RALEIGH, N.C. – The Midwest Region’s top-seeded Virginia Cavaliers made quite a showing in the second game of the first session of opening-round play in the 2016 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at PNC Arena on Thursday.
The Cavaliers (27-7) handed the 16th-seeded Hampton Pirates (21-11) an 81-45 drubbing and in the process recorded their largest-ever margin of victory in tournament play.
Anthony Gill’s 19 points and seven rebounds led an offensive surge that saw three others join him in double-figures.
Quinton Chievous powered the Hampton offense with 17 points on a 7-of-13 shooting performance.
While Virginia’s offense didn’t look to falter, finishing at 55 percent (32-58) for the game, and included dropping 12 total three-pointers, dehydration problems for head coach Tony Bennett had him headed to the locker room before halftime.
When his team joined him, they led 40-21 fueled by a 20-3 run that ended the opening 20 minutes of play.
With their head coach drinking plentiful amounts of Powerade and hanging in for the remainder of the game quietly sitting on a stool by the bench, the Cavaliers maintained their same scoring pace and got plentiful bench support.
Virginia’s Marial Shayok led the reserves with 10 points as part of 33 total contributed towards the overall winning margin.
The Cavaliers next meet the ninth-seeded Butler Bulldogs, 71-61 winners over eighth-seeded Texas Tech.
—
Virginia 81, Hampton 45
Top Performers
Virginia: Anthony Gill 19 pts. (8-13, 3-3 FT); London Perrantes 12 pts. (4-9, 4-8 3pts.), 4 asst.; Malcolm Brogdon 11 pts. (4-9), 4 asst.; Marial Shayok 10 pts. (4-6, 2-3 3pts.)
Hampton: Quinton Chievous 19 pts. (7-13, 2-4 3pts.); Reginald Johnson, Jr. 10 pts. (4-13)
What they said
Virginia head coach Tony Bennett (on his illness): “I think I’ve just been a little under the weather the last couple of days and I think I was a bit dehydrated, and when you’re squatting down and get up quick, I just grayed out or blacked out a little bit. I was saying something to London and had more Powerade than I’ve ever had in my life right now. I’m hopefully hydrated well. That’s happened before where you get up quick and been a little dizzy, but I don’t know. It just happened kind of quick, and was just a little off sorts. Maybe being a little under the weather was what played into that.”
Virginia head coach Tony Bennett (on taking time to focus on playing Butler after such a lopsided win): “You don’t have an opportunity. You’re done now, so you got to be ready. Butler is a team that they don’t beat themselves, from what I know, and respect that program from what they’ve done in the past, how they play now and I’ll watch them more. You’re at the stage now it’s who is playing best.
I think our guys understand that, and they’ll present challenges that we’ll have to be on point with. I think the guys understand what’s at stake. And, again, they’re capable. You know, I always say you’re able, but will you? And that’s what you got to answer once we get started.”
Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon (on bench scoring): “I think it’s huge, especially for our first game. We need the momentum. We need our guys to come off the bench to play with confidence going forward. I think most of the time the teams that have the best bench production, whether that’s getting stops or producing on the offensive end, I think they end up winning a lot more games than the teams that don’t.”
Hampton head coach Edward Joyner, Jr.: “I wanted to commend my guys. The toughest part about tonight is I feel it’s unfair because I don’t think the score shows exactly how hard they played and how hard they played throughout the year to be able to do what they did, but again, Virginia did what they publicized to do. They made it tough on us to make shots.”
Hampton’s Quinton Chievous: “I feel like they knocked down shots and they had more focus than us. We came out with a strong focus for a little bit but we just couldn’t hold it through, and of course they came out with the win.”
Up next
No. 1 Virginia (27-7) vs. No. 9 Butler (22-10) – Sat., 7:10 p.m.