Ratcliffe: Farrakhan was en fuego

After being victimized by Virginia guard Mustapha Farrakhan’s blistering shooting performance Tuesday night, Howard coach Kevin Nickelberry couldn’t believe what he had seen.

“What was it, his birthday or something?” Nickelberry said about Farrakhan’s 11-for-12 night and a career-high 31 points in Virginia’s 84-63 rout of the visiting Bison. “This is probably the best shooting display by a Cavalier in a long time.”

The Howard coach was right about the latter. Farrakhan turned John Paul Jones Arena into his personal shooting gallery as he hit his first 11 shots from the field and made eight consecutive 3-point attempts (tying a school record) before missing his final try of the night.

Nickelberry, who formerly was an assistant at Clemson and head coach at Hampton, has faced UVa teams several times in the past but was bewildered by Farrakhan’s scoring outburst. The Chicago-area native’s eight treys were the most by a Wahoo since Curtis Staples’ school-record nine against Georgia Tech 12 years ago and were the most points since Sylven Landesberg drilled Boston College for 32 in 2009.

“That was a nice zone I was in,” Farrakhan said afterward. “The rim looked like a Hula Hoop out there.”

Not too shabby for a guy who had been mired in a three-game shooting slump and had connected on but one of his last 16 shots from beyond the arc and only 5 of his last 28 shots overall. Farrakhan confessed after UVa’s win over LSU on Sunday that he had been mystified why his shot had not been falling.

Coach Tony Bennett, who knows a little something about shooting a basketball, told his players to have amnesia and keep shooting, knowing that at some point they would pull themselves out of the slump.

“I just continued to put up shots,” Farrakhan said. “After practice I always shoot. I figured it’s got to go down at some point if I keep working, keep attacking.”

Farrakhan has been known as a good shooter, sometimes streaky, but with good mechanics. Still, he didn’t have any kind of feeling he would be in that sort of a zone prior to tipoff. Even while he was machine-gunning the Howard defense, he had no idea he was only one make away from the fabled Staples’ school mark.

“I didn’t know,” Farrakahn said. “I didn’t even know I had that many to be honest. I just tried to keep shooting and keep my form. Nobody told me [that he was close to the record]. I was just caught up in the game. It was really surprising when I found out.”

What was weird about the performance was that Howard stayed in a zone defense most of the night, giving the Cavaliers more room to shoot than recent opponents.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if they know I hit about five of ‘em (3-pointers),’” Farrakhan chuckled, wondering why Howard didn’t make an adjustment to his hot streak.

Nickelberry said that no matter what he ordered his team to do, it couldn’t come up with an answer for the red-hot Cavaliers, whose 66.7 overall shooting percentage (32-48) was the highest by a Virginia team since 1985 (67.6 against Virginia Tech).

“I knew [Farrakhan] could shoot it,” the Howard coach said. “A couple of his looks were open, but a lot of the time we had a hand in his face and he was still making it. We changed up defenses four or five times and whatever defense we were in, he found the gap and he made shots.”

Farrakhan didn’t force anything, but rather let the game come to him. He credited point guard Jontel Evans for getting him the ball in open spots, and Evans was happy to oblige.

“The only thing you say to say to a guy who’s shooting like that is, ‘Keep shooting,’” joked Evans, who had a career-high 10 assists. “I was just trying to find him in transition. He wasn’t asking for the ball … he wasn’t ball hungry. He was just in the right spots. Every time I penetrated, Mu was in the right place.”

Farrakhan said he had never enjoyed such a hot shooting night before, although he had made eight 3’s in a high school game once and went 17 for 20 overall, but never hit that many shots in a row from Bonusphere.

“Tonight, my teammates encouraged me to keep shooting, so I kept shooting,” Farrakhan said.

That’s kind of like asking a fat man to guard the pies. Of course a shooter is going to keep shooting. He really doesn’t need much encouragement.

However that Hula Hoop-sized basket must have looked as big as the ocean to most of the Cavaliers. Virginia shot 76.2 percent in the first half and at one time during that span, the Cavs had hit nine straight 3’s.

“[Farrakhan] was really rolling and had rhythm,” Bennett said of his guard. “You know that feeling when the rim looks that big and it was nice to see.”

At least now, the Cavaliers have shot their way out of their slump and it couldn’t come at a better time. Next two opponents: North Carolina and Duke. No time for slumps.