Men's Basketball Feature/News Articles 2018-2019 - Amazon S3

Men’s Basketball
Feature/News Articles
     2018-2019

No. 3 UVA bounces back by blasting Wake Forest
By Mike Barber, Richmond Times-Dispatch
January 23, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE – Virginia basketball delivered a first-round knockout Tuesday. Unlike boxing,
the rules of college basketball forced Wake Forest to keep taking punches the rest of the night.
Showing no hangover from Saturday’s two-point loss at Duke, No. 3 U.Va. raced out to a 20-point lead
midway through the first half en route to a 68-45 blowout of the Demon Deacons at John Paul Jones
Arena, its 12th straight home victory.
“Not the start we wanted to get off to,” Wake Forest coach Danny Manning said. “Virginia came out and
did some really good things offensively, made some tough shots. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We
can’t come out and start games the way we started today. It put us in too far and great of a hole.”
Junior guard Kyle Guy led five Cavaliers in double figures, finishing with 12. Along the way, Guy scored
the 1,000th point of his college career.
Sophomore forward Jay Huff also scored 12. Sophomore forward Mamadi Diakite scored the first seven
points of the game and finished with 11, as did sophomore wing De’Andre Hunter. Junior guard Ty
Jerome added 10.
It’s the seventh time this season they’ve held an opponent under 50 points.
The Cavaliers (17-1, 5-1 ACC) were the last remaining undefeated team in the country before suffering
their first setback Saturday, 72-70 at Duke.
“How were we going to respond?” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “We responded the right way,
really the right way.”
In Tuesday’s bounce-back effort, they never trailed, led 25-5 midway through the first half and pushed
their margin to 32-9 with 5:50 left until the break before Wake Forest could get anything going.
The Demon Deacons (8-10, 1-5) ended the half on a 14-4 run, getting two 3-pointers apiece during that
stretch from Sharone Wright Jr. and Brandon Childress. They went to the locker room down 36-23, but
things got worse after the break.
U.Va., which plays at Notre Dame on Saturday, led by as many as 24 in the second half.
“I think they were off and we were really right,” Bennett said. “Once they got their footing under them
then it became a little more of a game.”

UVa men’s basketball: No. 4 Cavs suffer first loss of season at No. 1 Duke
By Doug Doughty, The Roanoke Times
January 19, 2019
DURHAM, N.C. — Virginia’s reign as the only unbeaten team in Division I men’s basketball lasted for
about six hours Saturday.
In a game that was marked by 15 lead changes, top-ranked Duke held off No. 4 Virginia 72-70 at
Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The Cavaliers and Michigan were the last two unbeaten Division I men’s teams before the Wolverines
lost at Wisconsin earlier in the day.
Duke (15-2, 4-1 ACC) entered Saturday’s game as a 3 1/2-point favorite and the Cavaliers (16-1, 4-1) had
the lead for a total of just over 3 1/2 minutes.
The final score was somewhat misleading, given that Duke led 69-61 before Virginia went on a 9-3 run to
end the game.
A Ty Jerome field goal with 9:49 left had given the Cavaliers a 54-53 lead but they missed 10 of their
next 11 shots from the field.
In the end, Virginia did not shoot poorly (52.8 percent) from the field, but it was at the other end that the
Cavaliers did not live up to their normal standards.
Duke shot 51 percent from the field against a Virginia defense that had allowed opponents to shoot 37
percent from the field, which ranked the Cavaliers fourth nationally in that category.
The Blue Devils were only 2 of 14 on 3-point attempts but were 24 of 37 inside the arc.
Duke boasts the projected top two picks in the NBA Draft in freshmen Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett
and they lived up to their press clippings.
Barrett was 11 of 19 from the field and finished with a game-high 30 points. Williamson, listed at 6-foot-
7 and 285 pounds, had 27 points and a game-high nine rebounds.
“We’re a solid defensive team but tonight we were not solid enough,” UVa coach Tony Bennett said.
“Sixty-three percent ... is that what they shot in the second half?
“I know they’re a good team, but we need to be better than that.”
 The Blue Devils were without their starting point guard, freshman Tre Jones, who had suffered a
shoulder injury Monday night in a 95-91 overtime loss to visiting Syracuse.
Ball handling didn’t appear to be a problem for Duke, credited with only six assists on its 26 field goals.
Much of the Blue Devils’ offense consisted of Williamson and Barrett driving to the basket.
Virginia finished with four double-figure scorers, led by De’Andre Hunter with 18 points. Guards Kyle
Guy and Jerome had 14 points apiece, and Braxton Key had 11 points and six rebounds off the bench.
At various points in the evening, the so-called Cameron Crazies tried to rattle Virginia with chants of
“UMBC, UMBC.”
That was a reference to the Cavaliers’ 74-54 loss to Maryland-Baltimore County in the first round of the
2018 NCAA Tournament.
UMBC was the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed and spectators Saturday were offered copies of the
Wednesday edition of the Duke student newspaper, which included foot-high UMBC letters in Duke-blue
colors.
The chants never came up in post-game interviews with Bennett and the UVa players.
“I think we need to find ways to win when the shots aren’t going in,” said Guy, who was 2 for 7 on 3-
point attempts when the rest of the team was 1 for 10.
“Coach Bennett said we’re probably going to be frustrated when we watch the film. As good as they
played and as bad as we played, it was our game to lose and we let it happen.”
A pair of free throws by Barrett gave Duke a 71-66 lead with 20 seconds left and it was all Virginia could
do to make it a two-point game on a Hunter jump shot at the buzzer.

Duke, a 65-63 loser to UVa at Cameron last year, will head to Virginia for a second meeting with the
Cavaliers this year on Feb. 9.
“What are we, 24-2, in the last two years in the ACC?” Guy said. “We’ll just be fine. We’ll bounce back
from this. I’m definitely excited about playing them again but we’ve got Wake Forest on Tuesday.”

