William & Mary @ Virginia preview
John Paul Jones Arena
Last Meeting ( Dec 22, 2018 ) William & Mary 40, Virginia 72
After a long layoff, No. 16 Virginia looks to defeat William & Mary for the 12th consecutive time Tuesday afternoon in Charlottesville.
The Cavaliers (3-1) have not played since a 71-64 overtime win against Kent State at home on Dec. 4.
Virginia paused activities from Dec. 9-19 due to COVID-19 issues that forced a cancellation against Villanova and postponements against Michigan State and Wake Forest. The game against William & Mary originally was scheduled for Dec. 13.
Last time out, Sam Hauser scored six of his 18 points in overtime against the Golden Flashes, and Jay Huff finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said he was pleased with how his team responded after Kent State shot 55.6 percent in the second half and got a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Danny Pippen at the end of regulation.
"We stayed the course and came up with enough tough shots," Bennett said. "We've just got to keep working and keep improving and chipping away."
Hauser leads the Cavaliers with averages of 14.5 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. Huff adds 12.3 points and 6.8 rebounds, and Trey Murphy averages 10.8 points.
Through four games, opponents are averaging 57.5 points on 38 percent shooting from the field vs. UVA's stingy defense.
Virginia is 55-26 all-time against William & Mary. It is the Cavaliers' oldest rivalry, dating to the program's inaugural season in 1905-06. Virginia won the most recent meeting, 72-40, on Dec. 22, 2018.
The Cavaliers, whose loss this season is to San Francisco, have to be careful not to look past the Tribe. They have a date Saturday against top-ranked Gonzaga in Fort Worth, Texas.
William & Mary (2-2), a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, will make the two-hour trip from Williamsburg, Va.
The Tribe went 21-11 in head coach Dane Fischer's first season in 2019-20. They have wins this year against George Washington and Hampton and losses to Old Dominion and High Point.
Playing for the third time in six days, a sluggish William & Mary missed its first 10 shots and finished at 29.1 percent shooting from the field in Saturday's 71-49 loss to High Point. The Panthers shot 50 percent and outrebounded the Tribe 42-30.
"There wasn't a lot of things we did well this afternoon," Fischer said Saturday. "I thought we were a step slow really the whole game. We could never get ourselves at the pace we needed to be on offense or defense. We've got a lot to learn and correct after this one."
Luke Loewe led the Tribe with 13 points and Yuri Covington had 10. The rest of the team scored 26 points.
William & Mary has eight freshmen and sophomores in the rotation.
"Certainly the younger you are, the more likely a game like this is," Fischer said. "I told the guys afterward, hopefully we got ours out of the way here for the season."
--Field Level Media