The second half of Virginia's 72-57 win over Northwestern (3-3) belonged to point guard Sean Singletary. The sophomore guard scored 19 of his game-high 23 points after the break, including the first six points of the half for the Cavaliers to propel the team to its third win of the season.
"That's just something that I am going to have to do day-in and day-out," Singletary said of his performance. "We knew that the scouting report on them was that they were big and slow, and we knew we were going to have to push the ball to get some shots."
Singletary's aggressiveness helped his teammates take control of a game they admitted they were letting slip away. The Cavaliers (3-1) led for the final 18 minutes of the game after giving away a lead that, at one point, was as large as nine points during the first half. Singletary opened the second half hitting his first three-pointer of the night. On the next trip down the court, Tunji Soroye blocked a shot that went right to Singletary who quickly bolted down the court for a fast break lay-up. The foul gave Virginia the 32-29 lead it would not surrender.
"Sean obviously did a tremendous job pushing the tempo of the game, at times being a one-man fast break," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "He put a lot of pressure on them to get back [on defense]."
Singletary's night was capped by a highlight-reel lay-up that fell in for his 23rd point. Singletary drove towards the basket, went up, pulled his shot down and then played the ball off the glass on his way down on the other side of the basket much to the delight of the 7,331 fans at University Hall.
If Singletary had an exceptional second half, then freshman Mamadi Diane was the mark of consistency. Diane scored nine points in both the first and second halves en route to a career-high 18.
"It makes the defense play honest," guard J.R. Reynolds said of Diane's scoring. "The defense can't cheat on me and Sean -- they have to play the wings of our offense. So it helps out a lot."
In the first half, the Cavaliers streaked out to an early 15-8 lead to start the game. The opening minutes were highlighted by an alley-oop pass from Reynolds to Adrian Joseph. Joseph proceeded to slam the ball through basket to a thunderous roar.
The lead, however, would not hold as Northwestern would battle back and take a six point lead late in the half. Senior Billy Campbell, who was playing because Singletary picked up his second foul early in the first half, hit a huge three-point shot from the corner to stop the bleeding and cut the lead in half. Reynolds would later add two free throws to cut the halftime deficit to one.
But the night belonged to Singletary, a fact that was not lost on Northwestern coach Bill Carmody.
"He's a good player and he plays with confidence," Carmody said. "It looked like one of those things where a player says 'I'm going to do what I do' and it turned out well for him. He was knifing in there and jumping into guys and getting to the [free-throw] line. He was just in control of the game."
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