Around the Corner 10/10: Trey Murphy and De’Andre Hunter go off, UVA lacrosse keeps picking up commits, and women’s soccer ties Syracuse

Hello to all my Virginia Cavaliers fans on this crisp Monday morning! It’s officially basketball preseason season here at STL as former ‘Hoos continue to put up numbers in NBA preseason action and we start plugging out UVA bball content for your eyeballs to enjoy. Here’s everything of note from Around the Corner:

Notable news

Trey Murphy’s Hot Shooting Leads Pelicans Over Spurs — Inside the Spurs

Trey Murphy III set the tone for the Pelicans with 27 points, eight rebounds, and three assists in 27 minutes. He shot an impressive 10-15 (66.7 percent) from the floor and 7-10 (70.0 percent) from beyond the arc.

Five Lessons Learned from Hawks Second Preseason Win — All Hawks

De’Andre Hunter

It’s just two games, but De’Andre Hunter already looks better than last season. The 24-year-old showed his ability to create on offense en route to scoring 21 points on 9-13 shooting.

In two preseason games, Hunter has averaged 19 points on 65 FG%. Unless something changes in the next nine days, the 24-year-old is entering a contract season. So far, Hunter has made a good case for a contract extension.

No. 2 Virginia Draws With Syracuse 2-2 — Virginia Sports

A pair of freshmen got into the scoring column for the Cavaliers on Sunday (Oct. 9) but the teams walked away with a draw as No.2 Virginia (10-2-2, 3-2-1 ACC) played Syracuse (8-5-1, 1-4-1 ACC) to a 2-2 result at Klöckner Stadium.

Freshman Maggie Cagle delivered a goal and an assist on the afternoon, while freshman Jill Flammia found the net for the second time this season as the duo led the Virginia offense on the afternoon.

Said HC Steve Swanson:

“Obviously a very disappointing result today given the game. But, right now we are not making plays on both ends of the field and that has been the difference. We have a lot of soccer left to play though and we will find out what our team is made of right now.”

Social media dive

UVA men’s lacrosse continues to pull in five star recruits, particularly in the 2024 class. This is shaping up to be Lars Tiffany’s best recruiting class yet and that is an incredibly scary fact for college lacrosse.

Pretty cool to see NIL used in this way with Ben Vander Plas, Kihei Clark, Kadin Shedrick, and Jayden Gardner doing a video game streamathon with Cav Futures in order to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House.

Here’s all seven of the triples Trey hit in last night’s game. He’s gonna be in the NBA for a long, long time.

Student perspective

Saturday’s game wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but I still had the pleasure of meeting ESPN’s Clinton Yates who was in attendance with friend (and my former boss) Caroline Darney. Was cool to meet somebody who I’ve grown up watching on TV.

Mighta mentioned this in Friday’s ATC, but a couple of buddies and I head up 29 North to Sakura for a little hibachi dinner. Was absolutely packed and a fun atmosphere. Then basically chilled/worked in the apartment for most of the day and watched my Eagles squeak by the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17. At least one football team is keeping my mental health stable...

First real, full week back at school post fall break and with it comes plenty more midterm assignments. This is the grind-to-Thanksgiving part of the year that seems to never end.

Wishing you all a merry Monday and a good start to the week!