UVA junior guard Justin Anderson didn’t score in his two ACC Tournament games this week, going 0-for-6 from the field and missing the front end of a 1-and-1 in 26 minutes in the two games.
He did show some signs of the old Anderson, recording a highlight-reel block on a breakaway alley-oop dunk and nearly bringing down the house on a tip-dunk attempt that rolled off the rim.
“Yeah, it’s rust. I mean, it’s time. How many minutes did he play? He played 14, yesterday, played 12. He looked like a little better defensively, and we’re going to need him. So I thought those were important minutes that he got. I wish he could have gotten a bucket to go in whether a free throw or not,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said.
Anderson had come into the tournament as UVA’s second leading scorer, averaging 13.4 points per game. He missed five weeks of action with a broken finger suffered in Virginia’s Feb. 7 win over Louisville and an emergency appendectomy that delayed his expected return last week.
The numbers being what they were, Bennett was glad to see Anderson back out on the court.
“He certainly brought some passion and some heart. It was nice to see him. How many rebounds did he have? He had a couple of rebounds. I thought he was a little better today than he was yesterday or tonight than yesterday,” Bennett said.
– Story by Chris Graham
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