It was not quite the kind of basketball fans in John Paul Jones Arena might have been used to seeing. Ironically, on the newly-declared Tony Bennett Day, Virginia’s win over Georgia Tech came via a fast-paced, back-and-forth shootout, not one of the plodding affairs typical of most of Bennett’s teams.
Led in scoring by the backcourt of sophomore Dai Dai Ames and juniors Andrew Rohde and Isaac McKneely, the Cavaliers (12-12, 5-8 ACC) defeated the Yellow Jackets (11-13, 5-8 ACC) 75-61, for the team’s first back-to-back victories since late November against Manhattan and Holy Cross.
Coming off an unexpected but exciting win over Pittsburgh, Virginia hosted a Georgia Tech team also coming off a big win — a triple-overtime upset thriller Tuesday at Clemson.
With Bennett and many men’s basketball alumni in attendance, as well as a halftime ceremony dedicated to the legendary coach, the Cavaliers showed the kind of basketball that Interim Coach Ron Sanchez has been talking about all season — they rebounded and passed the ball well, limited mistakes and shot terrifically from range, scoring over 70 points for the fourth consecutive game, the program’s first time doing so since 2022.
In addition to seeing an exciting win, Bennett also got to see his son, junior guard Eli Bennett, check in for the last minute and log a steal.
The Cavaliers started the game in exciting fashion, with a 9-0 run in the first two minutes that saw Rohde hit a three-pointer, then McKneely follow up with two of his own. McKneely finished the first half with 18 points on 7-10 shooting, while Rohde had six points, seven assists and no turnovers.
“I was trying to keep feeding [McKneely],” Sanchez said postgame. “I think he passed up a few, but overall definitely got us started on the right page offensively.”
Georgia Tech challenged Virginia throughout the game, but signs of a long season showed, as the Yellow Jackets played with only six players in the rotation for almost the entire game. The Yellow Jackets’ highest scorer — senior guard Lance Terry — did not score at all, shooting 0-4 in 32 minutes of play while dealing with a wrist injury. Terry went to the free-throw line early in the second half and missed both, causing fans in attendance to celebrate free bacon.
“The student section — pretty good student section, by the way — they thought he just missed free throws,” Georgia Tech Coach Damon Stoudamire said. “He ain’t miss free throws, he’s got a bad wrist … Obviously that’s not him.”
Meanwhile, star sophomore wing Baye Ndongo missed a handful of easier shots in the first half, giving the Cavaliers a large enough cushion entering the latter 20 minutes.
That first half saw McKneely and Rohde, as well as freshman forward Jacob Cofie, lead the way for Virginia. In the second half, McKneely scored only two points, but instead Ames, with his family in attendance from Chicago, scored 14 points, including four three-pointers.
After missing three games, junior forward Elijah Saunders returned to the rotation, playing 11 minutes. He failed to score but logged five rebounds, showing physicality against a smaller yet still very athletic Yellow Jackets squad.
“We’re not going to force him into the rotation,” Sanchez said. “Yes, he’s going to get some minutes, [but] he’s got to find his rhythm.”
Out-rebounding an opponent by 14 certainly contributes to the offense — the Cavaliers scored 16 second-chance points and dominated the paint with 34 points in the interior.
Both teams saw ample success from beyond the arc — Virginia shot 41 percent from distance and the Yellow Jackets 44 percent. Sophomore guard Naithan George led Georgia Tech in scoring with 20 points, the same final tally as McKneely, and made five of nine shots from distance, including some contested and off-dribble attempts.
After the game, Stoudamire said he thought the team could live with McKneely’s first-half offense, but that Virginia’s bigs were the difference-makers on the interior.
“I thought they made great reads offensively, finished offensively [and] kept our bigs off the glass,” Stoudamire said. “They did a good job of walling up effective shots down on our offensive end and made it hard for us.”
Cofie, sophomore forward Blake Buchanan and redshirt freshman forward Anthony Robinson combined for 22 points and 18 rebounds. Buchanan accounted for 11 of those rebounds and showed tremendous hustle on several occasions to earn the Cavaliers a second chance at scoring.
Many points from those bigs came off feeds from Rohde, who, in his past five games, has logged 33 assists while committing only one turnover. Rohde’s immense strides as a playmaker were evident with creative and smart passing that created a handful of easy interior shots.
“[We’re getting] more comfortable running our offense the right way,” Rohde said. “I’m playing with guys who can make tough shots and I try to put them in positions where they can score and they always seem to make hard shots. So they make my life easier.”
Virginia will return to action in a week, travelling to Blacksburg Saturday for the second leg of the Commonwealth Clash. The Cavaliers fell to the Hokies (6-7, 11-13 ACC) Feb. 1 in a one-point game that Virginia will absolutely be hoping to avenge.
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