Virginia traveled to the District to take on George Washington. Injuries have been kind to the Cavaliers. Three days after defeating a William & Mary team playing without leading scorer Riley Casey, the Cavs took on a GW team that was missing a pair of starters and a third rotation player. The Colonials just couldn’t overcome that kind of talent drain.
Virginia           62
George Washington 53
Positive
A week ago, Virginia was 1 – 6 and floundering. Now the team is on a two-game win streak and has some continuity heading into one final tuneup before facing off against NC State, who are only the #2 team in the country.
Positive
The transfers are playing well. I won’t go into the depressing status of the club last season, but suffice it to say, head coach Tina Thompson had to build a new team on the fly. It’s working. Thompson brought point guard Taylor Valladay from Marquette. In addition to a really cool last name, Valladay brings a little swagger to the team, but more importantly, she frees the one returning player of note, Amandine Toi, from point guard duties and allows her to score, which she can do. Valladay had 13 points and 5 assists while Toi had 14 points. Toi was “only” 2 – 6 from 3, but each bucket was huge at the time, stopping a GW run. A second transfer of note, Camryn Taylor (also via Marquette,) gives Virginia a quality option in the post and is the sixth leading scorer in the ACC. She had a quiet afternoon vs GW but was the best player on the court versus W&M.
Negative
When your opponent loses 3/7 of their top rotation, you ought to be able to trample them. There were there only three Colonials who were even looking to score and one of them, point guard Aurea Gingras, played one of the worst games I have ever seen. GW was able to keep the game close because Nya Lok simply eviscerated the Cavs to the tune of 26 points on 10 – 17 shooting. I’m not sure Virginia is ready to even step on the court with NC State.
Positive
On the flip side, GW twice made good runs to bring the game to within 3 points, once late in the 2nd quarter and then again late in the 4th quarter. Both times the Cavs responded with 7 and 9 – 0 runs to ice the game. This is how teams are supposed to respond. After getting thoroughly hammered in the 3rd quarter over the first 7 games of the season, the Cavs steamrolled the Tribe and the Colonials in subsequent games. This is a good trend.
Negative
Adventures in free throw shooting. Yowza. We suck at the free throw line. In the eight prior games to GW, Virginia had registered nights of 6 – 15, 4 – 18, and 5 – 14 en route to .586 conversion rate for the year. For the game, Virginia was 11 – 21, but before getting “hot” late in the game, was at one point 3 – 11 from the charity stripe. No, scratch that. It ain’t charity for the Cavs. Valladay had one trip where she missed all four free throws. How does one miss four free throws? Well, she had a strange double pump on her release that fooled friend and foe alike and created two lane-violation calls. I’m pretty sure I have never seen an 0 – 4 trip to the line. If you can believe it, GW was worse going 4 – 14. In the William and Mary game, the Tribe looked like a free throw juggernaut going 11 – 16.
Positive
The game was broadcast on the Atlantic 10 network and called by Atantic 10 announcers who were unabashedly homerific. It was refreshing, actually. I don’t watch baseball anymore, but if you’ve ever listened to Vin Scully call a Dodgers game, you know how good it can be listening to a guy who loves his team.
Positive
GW’s Nya Lok. Ever watch a game when the best player on the court is a player you’ve never even heard of, who was only starting her second game for the Colonials? You know, that “Whoa!” moment? Well, I had that with Lok. She was so smooth and she rose up for the big moment. She was just on an undermanned team. This game was NOT an advertisement for women’s hoops, but Nya Lok was. i will watch more GW basketball just to watch her play some more.