You knew about Sam Hauser, of course Jay Huff. You’d heard about Trey Murphy III, but didn’t know if he would play for #4 Virginia this season.
The program confirmed early Wednesday that Murphy had received a waiver from the NCAA that would allow him to suit up, and then he went and dropped 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor, 6-of-8 on threes, in an 89-54 ‘Hoos win over Towson in Bubbleville at the Mohegan Sun.
It really was that late in the process.
“We found out last night, right before our practice, that Trey had received his waiver and would be able to play, and we were very excited for him,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said.
Murphy had transferred from Rice in the spring with the idea in mind that he would take the 2020-2021 year as a redshirt year, but as the preseason started to play out, he approached Bennett about trying to play this season.
The late request obviously pushed things in terms of him getting in for the opener.
Murphy said Bennett pulled him aside before practice Tuesday and told him the good news.
“When Coach told me, I started smiling ear-to-ear. You couldn’t see it, because I was in my mask,” said Murphy, who got 18
Hauser (19 points, 7-of-9 FG, 8 rebounds) and Huff (14 points, 6-of-8 FG, 4 rebounds, 3 blocks) did what you would have expected.
A Hauser three sent Virginia into the halftime break up 42-19.
Towson actually cut the margin to 15 early in the second half, but a 22-0 run over a 5:57 stretch of the second half put the game away.
Virginia shot 55.6 percent from the field (35-of-63) and connected on 15-of-29 from long-range (51.7 percent).
The 2019-2020 ‘Hoos shot 50 percent or better from the floor just three times and averaged 57.0 points per game, ranking 351st out of the 353 teams in D1.
Story by Chris Graham
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