Ever-driven, Ty Jerome is shrewdly fueling the bounce-back at Virginia
By Dana O’Neil, The Athletic
January 17, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — He can’t even remember what the argument was over. Something minor,
of that he’s certain. All Ty Jerome knows is he needed to be right, to be vindicated and above all else, to
win. This is how he is wired — you play to win. Win games, win drills, and yes, win arguments, which is
why, on that recent afternoon in the Virginia weight room, he kept going. “Snapping and snapping and
snapping,’’ is how he remembers it, until strength and conditioning coach Mike Curtis finally pulled him
aside and told him enough.
Once Jerome would share this story with pride, convinced his incessant nagging was proof of his
dedication and ability to motivate others. Now, as he plops into a seat just off the Cavaliers’ practice
floor, the junior cringes in the retelling. With the graduation of Isaiah Wilkins and Devon Hall, Jerome
knew this would be his team to lead. He assumed it would be easy, that his own ferocious drive would
translate with everyone on the team. Recall it was Jerome who offered the soul-burning death glare when,
immediately after Virginia’s historic NCAA Tournament loss to UMBC last March, a reporter foolishly
asked if he was aware that a 16-seed had never beaten a 1-seed. “I think everyone is aware of it,” he
replied from the dais. “Thanks for bringing it up again, though.’’ Who better to turn the Cavaliers’
anguish into anger?
Instead Jerome stumbled into what he calls “the biggest challenge of my career,’’ discovering that he who
barks loudest doesn’t necessarily lead best. “You’ve got to talk differently to different people,’’ he says.
“I had no idea how hard it would be to change your words and your tone depending on who you’re
speaking with, and to manage my temper.’’
That Virginia is ranked fourth, undefeated at 16-0 and stomping opponents by an average of 22.6 points
per game is proof that Jerome has found the delicate balance more often than not.
Ty Jerome comes by it all naturally, this inner hunger and confusion with those who don’t motor as he
does. Mark Jerome tucked a basketball like it was a pillow in his first son’s crib and raised him to play,
even exist, with an edge. Mark believed there was no other way in New York City, especially on the
basketball courts. Someone is always waiting in the wings — bigger, stronger, faster, fresher — and the
only way to protect your space is to compete. That’s how Mark came up. Naturally coordinated, one of
those kids who could grab a tennis racket for the first time and instantaneously be a decent player, he was
a pretty good basketball player, but such athletes are more prevalent than pigeons in New York. Mark
decided he would separate himself by pushing himself, trying to will a great player into existence.
Eventually he learned the hard lesson that want only gets a man so far, and his took him to a one-year
career at Lafayette College.
But when Ty came along, it was like being handed a do-over. Mark yearned for what every parent yearns
for — better for his child — and he poured all of his life lessons into his son. Ty learned to compete at
everything (to this day board games are war games, a summer backgammon series including trash-talking
and rule-breaking), his father always signing him to play up in age, certain the older players would make
him tougher and thereby better.
By the time Ty was old enough to play on organized teams, Mark was running them, serving as the
executive director of the Riverside Church program. Once the standard bearer for grassroots basketball
programs, Riverside Church counted a who’s who of New York talent among its alumni — Kenny
Anderson, Ron Artest, Elton Brand, Malik Sealy and Adrian Autry — and its director, Ernie Lorch, was
the man every college coach needed to know. But in 2002 Lorch was accused of sexually abusing a
former player and barred from Riverside Church. Charges were never filed because of the statute of
limitations, but the program fell apart. In 2005, “for better or worse,” Mark took over as director and
coached Ty.
Mark is the first to admit he’s not easy to play for, struggling to grasp the fact that he can’t simply force
someone to play harder. He never had to worry about effort with his own son. Ty worked and tried and
competed, just as he was taught. But fueled by that burning desire to elevate his son, Mark set the bar so
high that Ty could never reach it. “I would say, if child’s support was at my games, they might have taken
me away,’’ Ty says, mostly joking. “It was bad, the yelling, all of it.’’ By then Mark and Ty’s mother,
Melanie Walker, had split up, and more often than not, Ty would bolt from the gym and into Melanie’s
car, sobbing to get him home and away from his dad.

What Ty didn’t realize was that many a night Mark went home in tears himself. “Worse than regret,’’ he
says. “And he wasn’t with me. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t talk to him.’’ Looking back now, Mark is
ashamed of how he behaved. He wanted it so badly for Ty that he let his dreams cloud his expectations.
Ty was an intuitive player, years of watching games and film with his father honing defensive skills
usually lost on teenagers, but Mark demanded more. “I wanted him to be tough and hard because in New
York City, the environment is so intense,’’ Mark says. “But my expectations — do what these guys who
are two or three years older are doing — were so unfair and so unrealistic. It was so wrong. He handled it
all a lot better than me.’’
It all came to a head when Ty was starting the eighth grade. For years Ty did what his father told him,
assuming he was maximizing all of his potential, but he also realized he was plateauing. “I was good but I
wasn’t consistent,” Ty says. “I was an OK shooter, but not a really good shooter. My dad basically told
me that I was either going to work every day and try and be really good or that was it. I made a decision
to do it.’’ Finally on the same page, father and son became a tag team, Mark learning how to criticize
constructively and Ty able to better appreciate the suggestions.
The shared dream took root and by the end of his sophomore summer, Ty blossomed into a coveted
recruit, following up a 12-point, three-assist season at Iona Prep with an even better summer circuit.
Virginia coach Tony Bennett came calling early, ending the recruiting game before it started. Bennett
loved Ty’s basketball smarts but recognized — and appreciated — his fire too. “I totally get it,” Bennett
says. “I am the same way. Every pillar of our program goes out the window with me when you’re talking
Ping-Pong or something. No scruples. I will do what I have to do to win.’’ Ty committed before his junior
season and by the midpoint of his senior year, he was averaging 24 points, eight rebounds and five assists
and on the short list for New York player of the year.
Then he finally ran headlong into something he couldn’t simply overcome with hard work. In January of
his senior year, Ty was diagnosed with a torn labrum and a misshaped ball socket in his right hip. Further
tests revealed similar issues in his left hip. He could have played through it and finished his senior year,
but instead, he decided to shut things down in order to keep his college career on track. The post-surgery
recovery took six months, the first three without any kind of basketball. “I was miserable,’’ he says.
“Basketball was always an escape, like a gift for me.’’ Stunningly, a player raised to push the envelope
did not overdo his rehab, obeying for the most part the orders of the doctors and the physical therapists. “I
knew what was at stake,’’ he says. “I wanted to play at Virginia.’’
His hips healthy, Ty all but sauntered onto the Cavaliers’ roster. His teammates certainly respected him,
but he wasn’t always easy to like. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let anything go, coming off like a New York
tough guy cut straight from some film room. “He’d flat out go at guys,’’ Bennett says. Even last year he
was a contented pot-stirrer. He partnered with Wilkins to work on giving the Cavaliers an edge, both
knowing that Hall was there to keep the peace. But with the graduation of his running mate and, not to
mention, the mountain of misery Virginia had to get over, Bennett challenged Ty to find a way to push
without going too far. “I wanted him to understand there’s a feel,’’ Bennett says “That burning hot, that’s
what makes him so good, but it doesn’t always work with everyone else.’’
Ty is the first to admit he’s not perfect — evidenced by the silly argument in the weight room — but he
believes he’s getting better. At the end of an otherwise innocuous drill at a recent practice, he and his
teammates announced how many shots they had made. It becomes clear that Ty not only had counted his
own makes, but he had kept track of everyone else’s as well. When freshman Kody Stattmann suggests he
might have sunk more than him, Ty challenges the total, stopping short of straight up calling BS. That he
stopped short, well, that’s a sign of progress.
And he’s learned to appreciate, for example, that just because fellow junior Kyle Guy is more laid back
and prone to laughing and smiling on the court, doesn’t mean he wants to win any less. He also has come
to appreciate that not everyone needs to act like a feral cat to feel motivated. “I still like to keep the
energy high,’’ Ty says. “I’ve just found a better way to do it.’’
Mark has as well. These days, he is a regular in the stands, and father and son speak after almost every
game, constructively breaking down Ty’s play. “We always critique,” Ty says. “But I want to hear it
now.”
Outsiders, of course, would argue that Virginia should not want for motivation. The loss to UMBC,
seemingly, should be enough. Ty dismisses the simplicity of that. Nothing the Cavaliers do this season

