Big Game for Kihei Clark, Ahead of Surgery Scheduled for Monday
Posted on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2018, 8:21 pm
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Virginia’s Jack Salt (33) awaits the outcome as Kihei Clark slips in between Marcus Santos-Silva (14) and Corey Douglas of VCU.
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Tony Bennett is not the most excitable guy in the world. When the Virginia coach does show emotion, it is usually triggered by great defense.
The 13,648 fans that braved a snowstorm to watch the Cavaliers fight off a pesky VCU team, 57-49 on Sunday afternoon, witnessed one of Bennett’s rare outbursts of energy.
Down by five points with 6:48 to play on its home court, Virginia began its comeback as Ty Jerome took over the game. He scored on a drive to the basket and on a deep 3-pointer to knot it at 45-all.
Then came the biggest play from the smallest guy on the floor – 5-foot-9 point guard Kihei Clark.
The freshman from California, playing with a cast covering a broken left wrist suffered in the Morgan State game, suffocated VCU’s P.J. Byrd with his smothering style of defensive play, forcing a 10-second call turnover. The play gave the Cavaliers possession and even more momentum in sparking a 15-2 run that secured the win.
By that point, John Paul Jones Arena had come alive, and the turnover brought the crowd to its feet accompanied by a resounding roar.
Bennett leaped skyward and quickly sought out Clark amidst the madness of the moment.
“That was the most amped I’ve ever seen [Bennett],” Jerome said after his 14 points (eight of them coming during UVa’s key run) helped the No. 4 Cavaliers improve to 9-0. “[VCU] was trying to bring the ball up the court and call timeout, but the kid (Byrd) couldn’t even get to half court to call it. That’s how good of a job Kihei does on the ball.”
Indeed.
After the turnover, Salt hit a free throw and Jerome’s next 3-point swished at the same time as an off-the-ball foul against Kyle Guy. Guy went to the line and hit two free throws in a quick, five-point turnaround that put the Cavaliers in the lead for good (49-45).
“He about made me jump out of my shoes when he got that 10 second call,” Bennett said in winning his 297th career game.
“Our staff said, ‘I have never seen anybody do that on an individual turn,’ and I said ‘I have. Muggsy Bogues.’ I said that I used to play with him and he used to do that to people. I thought that was terrific. His heart and his ability, we watched this against high quality players.”
For Clark, who will undergo surgery on Monday to repair a fractured left wrist, being compared to Bogues, whom UVa fans will remember from his days at Wake Forest, was quite the compliment.
When asked about those references by Bennett, before Clark could even answer, Guy chirped in, ‘He doesn’t even know who Muggsy Bogues is.’ Clark gave one of those, C’mon man, of course I know Muggsy is kind of expressions.
“It means a lot,” Clark said. “[Bogues] is a smaller guard and he played basketball at the highest level. Kind of just try to play defense like him and have the heart like he did.”
There were some snickers from Guy and Jerome when Clark reference Bogues as a smaller guard, but in reality Clark towers six inches above Bogues, who retired from the NBA 17 years ago.
Clark said he broke his wrist when he took a charge against Morgan State six days ago. He tried to break his fall and that’s when the injury occurred. He managed to perform well in practice and really wanted to play in Sunday’s game, realizing that he might be needed to break some of VCU’s vaunted on-ball pressure defense.
Bennett decided to give him a shot and it paid off.
With his left wrist in a cast and padded, Clark clocked 33 minutes of game time, scored nine points, including 7-for-7 at the free throw line, had four assists, two steals and three rare turnovers, mostly when he had to move to his left. In the three prior outings, Clark didn’t have a single turnover.
What the boxscore didn’t show was Clark’s impact on defense. He harassed VCU guard Marcus Evans into a 1-for-10 shooting performance and three of the Rams’ nine turnovers.
“I just wanted to come in and help my team as much as possible, that’s what I tried to do,” Clark said. “Ty hit the shot and I just wanted to apply ball pressure. The game picked up and it ignited me a little when he hit the shot. I was just trying to play defense and do my role.”
He had a significant impact on the game, just as he has all season.
“When you’re a little point guard like that, we’ve seen so many over the years, the one way you impact the game is getting pressure on the ball,” VCU coach Mike Rhoades said. “We didn’t turn the corner on him as much as we wanted.
“I thought [Clark] did a good job of messing up rhythm,” Rhoades said. “When you can do that over the course of a 40-minute game, it affects you.”
That’s exactly what Bennett expected from Clark, who has been the surprise of the season for Virginia.
“He said, ‘Coach, I want to play,’ so we practiced him with that cast on to protect his wrist and he was effective in practice and it didn’t affect his heart or his legs, that is for sure,” Bennett said.
Didn’t affect a drive to the basket with a right-handed layup during a 7-0 Virginia run earlier in the game either.
Now, it’s wait and see.
With UVa entering exams, the Cavaliers won’t play again until Dec. 19 at South Carolina (4-5), and then finish up the month with home games against William & Mary (Dec. 22) and Marshall (Dec. 31) before ACC play begins in early January.
“Hopefully [the surgery] will go well [Monday],” Bennett said. “We will just go from there as far as a timeline after surgery, based on how things heal and what he can do after that. He will go back into the cast and take it from there.”
