Former ACC assistant game-plans for Singletary

Was that a blueprint that we saw drawn up and executed by Hampton coach Kevin Nickelberry?
Because it sure looked like one - for future opponents of Virginia interested in keeping the ball out of the hands of star UVa. guard Sean Singletary, that is.
Nickelberry used what almost looked like a football Cover 2 scheme to contain Singletary - using one defender to front him and a second one bracketing him from behind to keep the ball from going his way. And then when Singletary was able to get ball, Pirates defenders doubled him almost immediately to force it out of his hands.
The approach seemed to work quite well in the first half of Virginia's 91-69 win over Hampton Saturday - disrupting any offensive flow that the Cavs had wanted to get going as they limped to the locker room with a narrow six-point halftime lead and a ton of frustration on their shoulders.
"Our goal was not to let them run their offense," said Hampton coach Kevin Nickelberry, a former Clemson assistant who knew going in how much of a load Singletary was going to be for his team.
"I know most of their plays having been in the ACC - so I knew what they wanted to run," Nickelberry said. "We thought if we could keep them out of their flow, like we did in the first half, make them score the way we play, make it ugly, get some charges on Singletary, frustrate them a little bit, that we could stay in the game.
"I think we did a pretty good job in the first half, but we just didn't respond in the second half," Nickelberry said.
After limiting Singletary to one field goal and forcing four turnovers in the first half, Hampton seemed to run out of gas coming out of the locker room - and the junior finished with a season-high 27 points, including going 14-for-16 at the free-throw line.
But even that being the case, Virginia coach Dave Leitao has plenty of room for concern as his team gets ready for the San Juan Shootout next week and Atlantic Coast Conference play coming up after the first of the year.
"Part of my concern this game and all year long will be that you need alternative ballhandlers," Leitao said after the game.
"What they tried to do is to force the action away from Sean. What should not have happened is for the guys who did get it to be stagnant," Leitao said.
"They still had the ability to attack - especially in the whole court, the open court - and I thought in the first half they didn't do that with the kind of confidence that they should have," Leitao said.
Swingman Adrian Joseph and power forward Jason Cain - a 6-11 post player with deft open-court ballhandling skills - were more assertive in helping assist Singletary in getting the ball up the court and getting the offense going in the second half.
Still, Leitao would like to see his team do more in the open court to make plays - and then finish plays.
"Every time the ball was attacked via the dribble, something good - a very high percentage shot - came of it. When it wasn't, when either in the half or full court, breaking pressure, we settled for a jump shot, then that's all we got - whether it went in, or obviously a lot of times it was missed. We were only 6-of-24 from three-point land," Leitao said.
"That's something that we're trying to get them to balance - not just for this game, but overall," Leitao said. "We have the potential for a lot of people to make perimeter shots - but there's a very fine line of telling a shooter to hold up versus encouraging them to shoot. We've got to toe that very fine line to get to the point where we understand that what gets us high-percentage shots and makeable shots."
- Chris Graham