Sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames’ hair tie popped off his head mid-play, and so, as Ames dribbled past Coach Ron Sanchez, he handed it off for momentary safekeeping. Then he assisted a three-pointer and, on the next possession, falling backward out of bounds, he summoned some acrobatics to save the ball.
His hair was free, and so was his game. It remained that way even when, at the next stoppage, the hair tie returned. Ames persisted in dazzling, collecting 13 points and three assists as Virginia cruised past Coppin State 62-45 Monday night at John Paul Jones Arena.
Every player in uniform played for the Cavaliers (2-0, 0-0 ACC) against the Eagles (0-4, 0-0 MEAC). That included the career debut of redshirt freshman center Anthony Robinson, who scored his first bucket. But none stood out more than Ames, who, as Coach Ron Sanchez said preseason, has “a little boogie to him.”
“He’s got a little dynamic kind of shift and change of direction to his game,” Sanchez said postgame.
Ames, a transfer from Kansas State, started for the first time. He was not supposed to. He stood absent from the announced starting lineup, slated to come off the bench again behind junior guard Andrew Rohde.
But an hour and a half before the game, Rohde stopped short in a shooting drill, holding his lower back. He circled back into the drill but stopped short again. Then he headed for the tunnel, looking at the floor.
He emerged for warmups but quickly regressed to the bench and then the tunnel, as his teammates continued warming up around him. The next time he came out, sweats had replaced his uniform. Ames became the starter.
“He ran the team,” Coppin State Coach Larry Stewart said. “I guess he did what Coach [Sanchez] asked him to do out there on the floor. Didn't make too many mistakes. Got guys into position.”
The injury proved to be the game’s foremost drama. But Ames and his teammates provided plenty of excitement. Coppin State confronted Virginia with a zone defense, and for a while it worked. The open three-pointers materialized against the zone in the first half, but they did not fall.
That left Ames to spark the proceedings. He plunged into the lane for Virginia’s first points, turning right, rerouting left, finishing through contact. That marked an introduction — a real one, after his sparse playing time Wednesday.
He pulled up for a midrange fadeaway. He exploded forward with steps like springboards. He blocked a shot against the backboard on the second half’s first play.
Ames handled the point guard duties essentially alone, without Rohde and without redshirt freshman guard Christian Bliss, who missed his second game with a foot injury.
But he hardly operated alone on offense. Junior guard Isaac McKneely, who finished with 14 points and six rebounds, hijacked the final few minutes of the first half. He canned three-pointers on consecutive possessions, one from the right wing and one from the left, then added another a minute later.
“I actually think he passed up way too many shots early on in that first half,” Sanchez said. “And he wants to be a team player. He really does. He impacted the game in so many different ways.”
Freshman forward Jacob Cofie, meanwhile, grabbed the second-half spotlight. He scored all 11 of his points in the final period, his contagious presence earning praise from Sanchez postgame.
“Just the ability to see things,” Sanchez said about the freshman. “To keep a guy in front. To play unselfish. To just have those instincts that allow you to make plays that stand out.”
Cofie worked well alongside junior forward Elijah Saunders, who led the way with 15 points. He is emerging as Virginia’s best player.
The Cavaliers could have won by a lot more. The final margin, after a 9-0 Coppin State run in garbage time, looked a lot closer than it felt. The Cavaliers also struggled to get going, leading by only six points near the first half’s conclusion.
But they also benefited from Coppin State’s shooting just 21 percent from deep. Stewart deadpanned that the Eagles would lose to a high school team the way they were shooting.
“We just can’t throw the ball in the ocean right now,” he said.
Virginia’s defense certainly exacerbated that problem. Sanchez, after the game, talked at length about his team’s defensive potential, and Saunders said he is looking forward to their first game against a power-conference opponent, Friday at 5 p.m. against Villanova.
That developing defense — and all the other developing pieces of this slowly coalescing puzzle — will meet a stiffer test Friday. The Cavaliers are set to take on the Wildcats at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore as part of the Hall of Fame Series.
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