will erase what they failed to do at the end of last year. Instead, the goal is to be better — better at each
practice, better in each game.
Which is why, at the end of practice, as everyone else filters out the door, Ty stands at a side hoop and
shoots. He started the ritual years ago, setting a goal to knock down 9 of 10 3-pointers before hitting the
showers. There have been days it has taken 30 minutes and times when he’s had to go in for a film session
before returning to realize his goal. This does not sit well with Ty, who may have learned how to play
nice with others but is never going to satisfy himself. “If it takes me a while, I’ll get mad and think about
it all night,’’ he says. “I mean, I’m never going to change entirely. I couldn’t if I wanted to.’’

UVA’s De’Andre Hunter has moved past what-ifs of last year to help ignite this season’s offense
By Mike Barber, Richmond Times-Dispatch
January 17, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE — As a freshman last basketball season, De’Andre Hunter was named the ACC’s
sixth man of the year and learned his name had been popping up on NBA draft boards.
But it’s the major what-ifs from the end of his rookie season that overshadowed so much of what he
accomplished.
What if Hunter had not have fractured his left wrist driving to the rim against Clemson in the conference
tournament semifinals?
Would the Cavaliers still have been upset by UMBC in the first round of the NCAA tournament,
becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16? They were largely unable to keep pace with the
Retrievers’ small and fast lineup, against which they could have used Hunter.
If he hadn’t been injured, would Hunter have turned pro? Some NBA draft experts were projecting him as
a first-round pick if he came out as a one-and-done, but the injury late in the year largely shelved that talk.
Hunter tries not to look back. He calls missing the NCAA tournament game “tough” and doesn’t spend
much time thinking about what might have been for his pro future.
“Looking back on it, I know it was possible,” Hunter said of being a one-and-done. “You could say, ‘If I
did play, if I didn’t play?’ Who knows?”
Nor will the Philadelphia native commit to saying that this season will be his last in college. He’s
averaging 14.4 points and 5.3 assists for the No. 4 Cavaliers (16-0, 4-0 ACC), both second on the team,
going into Saturday’s game at No. 1 Duke (13-2, 3-1).
“I try not to think about it,” Hunter said. “I just want to enjoy the games with my teammates. If I do play
well enough to be lucky enough to leave, then so be it, but I’m not playing every game like I won’t be
here next year.”
Instead, he’s played every game like the team’s most versatile and talented player. At 6-foot-7, with the
ability to shoot, drive and post up, Hunter will — eventually — join the line of recent NBA pros from
Virginia that includes Malcolm Brogdon, Justin Anderson and Joe Harris.
In Tuesday night’s 81-59 undressing of No. 9 Virginia Tech, Hunter scored a game-high 21 points.
“He was so complete tonight,” U.Va. coach Tony Bennett said after the win. “He scored in the post. He
turned and faced. He drove. He played some three, handled the ball well. Played some four, the forward
spot for us. I thought his versatility was on full display.”
Hunter earned similar reviews from the opposing bench.
“I think he’s a great straight-line driver,” Hokies coach Buzz Williams said. “I think his game has
continued to maybe expand relative to his comfortability from 15 feet and out. I thought he was incredibly
effective, not only away from the basket, but he’s also comfortable right around the basket, playing in
traffic. He can finish at the rim.”
And Virginia has learned how to mesh Hunter’s myriad talents with the play of junior guards Ty Jerome
and Kyle Guy to help transform its offense from an afterthought that complemented its always gold-
standard defense, to a force in its own right.
The Cavaliers rank fourth in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency according to the college basketball
analysis website KenPom.com. (They rank second nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency.)
“It’s a little bit of pick your poison,” Williams said. “I don’t think there’s necessarily ever a nonshooter or
nonoffensive player on the floor. … They’re doing more than they’ve done in the past. I think that utilizes
that talent in different ways.”
Saturday, Virginia’s offense and defense will face its stiffest challenge to date, playing the Blue Devils at
Cameron Indoor Stadium.
While past meetings between the league powers have been billed as Virginia’s system against Duke’s
talent, Bennett’s club has noticeably closed some of that talent gap. Hunter stands at the forefront of that
effort.

“Athletically, he matches up with anybody,” said ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who will call
Saturday’s game. “He’s an NBA first-round draft pick. He’s legit. That dude can play.”

