{"id":423917,"date":"2024-11-27T01:37:30","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T01:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=423917"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Virginia-looks-to-bounce-back-at-home-vs-Manhattan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Virginia-looks-to-bounce-back-at-home-vs-Manhattan\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia looks to bounce back at home vs. Manhattan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Virginia returns from a miserable trip to the Bahamas to meet Manhattan on Tuesday night in Charlottesville, Va. The Cavaliers (3-2) were crushed by top-25 opponents Tennessee and St. John&#8217;s at the Baha Mar Championship, losing consecutive games by 22-plus points for the first time since January 2008. Those setbacks nearly 17 years ago happened under then-coach Dave Leitao, whose successor, Tony Bennett, never endured what happened to interim coach Ron Sanchez&#8217;s squad in Nassau. After winning their first three games under Sanchez, who took over after Bennett&#8217;s sudden retirement last month, Virginia fell 64-42 to then-No. 11 Tennessee on Thursday and 80-55 to then-No. 22 St. John&#8217;s on Friday. &#8220;This is a great test,&#8221; Sanchez said after the loss to the Red Storm, in which the Cavaliers committed 16 turnovers and allowed St. John&#8217;s to shoot 52.5 percent from the field. &#8220;You know, you go up against two of the top teams in the country, some of the warts are going to show,&#8221; Sanchez said. Leading scorer Isaac McKneely (12.4 points per game) scored a combined 14 points on 4-of-15 shooting in the two lopsided losses. &#8220;How they&#8217;re going to handle it is TBD, you know,&#8221; Sanchez said. &#8220;This is part of the journey. One thing I told them is that it&#8217;s a long season, and you know, the one thing that we did here is, we learned a lot about ourselves. The question is, how are we going to use that knowledge? Are we going to grow, you know, or are we going to wallow in it?&#8221; Virginia looks to bounce back against a Manhattan squad that is 0-2 on the road but coming off an exciting 80-79 win Friday against Army. Shaquil Bender stole an inbounds pass and Wesley Robinson hit a runner as time expired to lift the Jaspers (3-2). &#8220;There&#8217;s things that really good basketball programs do,&#8221; said Jaspers coach John Gallagher. &#8220;One of them is you never give up. You play it to the end. &#8230; They stayed even-keeled, so that&#8217;s the first feeling. It&#8217;s like, \u2018Oh my God, we have something here.'&#8221; Will Sydnor leads four Manhattan players in double figures with 15.4 points per game, followed by Bender (14.8), Devin Dinkins (11.2) and Jaden Winston (10.0). &#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/3205ad942c9df4dd76cab887361d60ec.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Nov 15, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Virginia Cavaliers forward Jacob Cofie (5) dunks the ball during the second half against the Villanova Wildcats at CFG Bank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Reggie Hildred-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>-Reggie Hildred-Imagn Images<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virginia returns from a miserable trip to the Bahamas to meet Manhattan on Tuesday night&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}