The pre-game celebration to open John Paul Jones Arena may have featured former American Idol contestant and University student Travis Tucker, but the highest note was hit by the Virginia women's basketball team as they posted a 92-72 victory over the Old Dominion Monarchs.
The Cavaliers came into this game just 48 hours after taking care of business on the road against the Rhode Island Rams with a 69-56 win. The short turnaround may have taken a physical toll, but Virginia coach Debbie Ryan recognized the mental advantages.
"There was a method to my madness," Ryan said. "I knew when we played ODU when they opened their new arena we played like we didn't have a care in the world; the pressure was all on them. There was such a huge build up to this game I had to take them away from here."
The decision to work out early jitters paid huge dividends when senior center Siedah Williams came out of the gate on fire. She did not just score the first points in the history of JPJ, she scored the Cavaliers' first ten points to give Virginia the early edge 14-6.
"I thought she might score 100 at first," Ryan said.
The Monarchs' inability to defend the baseline was compounded by poor shooting. ODU shot only 35 percent in the game, compared to an impressive 52 percent for Virginia -- 57 percent in the first half.
The Cavaliers were able to build their lead up to eighteen points when junior guard Sharneé Zoll intercepted a pass and used her tremendous speed to find junior guard Denesha Kenion to make the score 31-13 with less than eight minutes to go in the first half.
The Monarchs would continue to fight but would be unable to cut the deficit to fewer than twelve points for the rest of the game. At the half, Virginia led 44-30 and had put forth one of their best overall efforts in recent memory.
The second half started off with a bang as the Virginia frontcourt scored six points in the first two and a half minutes. Williams, thanks to her hot start, would finish with 21 points, but sophomore forward Lyndra Littles led the team with a career-high 23 points, along with 12 rebounds.
Littles's most impressive statistic however, was a 13-14 performance at the line, a place that had plagued her in her freshman year.
"She is a completely different person this year," Ryan said. "She is becoming a player you can count on every minute of every game, when last year she wasn't ready to do that."
The home debut of freshman guard Monica Wright was something to behold; Wright finished with 11 points and four assists. With 14:03 to go in the game, Wright got tangled with a Monarch player and received a defensive foul. In response, she took over the game, nailing two three-pointers, a textbook assist to Kenion and two key defensive rebounds in less than two minutes to stretch the lead to 21.
"We just needed to keep the pressure on them," Wright said. "We had to stretch the lead and keep the intensity up."
Virginia's overall performance was one to amaze. Ten of the 13 players on the roster scored. So much preseason hype surrounded Zoll coming into this year, but Virginia rolled over Old Dominion despite Zoll's low production with only two points and three assists.
The depth that the Cavaliers possess not only shows how good they are but how good they might become.
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