By Kenneth Cross
No, 5 Baylor led No. 16 Virginia, 33-30, at halftime in T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Friday night, but the Cavaliers used the first seven minutes of the second half to show that they were an improved offensive team in an 86-79 victory.
Virginia outscored Baylor, 24-4, during that first seven minutes to push to a 54-37 lead as they made six three-point field goals in seven attempts in that run. Armaan Franklin had three of those as he continues to show leadership as he scored 13 of his career-high 26 points during those first seven minutes.
“I know I have teammates in the position of getting me the ball and the same for them,” Franklin told the media in the postgame. “I know they can create for themselves. It was just taking open shots and being ready to shoot.”
Virginia canceled Monday night’s game with Northern Iowa after three football players – Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis, Jr., and D’Sean Perry – were murdered by a shooter on Sunday night in a situation that has touched the campus, the city of Charlottesville and myriads of people inside of the game of football and sports.
“I know there’s a lot of crushed spirits and brokenhearted people, and we’re praying for those people, but to have that performance — it’s just a game,” said Cavaliers coach Tony Bennett. “If it brought some momentary joy to any of those guys, thank goodness for that.”
Baylor head coach Scott Drew spoke of how his players wrote letters to Virginia players to show their care and sadness of the loss of these three players, a shooting injury to running back Mike Hopkins and a shooting injury to student, Marlee Morgan. All five were people on a bus that returned from Washington, DC, from a play last Sunday evening.
Virginia’s home football game with Coastal Carolina on Saturday was cancelled as well.
Ryan Dunn and Ben Vander Plas made back-to-back threes as the Cavaliers enjoyed their biggest lead at 60-38.
After Virginia took a 62-40 advantage on a Vander Plas jumper with 9:38 to go, Bears freshman Keyonte George scored eight points in a 13-2 Bears run that allowed them to challenge at 64-53 with 7:39 remaining.
From that point, the Cavaliers were 19-of-22 from the free throw line as many of those came from the Bears needing Virginia to miss free throws.
Virginia finished the game with 25-of-45 made shots which included 13-of-20 in the second half. The Cavaliers finished 9-of-14 from the three-point line while the Bears were 11-of-26.
Three other Cavaliers followed Franklin in double figures as Kadin Shedrick was 6-of-6 from the floor with 17 points with Vander Plas scoring 14 and Reece Beekman totaling 10.
George led the Bears with 20 while LJ Cryer and Adam Flagler accounted for 19 and 15 points with Caleb Lohner adding 11.