WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D5
college basketball
BY GENE WANGOne game after uncharacteris-
tically sloppy defense yielded an
upset loss to San Francisco, the
15th-ranked Virginia men’s bas-
ketball team on Tuesday re-
claimed its identity against Saint
Francis (Pa.).
The Cavaliers also got whatev-
er they wanted on the other end
of the court to pull away from
their overmatched opponent for
a 76-51 triumph in their home
opener at John Paul Jones Arena.
The outcome was all but set-
tled midway through the first half
when Virginia forged a 21-4 lead,
allowing just one field goal over
the first seven-plus minutes in
front of 250 fans, all family of
players and coaches.
“We played really good basket-
ball defensively and offensively in
the first half,” Cavaliers Coach
Tony Bennett said. “We got on the
glass. We touched the paint,
scored in the paint and offensive
rebounds, post moves, so that
was good to see, and just moved
and tried to do what we could.”
Virginia (2-1) limited the Red
Flash (1-2) to 36 percent shooting,
including 17 percent in the first
half, and won for the 10th time in
11 games dating to last season.
Bennett had challenged his
players since the loss F riday to
San Francisco to be far more
attentive defensively. They re-
sponded by permitting 13 first-
half points and contesting virtu-
ally every shot on the way to a
16th victory in the past 17 home
games.
“If they thought we were invin-
cible or can just show up, no way,
there’s too many good teams,”
Bennett said. “San Francisco took
it right at us. We’ve got work to
do. That was the message. Be
sound, be tough, and we went to
work to the best of our abilitiesthe last couple days.”
Virginia won its 24th consecu-
tive home opener and improvedto 80-7 in nonconference games
under Bennett, who modified the
starting lineup by inserting fresh-man Reece Beekman, among the
most highly regarded recruits in
the country, in place of juniorKihei Clark at point guard.
Beekman played 22 minutes,
scoring just two points but com-
mitting no turnovers with four
assists. It was a rare occasion for
Clark, a starter on the 2018-19
national championship team, to
rest after leading the Cavaliers
with more than 37 minutes per
game last season.
Center Jay Huff led Virginia
with 13 points on 6-for-7 shooting
from the field, including several
dunks in the first half. The 7-foot
redshirt senior, who flirted with
entering this year’s NBA draft,
added five rebounds and three
blocks in 14 minutes.
Virginia led for all but 21 sec-
onds, shot 52 percent and went 11
for 12 from the free throw line. It
also held a 40-18 margin in points
in the paint and a 38-25 rebound-
ing advantage. The Cavaliers led
45-13 by halftime, allowing the
reserves to combine to score 35
points.
The pregame ceremonies fea-
tured 13 of Virginia’s 16 players
kneeling during the national an-
them, with the entire team wear-
ing warmup jerseys printed with
“Unity” across the front.
Players indicated they had dis-
cussed on Thanksgiving while at
the team hotel how each individ-
ually planned to address social
injustice at Tuesday’s game as
college athletes across the coun-
try participate in protests in the
wake of the police killing of
George Floyd and other unarmed
Black men and women.
“A lot of us have really strong
beliefs about the situation in the
country right now, with the police
brutality and all that,” redshirt
freshman Kadin Shedrick said.
“The guys that stand, they’re with
us 100 percent, and the guys that
kneel were with the guys that
stand 100 percent. We’re all very
unified in what we do, and we all
support each other.”
[email protected]Cavs follow upset with steadier showing and an easy win
ANDREW SHURTLEFF/THE DAILY PROGRESS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Guard Casey Morsell fires a three-pointer in the home opener in Charlottesville. He finished with seven points as Virginia improved to 2-1.VIRGINIA 76,
ST. FRANCIS (PA.) 51BY KAREEM COPELANDThe Navy men’s basketball
team wasn’t the least bit intimi-
dated by Georgetown on Tuesday
night. Never mind the fact that
the Midshipmen hadn’t beaten a
Big East team since 1996. Shoot,
they hadn’t beaten a current Big
East team since 1986. On top of
that, Georgetown hadn’t lost to
Navy since 1977.
The Mids stormed into Mc-
Donough Arena and bullied the
bully in a 78-71 victory over the
toughest opponent, on paper,
remaining on their schedule.
“We’re changing the culture,”
Navy guard Cam Davis said. “We
had a couple rough years in my
time here, but now we’re starting
to develop a culture where win-
ning is what we expect to do. We
came in here confident. Our guys
came in and put on a show....
We expect to win, though. We’re
part of the greatest fighting force
the world has ever seen. There’s
no fear in us. Regardless of who
we’re playing or what we’re going
to go do, that’s just something
we’re bred to do.”
