of the break as Penn State went on a 16-4 run to turn a six point Virginia lead into six point advantage for the Nittany Lions.  PSU guard Talor Battle poured in a game high 32 points, including 15 from behind the arc, and many of those were with the shot clock winding down with a hand in his face.  Mustapha Farrakhan and Calvin Baker were routinely a half-step too late after running through a barrage of screens and Battle made the Hoos pay for their late arrival.

With just over three minutes left, the lead for Penn State sat at 12 and the Cavaliers looked like a team resigned to their fate.  The crowd was drifting away as they had seen this scene before: this is where the team packs it up and coasts to defeat.  But, this is not yesterday’s Virginia team.

Sammy Zeglinski knocked home his first three of the evening with 2:58 to go and Coach Bennett took a 30 second time-out.  He decided to dial up the pressure and make Penn State win this game from the free throw line.  They didn’t.  Some missed free throws plus some inexplicable PSU fouls plus the scorching hot hand of “Sammy-Z” equaled a one-point game with eight seconds to play.

Battle was fouled and sent back to the charity stripe where he had been six for nine in this stretch.  The junior calmly sank both free throws to make it a three-point game.  Zeglinski, who scored 14 of his 16 in the final three minutes, raced down the court with only one thought in mind.  Sadly for the Cavalier faithful, his shot was just a bit off and it bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded.

The loss tonight drops the Hoos to 4-3 and some recurring weaknesses (like weak-side rebounding and offensive consistency) still need to be ironed out if this team is going to compete in the conference.

That being said, Cavalier fans can at least appreciate the effort put forth to claw back into the game.  As long as this team has the will to fight, the games will be close and the fans should come watch.