Wahoo Wire

On a rainy Tuesday night, the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball team played brighter than Jontel Evans’ neon orange sneakers.  The Hoos beat Mason 68-48, and still have yet to allow an opposing team score 60 points this year.  Sammy Zeglinski, one of four Cavaliers in double digits, led the team with 18 points.  Although he scored 11 points, Mike Scott was limited by foul trouble and ended up playing only 27 minutes and getting 2 rebounds.  Despite this, the Cavs used strong guard play and three-point shooting in order to blow past Mason.  Zeglinski and Evans had 7 of the Cavaliers 10 steals, which led to some easy fast break points too.  Coach Tony Bennett praised Evans’ effort, stating “Jontel was very good in the second half…no turnovers after 3 in the first half.”

Almost all of the Cavaliers team shot the ball well.  The team finished the game shooting over 60% from the floor, making 26 of their 43 attempts.  The Cavaliers also knocked down 7 threes and shot 50% from behind the arc.  Mason also shot well, 47.5% for the game, but 20 turnovers helped hold them to only 48 points.  Coach Bennett remarked that “it was a physical game and I thought we lasted…and played pretty solid defensively.”  Mason tried to speed up the game by frequently going into a full court press, but the Hoos could generally break the press easily.  Coach Bennett was happy that his team “broke [the press] well” but he also said the faster play made the Cavs “make some poor decisions.”  Still, the Cavaliers won the turnover battle, 20-14.

UVa led for almost the entire game.  Mason made a run to cut it from 17 to 11 by halftime and again made a run to cut it to 50-40 in the second half, GMU but could never get the lead lower than 10 points.  The Wahoos overcame some foul trouble, as Scott and Assane Sene both finished the game with four fouls, but nobody fouled out.  Three players led George Mason with 9 points a piece.