Navy essentially controlled
the game for all but an early
stretch of the second half, when
Georgetown rallied from a three-
point halftime deficit to take a
six-point lead. That lead didn’t
last: The Mids tied the score at 58
on a John Carter Jr. transition
layup before going on a 12-2 runto grab a 70-62 edge with 3:34
remaining. Georgetown, which
had never lost to a Patriot League
team, didn’t get closer than five
points the rest of the way.
The Hoyas (1-1) seemed a step
slow from the outset and failed
to bring enough energy to the
floor. The Mids (3-1) were quick-
er to jump in passing lanes, dive
for loose balls and go after
rebounds.
Navy Coach Ed DeChellis said
the game plan was to keep
Georgetown off the boards but
play its big men straight up
defensively. He preferred the
bigs trying to score down low
and the Hoyas playing in the half
court rather than Georgetown
raining three-pointers or getting
out in transition.
“We’re not a tall team, but weare scrappy,” DeChellis said. “We
have tough kids.... They did a
really good job of scrapping,
knocking balls free. The kids just
believed. It’s no magic. The kids
just believe that they can win,
and they continued to fight.
That’s who we are. We’re not a lot
of things, but we’ve got some
toughness to us and we’ve got
some grit and we’ll fight you.”
Davis led all scorers and tied a
career high with 28 points on
10-for-15 shooting, including 5
for 7 on three-pointers. George-
town had no answer as the quick,
6-foot guard from Missouri was
able to create space at will.
Carter added 20 points and a
team-high eight rebounds.
Senior guard Jahvon Blair and
senior swingman Jamorko Pick-
ett scored 17 points apiece for theHoyas, and sophomore center
Qudus Wahab chipped in 16.
Georgetown only got one point
from its bench.
The Midshipmen led 29-26 at
the end of an ugly first half. The
Hoyas appeared to be running in
mud as the smaller, less athletic
Mids played harder.
A 7-1 run, highlighted by a
transition three-pointer by Cart-
er midway through the first half,
gave Navy a 24-18 lead. George-
town struggled from the field,
but that didn’t excuse listless
defense that was a step slow.
Navy, without a player over 6-
foot-8, outscored Georgetown
12-6 in the paint and out-
rebounded the Hoyas 23-17 in the
first half. (The Mids had a 40-24
edge in the paint for the game.)
That’s unacceptable for a BigEast team known for its size and
athleticism.
“We couldn’t guard Davis. We
couldn’t guard Carter,” George-
town Coach Patrick Ewing said.
“We have to do a much better job,
if we want to be good, to be able
to contain guys. We weren’t able
to do that. When the bigs are
open in the post, we have to be
able to get them the ball. When
they get doubled, they have to
pass the ball back out. This is
something we’ve been talking
about ever since Day 1 once we
got back on campus. We have two
bigs that should be good bigs for
us.”
Georgetown will face another
test in its next game when it
hosts No. 11 West Virginia at
4:30 p.m. Sunday.
[email protected]Midshipmen turn tables and bully Hoyas for first victory in series since 1977
NAVY 78,
GEORGETOWN 71done for the year. His absence will
be felt, but his teammates still feel
good about where they are.
“We’d gotten to the point last
season where we had a lot of
confidence,” Golden said. “We had
different guys who could score,
but more important we all played
good defense.”
That was evident in the
Kentucky game. The Wildcats
failed to make a three-pointer for
only the second time in 33 years,
going 0 for 10. The Spiders didn’t
shoot all that well themselves, but
defense carried them.
“At halftime you could tell they
knew they hadn’t played well and
yet, there we were down only
four,” Mooney said. “We knew we
could play better than that and,
when we did, we were really
good.”
On Tuesday, Richmond faced a
uniquely 2020 interruption: Its
scheduled Wednesday night game
at Charleston was canceled in
response to results of coronavirus
testing and contact tracing,
which forced a pause in team
activities.
So while the Spiders’ near
future is a bit uncertain, Mooney
knows he has a good team. And
the next billboard that goes up in
Richmond might say simply,
“Sorry, Coach.”
“I don’t need anything like
that,” he said, laughing at the
suggestion. “I like my guys as
players and as people. That’s all I
need.”
[email protected]For more by John Feinstein, visit
washingtonpost.com/feinstein.hospital, it had calmed down
considerably. A few days later, he
underwent a cardiac ablation
procedure that corrected the
problem. He takes no medicine
and hasn’t had another incident
since.
And he has become a very good
player. At 6-foot-10, he can score
inside and outside and — along
with his teammates — has
become a very good defender.
