Virginia improved to 2-0 on its tour of Italy with a 71-41 win over Orange1 Basket Bassano in Florence on Monday, which is all the more impressive when you consider what the team did before the game.
It’s 463 steps to the top of the city’s most famous church, the Duomo.
Yeah, they walked to the top, on game day.
“I know, for one, my legs are gone, so I know theirs were,” said associate head coach Jason Williford, who subbed in as the head coach for Tony Bennett.
No pressure there.
“My youngest, Cameron, said you better not lose this one, dad, so I think I answered the bill,” said Williford, a 1995 UVA alum who has been on Bennett’s staff since Day 1.
As far as stats go, there were three guys in double-figures Monday, all bigs – Isaac Traudt had 19 points, Kadin Shedrick 12, Francisco Caffaro 11.
Taine Murray had six points and four assists, and Kihei Clark had five points, five assists and four steals.
Don’t get too excited. Orange1 Basket Bassano is a prep team with a roster of 16- to 19-year-old guys trying to get D1 college looks.
There’s talent there, but they’re developmental guys.
“It was good to see different guys out there,” Williford said. “Kihei got a chance to play, Papi got a chance to play, so it was good to see those guys. I thought we were good defensively, our ball pressure was good, especially Kihei on ball. But towards the end, there were few lapses, little carelessness with the ball, some silly turnovers. Those things can’t happen.
“This is a good young team. Those kids play hard,” Williford said. “But I think our guys have to be better and finish better. But for the most part, still getting great looks at the young guys, the first-year guys, I thought Traudt did a tremendous job going through the offensive glass and being aggressive that way. And then you know, our ball screen D was good. We did a couple of different things. But for the most part, it was good.”
Traudt, one of the four members of the heralded 2022 recruiting class, had a nice all-around game, adding six rebounds, three assists and two steals in the win.
“The coaches told me before I needed to hit the offensive boards because I didn’t do that last time. And then once I started doing that, you know, we got some boards, got some shots in the in the hole. And then I started getting more confident and just felt more comfortable out there,” said Traudt, who had eight points, four rebounds and three steals in Virginia’s 76-24 win over another overmatched Italian foe, Stella Azzura Basketball Academy, on Saturday in Rome.
Other nice statlines from the opener: Shedrick had 13 points and seven boards, first-year Leon Bond III had 10 points, four rebounds and two blocked shots, junior point guard Reece Beekman had nine points, seven assists and five rebounds, and first-year Ryan Dunn had nine points and seven rebounds.
“I thought they tried to do things the right way, our young men did,” Bennett said after the win in the opener. “And you saw some good things, but just an opportunity to, you know, play, see if some of the things were going to stick that we worked on. And I thought they did a solid job, all things considered.”
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Chris Graham