Write of passage: Former Albemarle star Austin Katstra achieves longtime goal of being a UVa
scholarship player
By Josh Needelman, The Daily Progress
January 16, 2019
Putting sharpie to his bedroom wall, Austin Katstra brought his biggest goal to life.
The Charlottesville native had scribbled other goals across his cream-colored wall, alongside some
inspirational quotes, imitating a practice of former Virginia guard Joe Harris.
But one message stood above the rest, so Katstra inscribed it on a sliver of wall next to his door when he
was a sophomore at Albemarle High School. It was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes in the
morning, the last thing he saw before he left his room:
Scholarship to big D-I school.
High school came and went with no offers, though. He attended Virginia as a preferred walk-on,
appearing in 10 games as a freshman and seven more this season before the calendar year flipped over.
On Jan. 1, he jotted down his top nine goals for 2019 and taped the paper to his apartment wall. No. 1
looked familiar:
Scholarship to big D-I school.
After rolling to a pair of road wins over Boston College and Clemson last week, the Cavaliers returned to
Charlottesville. Toward the end of practice on Sunday, Coach Tony Bennett called Katstra to the free-
throw line and bounced him the ball. “Come on, knock it down,” Bennett said.
Later, guard Kyle Guy would tell Katstra he thought Bennett had tipped his hand.
“No,” Katstra said. “I had no clue.”
Katstra sank his free throw and returned to his teammates on the sideline.
Then Bennett took one step in his direction.
“That was a big free throw,” Bennett said, jabbing his finger toward Katstra. “You just got a scholarship.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, two videos of the reveal posted to Virginia’s official Twitter account had
generated a combined nearly 70,000 views. But first the moment was for the enjoyment of the Cavaliers
players, who jumped all over Katstra, patting his head, shouting. Student manager Grant Kersey, Katstra’s
former Albemarle High School teammate who has played in seven games this season, jumped into the
frame for the celebration.
The look on Katstra’s face stuck with Bennett.
“Those are the best things about coaching that I’ll never forget,” Bennett said.
Katstra’s ties to the program run deeper than most. His grandfather, Richard, played for the program from
1962-64, and his father, Dirk, did the same from 1988-91 and now serves as the executive director of the
Virginia Athletics Foundation. Katstra grew up a Wahoo.
Born in June of 1999, he was at UVa games later that fall. He attended his first ACC men’s basketball
tournament as a 9-month-old.
“He would sit there. He looked like he was watching,” Dirk said.
He carved his own legacy at Albemarle, leaving in 2017 as the program’s all-time leading scorer. He
started from his freshman season on, lifting the program to consecutive Class 5 state semifinals
appearances in his last two years. He even earned 2016-17 Virginia 5A Co-State Player of the Year
honors.
“The most outstanding thing he had was great hands,” Albemarle coach Greg Maynard said. “We could
run alley-oop passes from anywhere. If he got his hands on it, he would throw it down.”
Katstra received offers from a litany of Division II and Division III programs, but he couldn’t help but
compare the schools to Virginia. None measured up.
Bennett offered him a spot as a walk-on, but insisted that the work would not be glamorous. Dirk recalled
a meeting in the coach’s office.

“There may be days when you’re going up against Jack Salt and getting beaten up all day. How does that
sound?” Bennett asked.
“Sounds good to me,” Katstra said.
He didn’t stop thinking about a scholarship, though, with the idea powering him through working with the
scout team and warming the bench.
His profile grew this season. After earning 10 appearances last season, Katstra played a supporting role in
Kersey’s rise to stardom. When the student manager hit a 3-pointer against Coppin State on Nov. 16,
earning a spot on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays, astute observers pointed out that the assist came from
Katstra.
Kersey returned the favor two weeks later, assisting on Katstra’s dunk against Morgan State on Dec. 3.
The former high school teammates made more magic Dec. 31. With six seconds left in Virginia’s 100-64
win over Marshall, Kersey shoveled a pass to Katstra. His 3-pointer missed, but Kersey grabbed the
rebound and converted from behind the arc to beat the final buzzer.
“He’s my best friend,” Katstra said. “Being able to live through that with him, and him being able to live
through this with me, has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Katstra said he and Kersey often remind themselves to stay in the moment, to not take their current
situation for granted.
The sophomore ruminated on that idea Tuesday evening. His first game as a scholarship player doubled
as the Cavaliers’ most hyped home game of the season so far, with No. 9 Virginia Tech in town and sole
possession of first place in the ACC on the line.
Five minutes before the opening tip, Katstra paused and looked around. John Paul Jones Arena was
packed to the top. Music was thumping. And he was on the court, dressed in the uniform his father and
grandfather had worn before him. He had a thought:
“This is what college basketball is all about.”

Virginia bullies Virginia Tech, turning an anticipated showdown into a rout
By Gene Wang, Washington Post
January 15, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE — One of the most highly anticipated men’s basketball games in the
commonwealth of Virginia in decades featured surprisingly little drama: No. 4 Virginia surged to a
commanding lead in the first half on its way to an 81-59 win against No. 9 Virginia Tech on Tuesday
night.
In the first matchup with both schools ranked in the Associated Press top 10, Virginia got 21 points from
De’Andre Hunter and used three-point marksmanship along with its usual unforgiving defense to move
into first place alone in the ACC and remain one of two undefeated programs in Division I.
The Cavaliers (16-0, 4-0) shot 58.5 percent, including 13 for 24 from beyond the arc, to avenge an
overtime loss last season to Virginia Tech, also at John Paul Jones Arena, and stake their claim as perhaps
the best team in the country. They have won their first four ACC games by an average of more than 20
points.
“The scores and all that are a little overrated,” Virginia Coach Tony Bennett said in his typically humble
fashion. “We’re midway through or whatever we are in the season, but you’re early in the conference.
We’ve played well. We’ve shot it well and played well and defended pretty solid [in] our two home ACC
games. The league will test you, but obviously I like how we’ve withstood so far.”
Point guard Ty Jerome added 14 points and a career-high 12 assists before exiting to rousing applause
with 1:25 left in the second half. Kyle Guy chipped in 15 points, going 3 for 5 from beyond the arc.
In front of an announced crowd of 14,623, the closest Virginia Tech (14-2, 3-1) came in the second half
was 48-34 with 15:45 left. But the Cavaliers’ margin ballooned to 25 several minutes later after Braxton
Key made a three-pointer, Jerome tipped in his missed jumper and Guy made a pair of free throws.
Guy’s foul shots were the result of a technical foul assessed to Hokies guard Justin Robinson with 9:32
left. With Kihei Clark, who had a cast removed from his wrist this week, defending him for much of the
game, Robinson finished with nine points on 2-for-7 shooting, including 1 for 5 from beyond the arc.
Guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker led Virginia Tech with 19 points. Ahmed Hill (14 points) was the only
other Hokies player to score in double figures as Virginia Tech became the fourth ranked team to lose to
Virginia this season.
“It’s a little bit of pick your poison [against Virginia] because I don’t think that there’s necessarily ever a
non-shooter or a non-offensive player on the floor,” Virginia Tech Coach Buzz Williams said of the
Cavaliers. “They’re incredibly sound in what they do. They’re doing more than what they’ve done in the
past.”
This installment of the contentious rivalry known as the Commonwealth Clash featured the only two
undefeated programs in the mighty ACC after top-ranked Duke lost in overtime Monday night to visiting
Syracuse.
Virginia draws the Blue Devils on Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but the gravity of that
showdown, despite Duke’s national standing and storied tradition, remains several rungs below the
significance of facing the Hokies, who dealt the Cavaliers their only conference loss last season, 61-60 in
overtime.
That Virginia Tech has emerged as a viable contender for commonwealth supremacy has ratcheted up the
stakes in what historically has been a one-sided affair. The Cavaliers had won 91 of the 147 previous
meetings, but the teams had split the most recent six games, including two in overtime.
The upswing for the Hokies has coincided with the arrival of Williams. Since taking over five seasons
ago, Williams directed Virginia Tech to consecutive NCAA tournament appearances for the first time in
more than three decades. The Hokies are seeking a third straight NCAA tournament berth for the first
time in school history.
Their only loss through the first 15 games this season was a 63-62 stumble at Penn State. Virginia Tech
has thrived in many statistical categories, including ranking second in the ACC in scoring defense and
first in three-point shooting percentage.

