Staley's UVa Survives Giant-Killer Minnesota Gophers 2004

While the 1991 National Runners-up from Virginia were 10-point favorites in our Value Add Basketball Game against the 6th place team from the 2004 Big Ten, the Gophers appeared on their way to a big upset like they had late in the season to make a stunning Final four run.

Future WNBA players Lindsay Whalen and Janel McCarville combined for 36 points a game that year,  after winning only six of their last 14 games of the regular season and Big Ten tournament, Minnesota went to the tournament and stunned #8 K-State and UCLA. They then went on the road to stun #18 Boston College and then in the real shocker, #1 Duke in the Elite 8 before finally falling against #6 UConn in the Final 4. 

While the two future WNBA stars got their points, the Gophers took a 45-38 lead early in the second half due to an unlikely hero, as sharp-shooting point guard  Shannon Schonrock - who had two 4-point plays against all-time great Dawn Staley. 

We ranked Whalen as the 30th greatest player of all time, and Staley as the 20th best player of all time in this post.

The one weakness the Gophers seemed to have though was turnovers, and they had 18 as UVa rallied for the win. The Gophers last tie was 65-65 with 6 possessions to play when Whalen grabbed an offensive rebound and passed out to Shannon Bolden for a 3-pointer (off an offensive rebound one number is subtracted from the 20-sided die to increase the chances of making a shot by 5 percent.

Staley stayed pass first as a point guard in this game, as shooting guard Tammi Reiss had a game-high 24 points. However, the big news in Charlottesville that year (we actually lived their at the time as my wife was finishing her PhD at the time) the big recruiting news was not the all-time great Staley, but the twin towers Heather Burge and her twin Heidi at 6-foot-5.

Heather had a game-high 10 rebounds in this game, even though McCarville was normally a better rebounder. However, she was only a 55% free throw shooter (1-11 made on 20-sided die) so luckily it was Heidi who was fouled late and hit a key free throw and basket to help UVa escape with a 76-72 win.

Minnesota moved up slightly form 51st to a tie for 49th, while UVa stayed in 18th - but now tied for that spot with Minnesota.

 

Pos	Minnesota 2004	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Shannon Schonrock	15	3	2	2	2	1	1	0	2	8.9 pts, 5'6
2-SG	Lindsay Whalen	15	1	5	2	2	5	3	0	4	20.6 pts, 5'8
3-SF	Shannon Bolden	9	1	2	2	2	5	1	0	2	6 pts, 5'11
4-PF	Kadidja Andersson	9	0	4	1	1	2	0	0	4	9 pts, 5'11
5-C	Janel McCarville	11	0	4	3	6	6	2	2	3	16.1 pts, 6'2
Pos	Visitor Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Kelly Roysland	2	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	1	5.6 pts, 5'9
2-SG	Hannah Garry	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0.5 pts, 5'5
3-SF	Jamie Broback	5	1	1	0	0	4	0	0	1	5.1 pts, 6'3
4-PF	Liz Podominick	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	4.1 pts, 6'2
5-C	Christina Collison	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.5 pts, 6'2
	18 Turnovers	72	6	22	10	15	27	7	2	20
Pos	Virginia 1991	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Dawn Staley	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	1	3	14.6 pts, 5'6
2-SG	Tammi Reiss	24	0	10	4	4	2	2	0	2	15.4 pts, 5'6
3-SF	Tonya Cardoza	10	0	4	2	2	5	2	0	2	15.5 pts, 5'10
4-PF	Heidi Burge	11	0	4	3	4	4	0	0	1	8.9 pts, 6'5
5-C	Heather Burge	10	0	4	2	4	10	1	1	4	12.7 pts, 6'5
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Dena Evans	6	0	2	2	2	1	0	0	1	5 pts, 5'5
2-SG	Wendy Toussaint	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.9 pts, 5'11
3-SF	Tekshia Ward	3	0	1	1	2	3	0	1	3	5.2 pts, 6'1
4-PF	Melanee Wagener	4	0	1	2	2	2	0	0	1	5.6 pts, 6'3
5-C	Audra Smith	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	3.7 pts, 6'2
	13 Turnovers	76	0	30	16	20	31	6	3	19

Oops - Redo for UVa Women 2019 as we left Dominique Toussaint's card out

Well, that's embarrassing. We need to replay the game we just completed - 1995 UConn vs. 2018 Virginia, since we accidentally left the playing card for UVa's leading scorer Dominique Toussaint out of the game. See image of the updated team cards at the bottom of the blog. Jocelyn Willoughby was actually UVa's best player.

One reason we are trying to slowly get through and play each team in the Value Add Basketball Game at least once is to catch any mistakes in our player cards. We just hit a big one - as we realized only after playing 2018 Virginia against 1995 UConn that as hard as it is for any team to have a chance against the great UConn teams- its even harder without your leading scorer. 

This is particularly harmful in this case because the UVa 2018 women were 239th in scoring nationally even with Toussaint putting in her double figures. No, men's coach Tony Bennett was not also coaching the UVa women with his slow, methodical offense, it was Joanne Boyle wrapping up a solid coaching career that had nice teams at Richmond, Cal and finally Virginia. 

Her defensive mindset certainly carried over to another defense-first team on UVa's campus. The funny thing was this was the season that Bennett was coaching UVa to the national title, but the following Covid-year the UVa men were 239th in offense so the "Grounds" at UVa witnessed some of the lowest scoring wins in the nation between the men and women.

To say Boyle had been Duke's best player would be an understatement - her final year there she lead the team in scoring, rebounds, blocked shots and set the school record in steals that lasted for years. When we started trying to add the best team from more programs to our game we did not have many stats from the 20th century women's teams, and we settled on this as the best UVa women's team of the century. They certainly rank far below the great teams in the game from UConn, South Carolina and Tennessee, but this was a nice team that not only won a tournament upset as a 10-seed, but then played a great game against the all-time greatest UVa player Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

 As you can see from the box, both backcourt players put up 16 points on a combined seven 3-pointers to give a scare to South Carolina in what would be Boyle's last game coaching before changing her life focus to adopt a child. 

From this ESPN account: Up 30-25 at the half, South Carolina opened up a 12-point lead in the third period before the Cavaliers cut it to 46-40 with 10 minutes left. Virginia still trailed just 52-47 after Dominique Toussaint's driving bucket with 6:39 to play.

UVa vs SC 2018	MIN	FG	3PT	FT	REB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Lauren Moses	23	2'-7	0-0	2'-4	2	2	1	0	6
Jocelyn Willoughby	35	1'-7	0-0	4'-4	7	0	0	0	6
Dominique Toussaint	34	5'-15	3'-8	1'-2	4	4	1	0	16
Aliyah Huland El	24	2'-6	0-2	3'-4	3	1	1	2	7
J'Kyra Brown	31	5'-14	4'-9	2'-2	2	1	0	0	16
BENCH	MIN		3PT	FT	REB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Lisa Jablonowski	18	1'-1	0-0	1'-2	1	0	1	0	3
Mone Jones	2	0'-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
Felicia Aiyeotan	19	2'-5	0-0	0-0	4	1	0	2	2
Brianna Tinsley	14	0'-0	0-1	0-0	1	1	0	0	0
Totals	200	18-57	7'-20	13-18	31	10	4	4	56
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4		Final
10-seed Virginia	12	13	15	16		56
2-seed S. Carolina	15	15	16	20		66