Tale of the Tape: Virginia vs. Middle Tennessee State

Fourth-ranked Virginia (3-0) tips off at 9:30 p.m. ET Wednesday night on ESPN2 against Middle Tennessee (3-1) in the opening round of the 2018 Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. The team left Charlottesville Monday and will be shooting for a sixth consecutive holiday tournament victory.

“It will be a lot different because we won’t have a home crowd, but it is still a game and we still have to play and do what we do,” UVA’s De’Andre Hunter said about the upcoming game after Friday’s 57-point blowout against Coppin State.

Mamadi Diakite put up a career-high 18 points Friday in the highest-scoring output of the Tony Bennett Era, but said the Cavaliers would quickly shift their attention to this week.

“[Friday] was a good night overall, but after the game we leave everything behind and we focus on the next game, not necessarily the tournament,” said Diakite. “We take it step by step, one game after the other.”

Bennett was obviously pleased with the 97-40 win last time out, but knows the level of competition will take a significant leap this week in Nassau.

“You just play the game that’s before you,” Bennett said. “I really liked our activity, I like how we shared the ball [Friday], I like how energized and alert and active we were defensively and didn’t play the score once it got stretched out to that level.

“But, knowing that, of course you’re going into a really high-quality tournament with very good teams and you’ll have to play 40 minutes. It’ll take the majority of the game to be successful in those settings.”

The Blue Raiders are led by Nick McDevitt, who spent the previous five seasons as head coach at his alma mater, UNC Asheville (98-66). MT returns only six players from last season, with seven new faces who are either freshmen or transfers.

Two of those transfers are leading the team in scoring through four games. Leading scorer Antonio Green can fill it up, as he is putting up 22 points and five rebounds a game. Green, who played his first two seasons in the Western Athletic Conference at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, has knocked down 14 of the team’s 25 made 3s in 2018. Green was named WAC Freshman of the Year in 2015-16 and ranked 12th nationally in made 3-pointers (111) in 2016-17 before sitting out last season.

Journeyman junior forward Reggie Scurry is averaging 13.5 points and 8.3 boards in his first year with MT after stops at Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa and Missouri State.

Returners Donovan Sims (12.3 ppg), Karl Gamble (12.0) and James Hawthorne (10.8) are also averaging double figures for the Blue Raiders.
Middle Tennessee posted easy victories against Division II opponent Lees-McRae and NAIA foe Milligan before losing by 19 to Belmont last week. The Blue Raiders edged Charleston Southern by three on Friday.

If the Wahoos prevail in Wednesday’s nightcap, they would face the winner between Butler (3-0) and Dayton (3-0) in the tournament semifinals Thursday at 4 p.m. ET. A loss against the Blue Raiders would put the Cavaliers in the consolation bracket where they would face the Butler/Dayton loser at 9:30 Thursday night.

Should UVA advance to the championship game, that would take place Friday at 2 p.m. on ESPN. If Virginia won Wednesday but stumbled Thursday, the ‘Hoos would play for third place at 11:30 a.m. Friday. The fifth- and seventh-place games are scheduled for 7 and 9:30 on Black Friday, in the unlikely event that the team would lose its first two.

On the other side of the bracket are No. 25 Wisconsin (3-0), Oklahoma (3-0), Florida (2-1) and Stanford (2-1). The Cavaliers will face one of those schools Friday.

“I’m looking forward to it — it’s a business trip,” said first-year point guard Kihei Clark, who set a career high with nine points Friday night.

“Just coming in and doing our job and winning games. We know what we’ve got to do — take care of business.”

In Bennett’s first three seasons at UVA, the ‘Hoos lost opening-round games in late-November events. Stanford won by 5 in Cancun in 2009, Washington blew out Bennett’s bunch by 43 at the Maui Invitational in 2010, and TCU edged Virginia by 2 in St. Thomas in 2011.

UVA didn’t participate in an in-season tournament in 2012 and hasn’t lost since, going 11-0 overall and winning five straight holiday tournaments: Corpus Christi Challenge (2013), Barclays Center Classic (2014), Charleston Classic (2015), Emerald Coast Classic (2016) and the NIT Season Tip-off last year in Brooklyn.

 

 






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Wednesday, November 21, 2018Nassau, Bahamas9:30 p.m., ESPN2
VIRGINIAVSMIDDLE TENNESSEE
Leads all-time series, 1-0BATTLE 4 ATLANTISLost last meeting, 104-88,
in 1989
3-0OVERALL W-L3-1
0-0CONFERENCE W-L0-0
W 97-40 vs COPPIN STATELAST GAMEW 76-73 vs
Charleston So.
82.0POINTS PER GAME85.5
46.3PTS ALLOWED PER
GAME
76.0
35.7SCORING MARGIN9.5
91-167 (.545)FGM-FGA (%)125-254 (.492)
33-70 (.471)3PM-3PA (%)25-75 (.333)
31-46 (.674)FTM-FTA (%)67-91 (.736)
48-138 (.348)OPP FGM-FGA (%)107-269 (.398)
16-56 (.286)OPP 3PM-3PA (%)33-94 (.351)
27-50 (.540)OPP FTM-FTA (%)57-87 (.655)
34.0REBS PER GAME45.0
20.3ASSISTS PER GAME14.0
7.0TURNOVERS PER
GAME
19.3
7.0STEALS PER GAME7.3
3.7BLOCKS PER GAME5.0
INDIVIDUAL
LEADERS
 
#11 Ty Jerome, 17.0 ppgSCORING#55 Antonio Green, 22.3 ppg
#12 De’Andre Hunter, 14.3 ppg#22 Reggie Scurry, 13.5 ppg
#5 Kyle Guy, 11.7 ppg#3 Donovan Sims, 12.3 ppg
Jay Huff, .727FG %Reggie Scurry,
.655
Ty Jerome, 113PMAntonio Green, 14
De’Andre Hunter, .8003PT %Karl Gamble, .750
Three with 1.000FT %James Hawthorne,
.917
Braxton Key, 6.3 rpgREBOUNDSScurry, Gamble,
8.3 rpg
Ty Jerome, 17ASSISTSDonovan Sims, 12
Ty Jerome, 8STEALSDonovan Sims, 9
Mamadi Diakite, 4BLOCKSReggie Scurry, 6