The Cavaliers were second in defensive efficiency nationally through their first 15 games and shooting
47.4 percent, the highest mark under Bennett, as well as 39.8 percent from three-point range and 77.2
percent from the free throw line, both the best in school history.
Underscoring the magnitude of the game, fans packed the arena well before tip-off, with Virginia
supporters clapping and chanting, “Let’s go, Wahoos!” to all but drown out the voice of the public
address announcer during Virginia Tech player introductions.
Then the place erupted on the game’s first possession when Jerome delivered a one-handed pass to
Mamadi Diakite for an uncontested layup. Several minutes later, Jerome swished a three-pointer from the
corner and let the Hokies’ bench know about it while running back on defense.
Jerome scored or assisted on 11 of Virginia’s 17 first-half field goals as the Cavaliers forged a 44-22 lead
going into the locker room. The highly efficient first half for Virginia included making 10 of 14 three-
pointers and shooting 68 percent overall.
The final sequence of the first half also yielded a three-pointer when Clark collected a pass from Jerome
and swished a deep jumper from the right corner baseline in front of the Hokies’ bench as the buzzer
sounded.
“We punched them in the mouth,” Guy said, “and they fought back a little bit, and we just kept our foot
on the pedal.”

Huff helps No. 4 U.Va. blow past Clemson 63-43 for 12 straight ACC road win
                                                           th

By Norm Wood, Daily Press
January 12, 2019
Style points – or the lack thereof – weren’t a concern for Jay Huff when he bricked in a 3-pointer
Saturday afternoon at a crucial moment early in the second half of No. 4 Virginia’s 63-43 win
at Clemson.
One doesn’t quibble about aesthetics when an opportunity to log serious minutes at a significant stretch in
an Atlantic Coast Conference road game finally arises. It was Huff’s time to shine.
Huff chipped in with 11 points and seven rebounds in just 10 minutes off the bench while helping spark a
21-5 second-half run. U.Va. (15-0, 3-0 ACC), which was led by Kyle Guy’s 13 points and a typically
stout defensive effort, picked up its 12th consecutive ACC road victory — the fourth-longest such streak
in conference history.
U.Va. was clinging to a 32-28 edge when the 7-foot-1 Huff came into the game for the first time with
15:46 left, after starting center Jack Salt picked up his third foul.
A minute later, Huff took a pass from Ty Jerome near the top of key, immediately launched a 3-pointer
over the outstretched hand of forward Elijah Thomas and watched the shot bounce awkwardly off the
glass and the back of the rim before falling in the basket.
“It was an ugly one,” said Huff, a Durham, N.C., native whose teammates jumped off the bench and
applauded his 3-pointer. “I’d have been mad if I was guarding me and it went in like that. I would’ve been
pretty upset, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Huff, a redshirt sophomore who made 4 of 5 shots from the floor, went on to have seven points and five
rebounds in his first 6½ minutes in the game. His initial outburst accounted for the bulk of U.Va.’s
offense during its big second-half run that concluded with the Cavaliers leading 50-32 with less than 10
minutes left.
The fact Clemson (10-6, 0-3) was even in the game early in the second half was surprising, considering it
started the game by missing 15 of its first 16 shots from the floor. U.Va. connected on just 38.5 percent of
its field-goal attempts in the opening half, which ended with the Cavaliers up 27-21, and made 40.4
percent for the game.
Clemson shot 25.9 percent for the game — the worst percentage for the Tigers in Brad Brownell’s nine
seasons as coach. The last time they scored fewer than 43 points was Jan. 23 last year, when they lost 61-
36 at U.Va.
Guy scored all 13 of his points in the first half on 5-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-7 from 3-point range.
“I thought we rode Kyle’s hot hand early, but we didn’t give them a lot of good looks,” U.Va. coach Tony
Bennett said. “The lane was sealed. We had a trap early in the post. … I just thought there wasn’t a lot of
easy looks where we were behind the play as much as we were (in Wednesday night’s win)
against Boston College.”
In the second half, Guy only attempted four shots. His explanation for his post-halftime drought was
simple.
“They left everybody else open,” Guy said. “(De’Andre Hunter) and (Jerome) started getting buckets, and
Jay was on a roll.”
Hunter added 12 points — 10 in the second half — and seven rebounds, while Jerome had eight points —
all in the second half — and five assists. Braxton Key and Salt each had seven points and eight rebounds.
After U.Va. took its 18-point lead midway through the second half, Clemson never got within 16 the rest
of the way. Guard Marcquise Reed led Clemson with 14 points, but he was just 3-of-14 shooting from the
floor.
Huff came to U.Va. considered by most recruiting analysts one of the nation’s top 15 power forwards and
top 60 overall players in the class of 2016. After redshirting his first year on campus, he played
sporadically last season, getting in just 12 games and averaging 8.8 minutes per game.

He’s still trying to carve out a consistent role this season, but he’s already played in 12 games. He’s
averaging 4.8 points per game, while shooting 67 percent from the floor (21 of 31) and 55.6 percent from
3-point range (5 of 9).
“That’s what I like to think I can do pretty well — score,” Huff said.
Bennett was pleased with Huff but didn’t let him off the hook on his 3-pointer.
“I don’t know if he called glass on it,” said Bennett, whose team outrebounded Clemson 46-36. “It was a
big shot. Just his length and his size bothered some shots (defensively). … I thought we didn’t get off to a
great start (in the second half), and I challenged (forward) Mamadi (Diakite) and when Jack got in foul
trouble, I said, ‘I’m going to give Jay a look.’ That’s why you always stay ready.”

