Tale of the Tape: Virginia vs. Gardner-Webb

Virginia begins the quest for its first NCAA Tournament title Friday against Big South Conference champion Gardner-Webb in Columbia, SC, at approximately 3:10 p.m. on truTV.

The Cavaliers (29-3) stayed put as the No. 2 team in both the final Associated Press and USA Today Coaches’ polls, despite falling to Florida State in the ACC Tournament’s semifinal round, and are the top seed in the South Region (No. 2 seed overall).

UVA is No. 1 in the country in both the KenPom ratings (2nd AdjD, 5th AdjO) and the NET rankings heading into the Big Dance, and favored by many to advance through to the final weekend in Minneapolis.

First things first, the Wahoos must officially get past last year’s disaster and get a win against the 16th-seeded Runnin’ Bulldogs, winners of five straight games (also eight of their last nine and 11 of their last 13) who will be making the program’s very first NCAA Tournament appearance.

After losing four out of five to start the season, head coach Tim Craft guided Gardner-Webb (23-11, 10-6) to the dance after finishing third in the Big South behind Radford and Campbell. Craft’s Bulldogs eliminated the league’s top two seeds — both on the road — to cut down the Big South Tournament nets and clinch their first automatic bid.

In the conference championship game at Radford, GWU senior forward DJ Laster did his best impression of a one-man wrecking crew in his final Big South contest, putting up a career-high 32 points on 14-of-17 shooting.

“I just knew I needed to play really hard, go hard and leave my legacy out there on the court,” Laster said after the game. “So I brought that approach from the jump ball. I felt it during starting lineups, that this was my last time to show what I’ve got. So I just went hard from the jump ball to the end.”

The Bulldogs also registered wins at Georgia Tech and Wake Forest this season, and are ranked 167th in the country by KenPom (111th AdjO, 253rd AdjD) and 173rd by the NET.

As good as Laster was against the Highlanders last week, the 6-foot-6, 230-pounder is just the team’s third-leading scorer (13.7 ppg) on the season.

Another senior, 6-2 guard David Efianayi, puts up a team-best 18.3 points a night, while 6-5 freshman guard Jose Perez gives the Bulldogs 15.1 a night to go along with his team-leading averages of 5.8 rebounds and 3 assists.

Only three other Bulldogs provide a significant scoring threat — Nate Johnson (9.8 ppg), Eric Jamison (7.1) and Jaheam Cornwall (6.3).

Gardner-Webb can shoot the rock, as referenced by its national Division-I rankings of 13th (out of 353 schools) in field-goal percentage (49%) and 12th in 3-point percentage (39%).

The Bulldogs did face VCU and Virginia Tech back-to-back on the road to start the season, but haven’t really seen anything close to a defense quite as good as Virginia’s. The Cavaliers give up just over 55 points a game and check in with the nation’s 4th-best FG percentage defense (38%) and best 3-point percentage defense (27%).

Virginia’s “Big Three” of De’Andre Hunter, Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome are hungry to melt away the UMBC stigma, and there’s no better way to silence those who still can’t stop talking about it than by a dominant, convincing, opening-round win.

Should the ‘Hoos advance to Sunday’s second round in Columbia, they would face the winner between No. 8 seed Ole Miss (20-12, 10-8 SEC) and No. 9 Oklahoma (19-13, 7-11 Big 12). The Rebels and Sooners will hit the floor first Friday at 12:40.

Among the other contenders down the road in the South Region are No. 2 seed Tennessee (29-5), No. 3 Purdue (23-9), No. 4 Kansas State (25-8), No. 5 Wisconsin (23-10) and No. 6 Villanova (25-9), a team that just so happened to win it all last year.

But, once again, as Tony Bennett and his Cavaliers would surely agree — first things first.