By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
ORLANDO, Fla. — For Kihei Clark, his final NCAA men’s basketball tournament is the third one of his illustrious career at the University of Virginia.
“One last run, so hopefully we’ll make it a good one,” Clark said Wednesday afternoon at the Amway Center.
Clark is in his fifth year with the Cavaliers, and he played in the NCAA tournament as a freshman in 2019 and as a junior in 2021. His teammates Armaan Franklin and Jayden Gardner are veterans, too, in their fourth and fifth years of college, respectively. For them, though, this is a new experience, and it’s one they’re savoring.
Both transferred to UVA after the 2020-21 academic year. Franklin spent two years at Indiana University and Gardner three at East Carolina University before joining head coach Tony Bennett’s program at Virginia.
The chance to play in the NCAA tournament “was a big factor in me deciding to come here,” said Franklin, a 6-foot-4 guard. “So to be able to come and finally get this opportunity is great. I’ve been waiting on this for four years.”
Gardner, a 6-foot-6 forward, has waited even longer. “It means everything,” he said. “It’s the reason why I came here to Virginia, to play in games and environments like these, so I’m just ready to go out at it with my brothers with everything we’ve got, and hopefully we get the right outcome.”
At 12:40 p.m. Thursday, in a South Region first-round game to air on truTV, fourth-seeded Virginia (25-7) meets No. 13 seed Furman (27-7) at the Amway Center. The winner will face No. 5 seed San Diego State (27-6) or No. 12 seed Charleston (31-3) in the second round Saturday.
A year ago, the Wahoos missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2012-13 season. They ended up in the Natonal Invitation Tournament, where they reached the quarterfinals.
“Just to finally get through and cross that line, and to do with these guys is special,” Gardner said, “because we fought hard last year, but we didn’t end up where we wanted to be. So it feels good to get where we are, get [seeded] as highly as we did. It just shows off the work that we put in all season long. We got rewarded, so now it’s time to do some more work and try to get far.”
Not since 2019, when they were crowned national champions in Minneapolis, have the Hoos won a game in the NCAA tournament. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down college sports in March 2020 a week before the…