Bennett shows faith in Virginia first-years, which should pay dividends down the road

Virginia coach Tony Bennett played a hunch late in the Cavaliers’ 94-87 win over KK Mega Basket on Friday, going with a lineup of young guys down the stretch.

“There’s times when you saw, well, this is new to them, going against, you know, some seven-footers and guys running good stuff. But we did a big film session before we ate, and the guys actually adjusted pretty well to what we did the day before,” said Bennett, who got big minutes out of first-year Isaac McKneely (15 points), Isaac Traudt (eight points, four rebounds) and Leon Bond (five points), and second-year Taine Murray (six points).

Bennett was particularly impressed with McKneely, a 6’4” shooting guard, who he said “showed some really good stuff, he banged some shots. And we need that, you know. When we can stretch the floor a little bit, that changes everything.”

McKneely talked about the bounceback effort, a day after KK Mega Basket had plastered UVA, 92-73.

“They got us good yesterday, they punched us in the mouth, I think it was like twenty, twenty-some, so we just knew we had to get revenge on them,” McKneely said. “Of course nobody likes losing, so we just came out today, kind of we watched some film earlier on and changed our game plan a little bit, and it worked out for us. We’re just a team full of warriors, and we refuse to lose, and we just kept our faith throughout it all and came out with the win.”

McKneely said Bennett’s confidence in the young guys in the second OT “really means a lot.”

“We’ve been working hard in practice, putting in extra work and stuff like that, so the fact that he trusts us to be in the game in a situation like that really means a lot, and I think our freshman class should have a big impact and be able to work in some minutes this year,” McKneely said.

It also meant more to get the win over the loaded KK Mega Basket roster, which is full of top college and NBA prospects.

“To play against, I mean, some of those kids are pros, some of them are our age, just to get to get to experience that, that’s just a blessing, this is what you work for,” McKneely said. “These are the kinds of games, the first two games, you know, we won by like 50 and 30, I don’t like those games. I’d rather be in a game like this where it’s close and we have to work.”