Last season, the Spiders lived
up to the potential Mooney had
seen amid the struggles. They
went 24-7 and finished second in
the Atlantic 10 behind Dayton,
which would have been a No. 1
seed had there been an NCAA
tournament.
“We’d become very good with a
chance to be great in March,”
Mooney said. “I thought going to
Brooklyn [for the conference
tournament], we were about a
10th seed [in the NCAA
tournament] with the chance to
go higher if we played well there.
It was a fun year until it got shut
down.”
The first clue that Richmond
had turned the corner came
during an upset in November
2019, when the Spiders beat
Wisconsin in Brooklyn.
Golden had become an all-
conference player, and 6-7 Nathan
Cayo had emerged as a very solid
complement. The team had, and
still has, excellent guards in Jacob
Gilyard and Blake Francis, and
swingman Nick Sherod had come
back from an ACL injury to
average 12.7 points and 5.4
rebounds. Sadly, Sherod tore his
ACL again this preseason and isout what was wrong,” Mooney
said. “But Leo came down and
said we had to get him to a
hospital. I’m not sure how he
knew, but he knew.”
Golden was suffering from an
arrhythmia that causes the heart
to race.
“I remember lying on the floor
after I came to,” he said. “I could
feel my heart pounding against
the floor, it was going so fast.”
Golden’s heart rate was still
about 250 beats per minute when
he was placed in the ambulance.
By the time he arrived at thecourt.
“None of us had any idea what
had happened,” Mooney said. “It
was frightening. Thank goodness,
my next-door neighbor was at the
game.”
Mooney’s neighbor is Leo
Gazoni, an honorable mention
All-Met soccer player at
Washington’s Gonzaga High in- More importantly, he is now
a cardiologist and could tell right
away that something had gone
wrong with Golden’s heart.
“We were going to take him to
the locker room to try to figure
previous summer. Hardt asked
Mooney what he wanted him to
do — a public vote of confidence,
perhaps?
Mooney didn’t want any of
that. He wasn’t going to respond
publicly, and he didn’t want the
players to get on social media and
attack the billboard, either.
Instead, he asked Hardt whether
he would be willing to come to
practice and talk to the team.
“He walked onto the court
before we started that day and
very calmly told the players not to
worry about anything,” Mooney
said. “He told them he had faith in
what we were doing and he
thought this group — the guys
standing right there — had a
bright future, that we weren’t all
that far away. There was truth to
that. We’d been losing a lot of
close games. It wasn’t like we
were down 21-3 every night. We
had chances to win most games.
We just weren’t doing it.”
Two days later, Richmond
played at La Salle — in
Philadelphia, Mooney’s
hometown — and beat a team it
had lost to at home a few weeks
earlier.
“That was really cool,” Golden
said. “We really came together
that day and started to show some
of that potential we knew we had.
We’d been through some things,
including the billboard, but it
wasn’t going to stop us.”
Golden knows firsthand about
adversity. In a game against Texas
Tech early in his freshman year,
he felt dizzy and began walking
toward the bench to come out. He
never made it, keeling over on theroad win over a top-10 team in 26
attempts.
“A lot of it was our defense and
our maturity,” said Mooney, who
played at Princeton for Pete
Carril. “Two years ago we were a
young team that had dealt with
injuries and transfers. I’m not
making excuses; those are just
facts. I was responsible for the
failures. But you could see we had
a group that had the potential to
be very good in the not-too-
distant future.”
Richmond was 11-15 when the
billboard went up after going
1 2-20 the previous season. There
is little doubt that the success of
archrival VCU — six miles from
the Richmond campus — had a
lot to do with the frustration of
the fans who paid for the
billboard. The Rams were then on
their way to an eighth NCAA
tournament bid in nine seasons.
Even during their spectacular
2 9-8 season in 2010-11, the
Spiders took a back seat in their
own city to VCU, which went to
the Final Four.
“Having your archrival in the
same city can be both good and
bad,” Mooney said. “When you’re
both good, it raises the profile of
the rivalry, and that helps in
recruiting, no doubt. But when
they’re good and you’re
struggling, it can make the
outlook some of your fans take
negative.”
On the day the billboard went
up, Mooney met with his athletic
director, John Hardt, who had
arrived from Bucknell the
FEINSTEIN FROM D1
JOHN FEINSTEIN
Mooney didn’t take the billboard bait, but Richmond players certainly took notice
JOHN O’CONNOR/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
After this b illboard went up, Chris Mooney didn’t want a vote of
confidence or for his players to go on the attack via social media.