How a text changed this season for Braxton Key and Virginia
By Eamonn Brennan, The Athletic
January 9, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It was mid-April, about a month after the disastrous, unforgettable,
paradigm-shifting end to Virginia’s 2017-18 season, when the notification buzzed onto Kyle Guy’s lock
screen. Guy was still deep in his post-UMBC feelings, still furious about the way it all went down, still
months away from figuring out how someone so ferociously competitive is supposed to confront, in his
words, “my demons.”
The notification was a message. The sender was Braxton Key.
This was not completely unusual. The UVa guard and the Alabama forward had been friends since the
AAU prep circuit, when they’d roomed together at camps. There was a time, before Key fully spurned
UVa’s advances, when the nephew of UVa icon Ralph Sampson thought he and Guy might even suit up
together. Regardless, they’d stayed in touch, in the casual, weightless way of 20-year-old dudes with
demanding Division I schedules and hundreds of miles between them. In other words, a text from Key
was not, in and of itself, a drop-everything-and-break-out-the-siren-emojis type of event. Then Guy read
it.
Hey — do you think UVa would still be interested in me?
He responded immediately.
I’m working on it.
A day later, Alabama announced Key’s departure. With Guy’s notice, Tony Bennett was the first coach to
call. A month later, Bennett publicly revealed his new addition. A few months after that, Key’s transfer
waiver request to play this season would be approved by the NCAA.
It began with the texts, though, messages that mark the start of a winding, unlikely journey that delivered
Key to Saturday night, where the 6-foot-8 forward’s first signature performance in Charlottesville, Va.
helped make an unbeaten, No. 4-ranked, already hyper-efficient team look as though it’s only just
scratching its surface.
“Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come,” Bennett said. If it is, the rest of the ACC should be horrified.
In October, at ACC Media Day (or ACC Operation Basketball, if you’re nasty), Bennett gently cut off the
first question asked of him. The thrust was obvious, and he knew it was coming: Now that his roster
comprised fewer traditional bigs and a glut of positionally flexible switchable wings, was it finally time to
pick up the pace?
“Yeah, I want to let (center) Jack (Salt) bring it up and we’re going to propose a 15-second shot clock,”
Bennett quipped. “I think that should be the next rule change. I mentioned that at the (coaches’) round
table. Absolutely. I think every year, you just try to find ways that are unique to your team that give you a
chance to be successful. If I sit here in front of you and say, hey, we’re going to try to run on every make
and be like a Carolina and be like some of the teams in our league, that wouldn’t be accurate. But always
opportunistic.” When he finished, the 10th-year coach jokingly lauded the writer who’d asked it for
maintaining an annual tradition.
To be fair, change was a minor preseason theme around the grounds. “We have more versatile guys, guys
that can do a lot of different things on offense,” Deandre Hunter, a modern switch-everything forward
archetype whom NBA front offices practically begged to declare for the draft last spring, said in
November. If there were tangible reasons to expect UVa to be different this season, they began with
Hunter and Key, both well-rounded, broadly skilled, multipositional, 6-foot-7 forwards — the kinds of
talents Virginia couldn’t land even a couple seasons ago.
This emphasis has not yet materialized. Virginia — brace yourself — ranks dead last in Division I in
adjusted tempo. It is 350th in average offensive possession length, per KenPom.com. Of the 942 offensive
possessions tracked by Synergy’s scouting database, just 103 have come in transition, fourth-lowest in the
sport. Relative to 2017-18, the Hoos have been more efficient with the ball and just as stingy without it,
but it’s still too early for sweeping conclusions on that front. The stylistic verdict, however, is in. “I mean,
you know,” Hunter said. “You know how we play. We’re going to wear you down. We’re not going to
get too far away from that.”

The first 12 games of Virginia’s season — the nonconference, or what Bennett calls “the first phase” —
may have lacked the sturm und drung of, say, ACC title co-favorite Duke, which spent its first two
months relentlessly dunking on everything in sight. The Hoos’ schedule featured fewer high-profile
opponents and so, so many fewer dunks, but while the Blue Devils inhaled every last ounce of early-
season oxygen, Virginia was beating Wisconsin 53-46, which is to say it was being Virginia. Exactly two
teams in all of college basketball rank in the top 10 in adjusted efficiency on both offense and defense.
Guess who.
All of the above — a dominant defense, an unbeaten record on New Year’s Day, a real shot at a fourth
league title in six seasons — has become the Wahoo norm. Last week, Virginia entered the coming ACC
gauntlet having had one of college basketball’s best, and least-discussed, starts, and Braxton Key had yet
to walk off a floor feeling satisfied.
Believe it or not, the 2018-19 season is Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton’s 47th on the sidelines. In
the late 1990s, at Miami, he was already borrowing elements of the pack-line defense Dick Bennett
devised at Wisconsin-Green Bay. The past 10 of those 47 years have involved competing against Dick
Bennett’s son, and so Hamilton has had a connoisseur’s view of a team perfecting the pack-line the way
people go broke: slowly at first, then all at once. He’s watched God-knows-how-many hours of UVa film.
He knows what to expect. “There’s nothing mysterious about their system,” Hamilton said Saturday. “But
the combination of how they play offensively and defensively, it puts you in peril.”
The latest reels were daunting as ever: Junior guard Ty Jerome working angles on the perimeter, Hunter
doing basically everything well, Guy casually making guarded, step-back, late-clock 3s, the latter of
which was especially scary. “You watch him play on film and you almost don’t believe that a guy is
capable of being that confident when he shoots the ball,” Hamilton said. “He’s a phenom.” The joke
among the FSU staff was that they weren’t sure if the former Indiana Mr. Basketball even had to look at
the basket when he shot it. So, OK, Guy would make shots. Fine. But if Hamilton’s guys could make it
tough for him, and limit Jerome and Hunter … well, it’d be a rock right, but it’d be tight. He’d take those
chances.
What he didn’t see on the film, at least not in a way that profoundly affected him, was Braxton Key.
There was plenty to see on Saturday, too much for Hamilton’s liking. Key was active from his first
minutes on the floor, providing more of the intuitive, nuanced defensive work that has already earned his
coach’s praise. Florida State hung in for those first 10 minutes or so, stifling Hunter and Jerome and
forcing Guy to either settle for tough shots (which he made anyway) or work in off the 3-point line
entirely. At 9:17, UVa led 13-11. The rock fight was on.
Then it wasn’t. In the next nine minutes, Key was at the center of a masterful Virginia surge. He guarded
well and cleared the glass, but he also mixed in two crowd-juicing 3s in the span of 90 seconds — simple
step-in looks available thanks to the Noles’ obsession with his star teammates — which he immediately
followed with a steal and a pair of free throws. In the final five minutes of the half, Key led UVa on a 15-
2 run. By the final bucket of the half — a layup created by Key’s nifty slip and Jerome’s passing vision
— the Cavaliers led 42-23.
There would be further punishment in the second half, including six scoreless FSU minutes, before
Bennett unloaded his bench and FSU scored a flurry of deceptive garbage time points. (With three
minutes left, UVa led 63-34; the final score was 65-52. Those last three minutes were not for the faint of
heart.) None of it mattered.
Key finished with 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting, with six rebounds, one steal, and zero turnovers in 26
minutes off the bench. It was a bonafide breakout, by far the best and most impactful 40 minutes of his
young Virginia career. “It felt great,” Key said.
Before Saturday, Key’s season high was 13 points; his 10 at Maryland Nov. 28 marked his only other
double-digit outing. He was far enough off the radar that even after Saturday’s game, when asked about
Key, Hamilton resumed rhapsodizing about Guy. “Oh, you’re talking about Key?” Hamilton said, after a
correction. “Oh, I’m sorry. See? I’ve got Guy on the mind.”
Key had come to Charlottesville hoping to build on the promise of his 2016-17 freshman year at
Alabama, when he averaged 12 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game, before injury derailed him
as a sophomore.

