Oregon comes to Charlottesville for a Friday-night TV tilt with Virginia with a 7-3 record that includes a narrow loss to Missouri and a blowout loss to Duke. More on UVa. coach Tony Bennett’s mind is that the Ducks have played two games since the ‘Hoos last played back on Dec. 7.
“They’ll be a little more match-ready, from that standpoint,” said Bennett, whose squad is wrapping its exam break on Friday, literally coming down to the wire before the 8 p.m. tip.
“We have, I think, three or four guys taking finals on Friday, the day of the game, at 2 o’clock,” said Bennett, whose team’s last outing wasn’t one that anybody would want to hang a hat on.
Virginia limped home to a 54-44 win over Radford in that one, two nights after upsetting ACC in-state foe Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. The win was the fourth in five games for Virginia, with wins in that streak over Oklahoma, then-13th-ranked Minnesota and preseason Top 25 Virginia Tech in that stretch.
Bennett has to hope that the growth of his young team, which features five freshmen logging significant minutes, doesn’t backslide due to the game inactivity.
“At practice, you just try to keep pushing. Certainly get in some game situations, because you haven’t played for a while. … You just make the most of it,” Bennett said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at [email protected].
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