University of Virginia Library

Deacons Fall

Cavaliers Win Five In Holiday Action

By JOHN MARKON

There are basically two
kinds of holiday basketball
schedules. There's the tough
kind, involving a prestigious
eight-team tournament and
assorted other games with
hot-shot squads, and the
not-so-tough kind. Virginia
played a modified form of the
latter but went an impressive
5-0, moving up in the polls.

The Amazin' Cavaliers now
hold down ninth place in the
Associated Press balloting but
are relegated to a somewhat
lower estate, eighteenth, in the
UPI coach's poll.

The Wahoos initial action
was against in-state opponents
Richmond and VMI in
Roanoke. Both games were
won handily, Virginia twice
scoring 93 points to VMI's 51
and Richmond's 58. Cavalier
Coach Bill Gibson emptied his
bench in both contests as the
Cavs won their third game
against Big Five opposition.
There have been, of course, no
losses.

Excelling for the Cavs down
in Roanoke were Scott
McCandlish, 30 points and 20
rebounds in the two games,
and Barry Parkhill. The man
occasionally referred to as "Mr.
BP" scored 14 points against
VMI and vented his wrath
against Richmond the
following night with 31 big
ones.

Next on the Virginia
itinerary was a lay-over in
Charleston, S.C., where the
palm trees grow on the
sidewalks, for The Citadel's
Palmetto Classic. After a brief
Christmas break the 'Hoos
were thrown against Xavier of
Cincinnati in the first round
while the host Bulldogs dueled
with the Air Force Academy.

Xavier, one of the hundred
or so teams in the country that
can be described as being
"pretty good", was boomed as
Virginia's first tough adversary
since Maryland but a close
game never materialized. The
Cavs outshot, out rebounded
and outplayed the Musketeers
and emerged as 85-65 winners.

Barry Parkhill and Frank
DeWitt led the Cavaliers,
DeWitt finding the range for 19

points and Parkhill, even
deadlier, hitting on ten of 16
shots and scoring 25 points.
Other Cavs in double figures
were McCandlish with 16
points and Jim Hobgood,
suffering through a rare
off-night, with ten.

Those on the Virginia side
looking past The Citadel,
one-point winners over Air
Force, were in for a rude
awakening the next night. The
Bulldogs combined 70 per cent
shooting and a 50-37
rebounding advantage to make
the game close throughout.
Using some clutch shooting
near the end of the game,
however, the Cavs prevailed by
77-72.

Some of those clutch points
were by guard Chip Miller
whose perfect shooting from
the field and from the line was
the exception rather than the
rule in a 40 per cent shooting
game for Virginia. Miller scored
twelve points and was able to
lead the team in assists with
two, which tells you something
else about the game.

Other top Wahoo pointmen
were Parkhill, eight of 17 from
the field, with 21 and Hobgood
with 16. McCandlish led the
team with 11 rebounds and
scored nine points. After the
game even Coach Gibson
admitted that he had taken
The Citadel too lightly.

It wasn't, though, until
Monday night that the Hoos
got down to the really
important stuff with an ACC
road game with Wake Forest. It
was almost their undoing.

The Demon Deacons were
coming off a poor holiday
showing but played tough
before the home fans. Several
times in the first half the Cavs
gained the lead but always
failed to hold it and trailed
33-29 at halftime. This
nonsense continued until well
into the second half.

Then, with about eight
minutes left, a fine Virginia
surge was coupled with a
Deacon slump and the Deac's
lead quickly turned to a
deficit. Virginia took the game
by ten, 74-64, with the margin
still growing at the whistle. Big
guns Parkhill and Hobgood
again topped the scoring lists,
tallying 20 and 17 points
respectively.

The key to the win was
little guard Steve Morris. The
fact that the Virginia surge
began shortly after Morris
entered was no coincidence. He
scored nine points, hit seven
important foul shots and
played the close defense he
specializes in. On a night when
Parkhill was cold (5 of 15
shots) his talents were
appreciated.

The Hoos were again
out rebounded but McCandlish
was able to assert himself
under the boards late in the
game, pulling down 15 errant
shots. Otherwise there was
little to say except that some
basketball men believe that the
best teams are those that
always play just well enough
to win.