Instead, he spent his first two months semi-awkwardly integrating into the group, ascending a steep
learning curve, and overthinking almost everything. “(He’s been) up and down,” Bennett said. “Getting
used to new teammates, a new system, finding the right opportunities.” Key was providing crucial depth;
without him, Virginia would have been reduced to a seven-man rotation. And while the majority of UVa’s
possessions flowed through Jerome, Guy, and Hunter, Key was using the touches he did get more
efficiently than at any point in his career. Yet he knew he could offer more.
“I know I haven’t been scoring the ball the way I wanted to,” he said. “Or, just, anything offensively. My
teammates have been lifting me up the past couple of games, but, really, all season. They know I can do
better.”
Key’s breakthrough afternoon coincided with a team performance that ground a much-hyped ACC opener
against a top 10 outfit into a fine dust. Jerome and Hunter combined to shoot 4-of-19, and yet UVa looked
more assured and well-rounded and flexible and frankly terrifying than it has at any point to date.
This relationship appears to be causal.
“He has the experience, and he’s a complete player,” Bennett said. “With his physicality and smarts he
understands how to give us that added dimension where he can play like Deandre, or on the perimeter if
need be, or he can play the four. That gives us versatility.”
It was also impeccably timed. The Florida State fixture was the first of three top-10 opponents (as of the
Week 9 Associated Press poll) in the Hoos’ first five conference games. This week, they face variably
challenging trips to Boston College and Clemson. Then, on Jan. 15, comes a visit from No. 10 Virginia
Tech, one of the nation’s most efficient, hottest-shooting offenses, led by players who handed UVa one of
its three losses a season ago (and the only team to beat them in at John Paul Jones Arena).
Four days later, Virginia plays at No. 1 Duke, which needs no further explanation.
There are few easy stretches in the modern ACC, but this is an especially bonkers, and absolutely critical,
two weeks. Flaws will be exposed. Lessons will be learned. In Durham, N.C., a conference title could be
decided. If Saturday night’s snatching of the Seminoles’ soul was any indication, Key’s integration could
be the personnel tipping point — the piece that keeps defenses helplessly honest, balances his teammates’
burdens, and clicks an already impressive machine into a purr.
Or … maybe it was just one game. There are plenty more to find out.
“This is the best team we’ve played,” Hamilton said. “It’s not even close.”
When his phone went off in April, Guy had good reason not to hesitate: He had demons to purge, and
he’d take all the help he could get. He’d played with Key for years. He knew his friend’s game. Key
wouldn’t make Virginia different. He could absolutely make them better.
It’s still true. It’s a scary thought. Behold the power of the text.

Family affair: Virginia star Kyle Guy has the support of his four (yes, four!) parents, five siblings
and fiancée
By Dana O’Neil, The Athletic
January 7, 2019
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It was cold, the sort of early Midwestern blast of winter that encourages a
person to stay indoors unless it’s absolutely necessary to go out. It wasn’t necessary for Amy. She didn’t
need to be outside at a kids’ football game. She didn’t have a kid. She wasn’t even married. Her boyfriend
was in Iraq and his son, the one playing in the football game, was too young to tabulate brownie points
for his dad’s girl. Yet there stood Amy, feet stamping to keep warm as the snow fell around her on a
Saturday morning, cheering her head off for Kyle. For Kyle. She did it for Kyle.
That was the mantra then; that is the mantra now, for Amy and for all of them. Technically Kyle Guy has
one father, one mother, one stepmother and one stepfather, but ask him and he’ll tell you he has a
matched set of each, a quartet of parents who have loved him, raised him and above all else, put him first.
The Virginia junior guard is not the collateral damage of a fractured family. He is the glue that first stuck
Amy and Joe Guy with Katy and Tim Fitzgerald and helped a partnership borne of necessity blossom into
something altogether unexpected: a genuine friendship. Check the stands during a Cavaliers game and
you’re likely to see Joe, Kyle’s dad, and Tim comparing notes, with Katy, his mom, parked next to Amy.
For Virginia’s game at Duke on Jan. 19, the two “dads” will road-trip the nine-plus hours from Indiana to
Durham together, while their wives commiserate back home. When Kyle gets in trouble for not answering
a text from his mom or dad, he could be talking about any of the four of them. “Well, it helps to have a
sense of humor,’’ Amy says with a laugh, “but really we do all get along. We enjoy each other’s
company, and we all have a common bond, and that’s our son, Kyle.’’
Like any smart kid, Kyle long ago learned how to play his parents. “If you want to go out at night, ask
Tim; if you want a new pair of sneakers, ask Amy,” he says with a grin. “Usually I can ask my mom for
money or if I’m really in trouble, never ask my dad for money.’’ Not that he took advantage too often. An
easygoing child who grew into a good-natured man, Kyle basked in the simplicity of being a kid instead
of a pawn in a game he didn’t want to play. As long as he can remember, his parents have put up a united
front, prioritizing his needs as well as supporting one another’s decisions. “Luckily, none of us is really
domineering or controlling,’’ Katy says. “Joe and Tim are really laid back, and there’s room for me to be
a mom and Amy to be a stepmom.’’
High school sweethearts in Indiana, Katy and Joe had Kyle as college sophomores, Joe then a football
player at Cincinnati and Katy pursing a nursing degree. They never married, which made the dissolution
easier when their love flamed out before Kyle turned 3. Katy, only 21, moved back in with her parents,
who helped care for Kyle while she finished her degree, and she and Joe agreed immediately that their
focus on raising Kyle in a loving, nurturing environment wouldn’t change simply because they were no
longer a couple.
Not long after Katy separated from Joe, a high school friend called to ask if she might be interested in
filling an empty spot on a coed softball team. Tim Fitzgerald was on the team. The two hit it off. Joe was
on his first tour of Iraq, so Tim easily slipped into the role of surrogate dad, bonding with Kyle over the
common language and love of sports. By the time Joe returned home, Katy and Tim were on track for
marriage (they would wed in 2002), but Tim, aware of navigating the tricky waters of step-parenting,
fretted about meeting Joe. Until, that is, Joe dropped Kyle off at one of the softball games. Tim looked up
to see not one familiar face, but two walking toward the field. His relationship with Joe predated that of
Katy and him, the two squaring up years earlier in pickup basketball games and working at the same
surveying company for a time. The two men reconnected immediately — they, too, spoke the language of
sports — and soon were jointly toting Kyle around, taking him to watch basketball games and serving as
co-coaches on one of Kyle’s flag football teams. When Joe was sent back to Iraq after Tim and Katy
married, he’d call to see how Kyle was playing in his various sports, invariably telling Katy to put Tim on
the phone so he could get the real scoop. “It would have been easy, I don’t want to say jealous, but to be
uneasy, or not trust him,’’ Joe says. “But because it was Tim, and I had known him before, it was so
easy.’’
In 2003, a year before Joe headed to Iraq for a second tour, he went to a rib cook-off and met Amy. He
was immediately smitten. She was not. “I didn’t think he was my type,’’ she says. “And I’ll tell you why
he wasn’t.’’ Before she can finish, Joe, sharing the speakerphone for the interview, pipes in: “No, no, no,
don’t tell her that.’’ Amy, a live wire and a good storyteller, ignores her husband and spills the beans,

