That first morning you wake up and snow is falling from the heavens, your mother probably told you to wear a scarf so you wouldn’t catch cold. Otherwise, you might have a night like Sean Singletary experienced last night against the Syracuse Orange.
In life, there are certain facts. The sky is blue. Dirt is brown. Sean Singletary makes free throws. In fact, the preseason All-American had made 22 straight heading into Tuesday, missing only three on the year. Due to illness, however, Singletary ended the night 3-14 from the field, and a shocking 2-8 at the line, as Virginia was handed only its second loss in the history of JPJ Arena, 70-68 to Syracuse.
Singletary, like many players on the team, has been battling health problems all this week. At halftime, Singletary was injected with an IV in his shooting arm. After the break, he went 1-8 from the floor, airballing a three-pointer and missing 5 consecutive free throws.
“Coming out of halftime during warm ups, he didn’t look like himself,” freshman forward Mike Scott said. “When he was shooting his free throws I could see a look in his face. They were good misses but he wasn’t shooting his regular shot.”
Syracuse
certainly did not help matters. With Virginia lacking a formidable inside presence, the
Orange
were able to extend their zone and hound Singletary all night long.
“We’ve played zone against a lot of very good shooting guards in our past history and we try to keep somebody near them there all the time. Where he [Sean Singletary] is we try and have somebody there,”
Syracuse
coach Jim Boeheim said. “We didn’t want Singletary to get into a rhythm; I thought that was a big key to the game. It was important to always have someone on him and our guys did that.”
While Singletary’s shot suffered he still did a good job getting other people involved with nine assists. Most of those assists came to his fellow captain Adrian Joseph. The senior wingman finished with his third double-double of the season with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Most of those dimes also came at critical points in the game. At one point, Singletary was able to throw a laser beam of a pass to Joseph right underneath the basket where he laid it in and made the score 23-24, as part of an 8-0 run that gave Virginia the lead and brought the crowd to its feet.
Virginia
shot only 5-16 in the first nine minutes but shot 8-14 to end the half with a seven-point lead and a lot of momentum.
The second half was a different story; the Cavaliers three-point shooting prowess eluded them, and it led to a 12-2 Syracuse run.
“We had a lapse in terms of our game plan and our aggression,”
Virginia
coach Dave Leitao. “You can’t do that against good teams. It’ll cost you. They got deep into our defense for a majority of the second half. We hadn’t given that up until that point.”
Still, all was not lost. Singletary, despite being physically drained, delivered a powerful play. After a missed shot by Syracuse guard Eric Devendorf, Singletary grabbed the rebound and flew down the court, and was fouled by freshman guard Jonny Flynn. The ball bounced on the rim a few times and dropped to tie the game at 56-56. Singletary finally looked like himself after the timeout when he smoothly hit the free throw to give
Virginia
the lead back with only to go.
However, not even a healthy Singletary could have stopped
Orange
freshman Donte Green. Green looked every bit like a man destined for the pros next season. He made the second half his own personal highlight reel. His mammoth dunk, his two three-pointers to hush the crowd and his incredible wingspan for rebounding was something that no
Virginia
player could really match up well against.
“Green is long and he has a touch,” Leitao said. “He’s not a blow by guy, so you think maybe you can put a smaller, quick defender on him, but he just uses his length to shoot over you.”
Green finished the game with a game-high 20 points, 15 of which came in the second half. His fellow freshman Jonny Flynn contributed 18 points, and in a very hostile environment went 6-6 at the line. While one NBA point guard prospect looked down on the ground gasping for air, the other one calmly sank two free throws in front of a raucous crowd in the closing minute of the game to give the
Orange
a three-point lead. Clutch free-throw shooting is something
Virginia
fans are used to seeing, but this time the script was reversed.
“We really defended the free throw line tonight,” Boeheim joked. “We have a freshman at the end of the game with a one and one. I thought he came up big tonight.”
In the end,
Virginia
fans were left with a puzzling result. Their superman appeared to have had a bad run-in with some Kryptonite, and they left the John Paul Jones Arena with just the second loss in the history of the building. Both losses were by a combined three points. The Stanford Cardinal and Syracuse Orange both used a strong inside presence to win those games. If
Virginia
wants to avoid a similar fate this season, they must do everything in their power to cultivate some kind of inside game.
“As good as a perimeter shooting team we are, against a team that plays 40 minutes of zone defense, we started settling for shots,” Leitao said. “There were a lot of possessions that we settled, especially early in the game, we just settled for a shot. Instead of being a 20, 22-footer, it ended up being a 25-footer, which is longer than we normally take.”
Virginia
will try to get back on track later this week. Fortunately for the Cavaliers it is exactly what the doctor ordered: the Longwood Lancers. Singletary and company will hope for a much better performance heading into exam break.
“It happens to everyone,” Joseph said. “You lose games and you win games. You just have to bounce back from games, learn from your mistakes and move forward.”
