Central Virginia Times

Small-Ball Strategy Pays Off for Hoos

 What works against one basketball team might not work against another. And so when Virginia visits ACC foe Florida State on Saturday, there’s no guarantee head coach Tony Bennett will break out a lineup consisting of an undersized center and four guards.

For at least one game, however, that combination helped produce a memorable victory for the Cavaliers. With 15:12 to play late Tuesday night at John Paul Jones Arena, 6-foot-4 freshman Isaac McKneely checked into the game for No. 13 UVA, joining 5-foot-10 Kihei Clark, 6-foot-3 Reece Beekman, 6-foot-4 Armaan Franklin and 6-foot-8 Ben Vander Plas, who usually plays power forward.

With starters Kadin Shedrick (6-foot-11) and Jayden Gardner (6-foot-6) cheering from the bench, that quintet played the rest of the way in Virginia’s 65-58 victory over North Carolina before an amped-up crowd of 15,629.

“I really liked the second half,” Bennett said.

So did the Wahoos’ fans, who provided a decided home-court advantage in the second half. The Hoos (12-3 overall, 4-2 ACC) trailed by seven with 15 minutes remaining, but then ran off 11 straight points, the first four by Vander Plas, a graduate transfer from Ohio University.

“Games kind of ebb and flow, and certain things work offensively or get you good looks, and some things don’t look so good,” Bennett said. “We were struggling really to just shoot the ball and score in that first half and parts of the second, and then we said, ‘Let’s go small and take a look at a few things,’ and I think it just started opening things up.”

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