explaining that she was offended because Joe kept referring to Katy as his “baby mama.” “I thought it
was terrible,’’ Amy says. “I didn’t realize at the time he was kidding and that they were close. Now it’s
like an inside joke. We still call her that.’’
With Joe in Iraq, Amy worried Kyle would be wary if she waited to forge a relationship with him only
after Joe returned home, but she also didn’t want to overstep with Katy. A child of divorce, Amy heeded
the sage advice of her stepmother, who told her that there’s always a role for a stepmother, “but Mother
knows best.’’ She worked on becoming Kyle’s friend, and not his extra mother, taking him rock-climbing
and to the movies and the arcade, grateful that Katy so willingly shared her son. Now the mother of two,
Amy laughs at how ill-informed she was back then and how gracious Katy was with her foibles. “There
was a July 4th, and I wanted to get Kyle a gift, so I dropped off these horrifically dangerous fireworks. He
was maybe 7,’’ says Amy, who married Joe in 2007. “Katy didn’t say a word. I’m sure she thought I was
nuts. That’s when I knew how special she was.’’
It wasn’t easy or perfect. What family is? “Not always peaches and cream,’’ Joe admits. But whatever
disagreements the quartet had, they kept to themselves and settled quickly. When their own families grew
— Amy and Joe have a 12-year-old son, Colin, and a 9-year-old daughter, Madison; Katy and Tim have
three boys, 14-year-old Tatum, 13-year-old Brady and four-year-old Bennett — the whole unit blended
into a four-parent version of the Brady Bunch. Kyle wears jersey number 5 in honor of his five siblings.
The grassroots basketball coach, whose name has long since been forgotten, pulled Joe aside after a game
and told him his son had a chance to be “special.’’ This was when Kyle shared the court on a team with
Michael Porter Jr. and Jontay Porter, when Kyle was in the third grade. Joe knew his boy had smarts, had
the innate ability to see the game rather than merely play it, but he wasn’t sure where that might lead. For
a while he harbored dreams that his eldest boy would follow in the old man’s footsteps and play football.
Kyle dreamed the same dream for a while, until biology and genetics foretold his scrawny-bodied reality.
Once dedicated exclusively to basketball, Kyle grew exponentially with his game. He averaged 13.5
points as a freshman at Lawrence Central, 14.5 as a sophomore and launched himself onto the recruiting
scene as a junior, earning both all-state honors and county player of the year after averaging 19.8 points.
The two “dads” took charge of the recruiting, joining Kyle on many of his official visits, conveniently
plotting dates that would coincide with a nice little football game for the grownups. “Blatantly worked it
to our advantage,” Joe says. The list was long, and it included the beloved crimson and cream of Indiana
and the black and gold of Purdue. The pull for an Indiana kid to stay home and play basketball is always
strong and the push from in-state fans even stronger. Kyle is the great-grandson of the former
commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association, his grandparents were IU season
ticketholders and Katy’s family long counts Bob Knight as a friend, gilding his candy-striped path even
more. Fully aware of the pressure, his parents backed off. They offered advice only when asked, sticking
with the same ideals they’d use to raise him. “We just wanted what was best for him,’’ Katy says. “We
wanted him to be happy.’’
They also raised him to trust his gut and in turn, they trusted his judgment. Kyle felt an immediate
connection to Tony Bennett, and when he visited Virginia during his junior year, he decided immediately
it was the place for him. His parents fully supported his choice. Indiana, as a state, was decidedly less
supportive. “Stay off the message boards,’’ Katy wisely advised Amy, and the family still talks about how
some in-state coaches handled Kyle’s rejection with about as much grace as the message board trolls. “I
made him call every other coach and tell them his decision,’’ Katy says. “One hung up on him, and one
told him he’d never play in the ACC.’’ She declined to name names.
But Kyle flourished at Virginia, steadily going from a man-bun sensation to a valued starter as he rode the
Cavaliers’ wave. By last March 15, he was enjoying a charmed college life, winning 54 games to just 13
losses, dropping but one ACC game last season en route to both the regular-season and tournament
crowns. He led the team in scoring, averaging 14.1 points per game.
And then UMBC, the crushing, history-making loss to the 16-seed unfolded in front of all four of Kyle’s
parents and all five of his siblings. For a while Amy and Katy left their seats, walking around the arena
but not speaking as the Retrievers built their lead, and afterward, they stood gut-punched as they watched
Kyle cry on the court. Madison, too young to fully grasp the finality of the NCAA Tournament format,
asked her mom if they couldn’t just play another game. When Amy explained they couldn’t, the 9-year-
old, weeping in her Virginia cheerleader outfit, cried, “Well, can’t we just ask the ref to give us another
chance?’’