Virginia Cavaliers Basketball power past Lehigh Mountain Hawks, Final Score 80-54

Virginia extended its winning streak to 4 games with an 80-54 win over the Mountain Hawks of Lehigh University, out of the Patriot League. As is becoming a bit of a pattern for the team, the Hoos started off slow before extending a comfortable margin against another overmatched opponent.  UVA improved to 5-1 on the year, while Lehigh is still looking for its first win at 0-5.  The team has now scored 80 or more points in four consecutive games.

Virginia went five minutes without a point late in the first half, allowing Lehigh to grab a 24-23 lead with under five remaining in the period.  The Hoos finished on a 12-4 run to take a seven point lead into halftime that they didn't relinquish.

The Hoos held Lehigh scoreless for five and a half minutes early in the second half and scored 11 in a row to put the game away. After looking a step slow, especially against Lehigh big man Tim Kempton, the Wahoo defense buckled down as the game went on and made some nice hustle plays, even with a large lead.

Malcolm Brogdon led the Hoos with 23 points, 12 of which he scored on five shot attempts in the first seven minutes of the game. And he did it efficiently, going 10-15 from the field (including 3-5 from behind the arc) and adding 3 assists and 2 steals. (He did miss two FTs and is an un-Malcom-like 14-20 on the year from the stripe).

Anthony Gill had 10 points, and Marial Shayok scored 11 on 4-5 shooting. Darius Thompson's 12 points included this potential #SCTop10 play:

Isaiah Wilkins provided a nice lift off the bench, scoring six points on 3-6 shooting, and also bringing in four offensive rebounds.  And while London Perrantes had an off-shooting night, missing each of his three attempts from beyond the arc, he had 8 assists and no turnovers.

Lehigh has struggled this season in two key areas: 1) Taking care of the ball and 2) Defensive rebounds. The Hoos took advantage of both, forcing 17 turnovers (29% of possessions), while only losing it on 12% - each game this season has featured a UVA TO% between 9% and 14%.  UVA also rebounded 43% of its own misses.  Another bright side for the team was allowing just 8 free-throw attempts after allowing 20 or more during each of the last 4 games.

Virginia has Thanksgiving weekend off before returning to action next Tuesday night at Ohio State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.