Wright, Cavaliers Outlast The Mount 65-55
Sunday, December 21 2008 by Tim
Well, it certainly wasn’t pretty, but Monica Wright and the #15 Virginia Cavaliers Women’s Basketball team outlasted a scrappy Mount St. Mary’s squad to win 65-55.
Wright’s 27 points was the most of all players on the court and was actually more than any other two players combined. She also contributed three rebounds, four assists and three steals in a team-high 33 minutes of action. Lyndra Littles, playing in only her second game of the season, notched a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
At various times throughout the game, these two players just seems to take over the contest.
Midway through the first half, with Virginia trailing 12-17, Wright (Pictured right) went on a tear, scoring 11 of Virginia’s final 15 points of the half. Her final two points came on a buzzer beater fade-away eerily reminiscent of Sylven Landesberg’s play earlier in the week for the men. That run gave the Cavaliers a 27-23 lead going into halftime with Wright having scored two-thirds (18) of Virginia’s points.
Monica wasn’t doing it all herself, however. On several occasions, particularly in the second half, she made some very nice passes inside to both Chelsea Shine and Lyndra Littles (Pictured right). Shine had some trouble getting the ball into the net, but Littles had no such trouble. She was able to post up strong and get some points in the paint. She was also very frequently found under the basket grabbing a rebound on both offense and defense. It wasn’t quite as flashy of a game as she had last time, starting five for five, but it was a solid performance that earned her the 29th double-double of her career. She’s currently in 7th place for career double-doubles, but needs only four more to move into sole possession of 3rd place behind Wendy Palmer (58) and Cathy Grimes (42).
Those were the highlights… but there were several lowlights as well.
Virginia shot only 37% for the game, including just 12% from three. They also only hit 60% of their free throws. Their three point defense was a little iffy as The Mount regularly had open shots and they made them enough to keep things interesting – only 3 for 12 in the first half but 3 for 7 in the second half.
Chelsea Shine, starting her second game in the 5 spot for Aisha Mohammed, didn’t have a great day. She was 0-2 from the floor and tallied just two points and two rebounds. She never seemed to get into a rhythm, while other players like Lyndra Littles were more effective. This one should just be chalked up to a young player being forced to play out of position.
Shine, the Hartig sisters, Ariana Moorer and Kristen London were a combined 0-10 from the floor. One player who made a significant score was Britny Edwards who got her first points of her career notching a field goal and a free throw as well as four rebounds in just 13 minutes of play. “It was exciting. I’ve been waiting for a chance to get in and help my teammates as much as I could,” she said after the game.
The energy level from Virginia in this game was just not there. There were a few players playing really hard and several others who were not. Debbie Ryan summed it up nicely after the game when she said “I had four players that really gave me some effort at all times and even though they might make a mistake or two, that’s okay. The rest of the team I didn’t feel that strong about.” That’s what it looked like from the bleachers, too. Hopefully they get that lethargy out of them over the Christmas break and are ready to go on Sunday for the Cavalier Classic.
The Cavaliers return to action on Sunday at 4:30pm against Rider in the second game of the Marriott Cavalier Classic. Louisiana Tech plays UMBC earlier in the day. The losers of the two games play on Monday at 4:30pm and the winners play at 7pm.
I put some pictures up over in the photo gallery. I took these from the baseline instead of my season ticket seats, so some of them turned out a lot better. I’ve also updated the “Monica and Lyndra Tracker” to reflect their 27 and 11 points respectively.