‘The Italian Galleon’ Woldetensae shoots down the Tar Heels

By Jerry Ratcliffe

File photo by Jon Golden

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — It was 1:30 in the morning, hours after Virginia had eked out a key win over Notre Dame on Tuesday night. While workers were still cleaning out John Paul Jones Arena, a lone figure was on the court, shooting.

Tomas Woldetensae was haunted by his worst shooting night of the season when his team needed him most. The Italian-bred, junior-college sharpshooter had connected on a paltry 1 of 8 attempts from the 3-point arc against the Irish in a game where just one more shot would have been good enough to end the 50-49, overtime rock fight.

So there Woldetensae was, dressed in practice gear, headphones on, shooting, gathering his own rebounds, shooting. Just shooting, hoping he would never experience another night like that one.

Saturday night, in one of college basketball’s most notable venues, North Carolina’s “Dean Dome,” Woldetensae’s extra work paid off big time.

In a game that Virginia — clinging to a potential NCAA Tournament bid at season’s end — couldn’t afford to lose, Woldetensae made a critical error with 10.3 seconds remaining on the clock. He fouled a 3-point shooter and sent the Tar Heels’ Christian Keeling to the line for three free throws.

Keeling knocked down the first two, knotting the game at 61-all. Tony Bennett called time out to not only attempt to freeze Keeling, but to draw up Virginia’s last play. Keeling hit the third foul shot for a 62-61 lead.

In the intense setting, Blue Heaven, where Virginia had only won five times in 24 visits — and that’s just the Dean Dome, it was eight times in 74 trips to Chapel Hill altogether — the Cavaliers had one shot left. Little did anyone suspect it would be Woldetensae, coming off his worst game, coming off making the mistake by fouling Keeling.

Kihei Clark (we’ve seen this before, right?) dribbled down the court, drove deep and spotted Woldetensae out on the 3-point line. Woldetensae calmly side-stepped and let go of a 3-point prayer.

Swish.

Virginia magically owned a 64-62 lead with 0.8 seconds remaining. Carolina, now 3-11 and dead last in the ACC, had no magic.

“I don’t know, we might just be the most unlucky team I’ve ever seen,” said UNC point guard Cole Anthony.

When Woldetensae’s shot went in, Virginia celebrated just like it did last year in Louisville when Clark’s last-second pass to Mamadi Diakite and subsequent shot sent the game against Purdue into overtime. The Wahoos went on to win and continued their magic en route to the national championship.

This time, Diakite ran over and bear-hugged Woldetensae as Carolina called for a timeout with less than a second to play.

“I was just screaming nonsense,” Diakite smiled. “I held him up. I was just happy. He acted like a leader. He fouled a guy who went to the line and made three [free throws], then hit a big shot, side step. You have to have an unstoppable mindset to do that.”

Woldetensae, who said he had hit winning shots before in junior college, said of Diakite’s big hug: “Uh, I’ll take it,” then added that there was no comparison to making this shot as compared to those in the past.

The junior guard was sporting a smile that wasn’t going to wear off for quite a while. With Virginia’s personnel losses after the natty, Woldetensae was brought in kind of like a hired gun to help make up for the loss in 3-point shooting with the exits of Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter.

Up until a few weeks ago, critics were wondering if he was ever going to deliver. That is, until he essentially beat Wake Forest in an overtime win in which he was 7 of 14 from beyond the arc. While UVA lost at Louisville, he personally was 7 of 10 from Bonusphere.

Against Carolina, under pressure, he was 6 of 10 for 18 points to lead the Cavaliers in scoring, and to keep Virginia’s winning streak alive against the rival Tar Heels. UVA has won six straight against UNC, the first time that’s happened in over 100 years. They’ve only won six times ever at the Dean Dome, four of those under Bennett, including three of the last four.

Wouldn’t have done it without Woldetensae, who has now hit 20 of his last 34 attempts from 3-point range in UVA’s last three road games. Oddly, he’s a mere 4 of 18 at JPJ in the last three home games.

“I should take [his road performance] to JPJ,” Woldetensae said. “I don’t know what’s going on. We’ll see.”

The fact that he could come into the Smith Center and essentially gun down the Tar Heels, a team desperate to win, was somewhat amazing.

“Yes, amazing,” Woldetensae said about his winning shot. “We walked in here [Friday] and for me, first time here at UNC’s home, I was appreciative of the moment.”

Consider, as Bennett did, that his juco transfer didn’t know much of anything about the UVA-UNC rivalry or the Dean Dome, coming from Indian Hills Community College in Iowa. He learned quickly.

“It was such a big, emotional swing for sure,” Woldetensae said of the final 10 seconds. “At first I thought I had lost it for my teammates, then had a chance to redeem myself.”

Clark said he tried to dribble to the lane and then saw Woldetensae open in the corner.

“[Woldetensae] made a good move and knocked down the shot,” Clark said. “It sucks to be down [by one point] but I just tried to regroup and execute the play down the stretch, and he made the shot. Ten seconds is a lot of time, so we tried not to panic. We had a good look and we’re thankful.”

Freshman Casey Morsell, who posted a 10-point performance, said this was just typical Woldetensae.

“Tom always makes up for his mistakes, immediately,” Morsell said. “No matter if it’s a backdoor he missed or not hurrying back on defense, he always makes up for it in some kind of way. That shot was him making up for it in the biggest way possible.”

While some fans may have given up on Woldetensae, who battled a broken wrist from preseason, knocking him out of his usual repetitions shooting the ball, he never gave up on himself.

“I believe in myself,” he said. “Signing that UVA paper to come here, I knew it would be a challenge. I was looking for that challenge, therefore I’m glad that came through.”

Virginia is glad it came through as well. Everyone should celebrate his work ethic, to come back after that lousy performance against Notre Dame, and shoot into the wee hours of the night.

“I didn’t like my shooting performance [Tuesday], therefore I wanted to work on it,” Woldetensae said as he walked out of the Dean Dome. “I don’t know how long I stayed … a long time. It was worth it.”