Virginia falls to Wake


By Jerry Ratcliffe
Charlottesville Daily Progress
Used with permission

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Tony Bennett wished he had a Plan B when he glanced over at his bench during the first half of Saturday’s game at Wake Forest and saw his two leading scorers sitting there with foul trouble.

Instinct told him to coach by the book when Virginia’s best player, Slyven Landesberg, picked up his second foul only eight minutes into the game. Bennett pulled Landesberg, fearing that if he left him in, a third personal foul might soon follow.

Five minutes later, Scott, the Cavaliers’ best post player, joined Landesberg on the bench, having picked up his second foul.

Plan B?

There is no Plan B with the limited offensive arsenal Bennett inherited when he took over the team last April.

Saddled with foul trouble, neither Landesberg or Scott returned the remainder of the first half as Wake, perhaps the ACC’s best team right now, rolled to an easier-than-the-score-indicated, 69-54 win at Lawrence Joel Coliseum.

It was the host Demon Deacons’ eighth straight win at Joel against Virginia and was the Cavaliers’ first conference loss after bolting to a startling 3-0 start in the league, surely putting a bulls eye on their chests for a hungry Wake team.

“Getting two fouls in the first half kind of told the story of the whole game,” Scott said afterward.

The question is can a team with limited offensive talent afford to keep a player like Landesberg on the bench for a 12-1/2 minute stretch, while a good Wake team ran wild? Add Scott’s absence to the equation and you figure Bennett committed coaching hari kari.

Sometimes playing the odds just don’t make good sense.

Virginia was down 15-6 when Landesberg was whistled for his second foul with 12:28 showing and was exiled to the bench. The Cavaliers actually chewed into Wake’s lead, cutting it to four (18-14) on Scott’s layup at 8:48.

However, Scott was hit with a second foul at the 7:53 mark and was pulled.

With those two out, the Deacs went on a rampage, outscoring the Cavaliers 16-1 to finish the half, building a 34-15 lead. UVa scored only one basket on its last 14 possessions of the half.

Bennett’s decision was reminiscent of North Carolina legendary coach Dean Smith’s unforgettable move in the 1984 NCAA tournament when Smith pulled Michael Jordan after his second foul and kept him on the bench as Indiana pulled away and went on to score a memorable upset in Jordan’s last college game.

It was known as the Dan Dakich game because the Indiana player actually threw up when he learned he would have to defend Jordan in the game. But Dakich had the last laugh in the upset as Jordan finished with 13 points and fouled out, playing just 26 minutes. Afterward, the Tar Heel star said he never got in sync after being pulled from the game.

“We knew we had to keep pressing the pedal while [Landesberg and Scott] were out of the game,” said Wake guard C.J. Harris. “That was a big boost for us getting them in foul trouble. We credit that for us attacking on the break, attacking their best player.”

In that ‘84 game, Jordan said he tried to jam 40 minutes of playing time into 20 the second half and that’s exactly what Landesberg appeared to do, finishing with 18 points in 25 minutes. Scott, however, like Jordan, never really got back in sync, was 3 of 10 from the floor and finished with only six points and two rebounds in 18 minutes.

“I told [Bennett] as soon as he took me out that I was good, that I could play in that situation,” Landesberg said. “But he thought it was better to keep me out and save me for the second half.”

The Virginia coach said sending his top scorer back into the game did cross his mind and that he kept hoping his team could hang with the Deacs long enough for his decision not to backfire.

“But the game got out of hand,” Bennett sighed. “Usually, I’ll hold a guy out if he gets two fouls and we talked about it on the bench during one time out, and all of a sudden there was maybe two or three minutes left. I thought to put Sylven back in now might be foolish if he picks one up. But I might have to reconsider thinking about that. It’s something you try to just have a feel for.”

Down 19 at the half against a talented team such as Wake, a team that played a better version of the Bennett family’s vaunted Pack-Line defense than did the bloodline on this particular day, was near impossible.

All of a sudden, U.Va.’s inside-outside attack was missing Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

“We run the same stuff (with Landesberg and Scott out) but we just don’t have quite as much firepower,” Bennett lamented.

The Cavaliers were getting some looks but those usually ended up clanging off the rim, and as Bennett later said, he heard some of those shots smacking off the backboard.

“They weren’t close,” the coach said. “Without Mike and Slyven, I wish I had this excellent Plan B.”

Both foul-plagued players confessed their frustration grew as they watched Wake build what blossomed into an insurmountable lead.

“That’s when Wake started making their run,” Scott said. “You can’t really do nothing from the bench, so we just had to watch.”

Landesberg agreed.

“It was very frustrating. We cut the lead to four and I was getting real anxious on the bench,” he said. “When they started spreading the lead out, it was very nerve-wracking. I just wanted to get back in and try to help but couldn’t.”

Wake’s defense was solid until the Deacs looked up and saw the wide margin on the scoreboard in the latter stages of the game and resorted to what someone referred to as Summer League basketball. The Cavs cut into the lead, but never really threatened and actually had to sink 11 of their last 16 field goal attempts against a by then, complacent defensive effort by the Deacs, just in order to shoot 34 percent for the entire game.

Bennett’s first big gamble blew up in the Cavaliers’ collective faces as they suffered their first ACC defeat and leaked some of the precious momentum they picked up in the impressive start.

As the coach said, the beauty of sports is there’s another game on the horizon, a chance to get this one out of the system.

Until arch-rival Virginia Tech comes to town on Thursday, the Cavaliers will have trouble digesting this setback, exposing some perhaps previously unrevealed weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Bennett will at least know the rest of the way that he can’t afford to keep his best scorer out of the game for most of a half.

Dean Smith has now known that for the past 25 years.

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