Recent and antique history did not provide encouraging signs for the No. 3 Virginia men’s basketball team’s trip to No. 13 Notre Dame on Saturday.
The Fighting Irish, after all, had won five straight games at home when a top 5 team came to town. Plus, the last time UVa started a season better than this year was in 1980-81 when a 23-game winning streak ended against Notre Dame that February.
These Cavaliers remained focused on writing their own history, however, as they controlled the final four minutes to top the Irish 62-56. As a result, the Hoos (15-0, 3-0 ACC) are one of just three unbeaten teams left in the nation. Notre Dame (15-2, 3-1) saw its 11-game winning streak end with the loss.
“I think you really need to give credit to Virginia,” Irish coach Mike Brey said. “They made big jump shots when they had to and that gave them some space. They played like a team that’s won a championship when they had to down the stretch.”
For the second time this week, the Cavaliers trailed by a point on the scoreboard in the final 10 minutes. Against NC State on Wednesday, UVa erased a 42-41 deficit with 9:20 to go by holding the Wolfpack scoreless for more than six minutes. At Notre Dame on Saturday, the Cavaliers stared at a 51-50 margin with 4:53 remaining but they had an answer again.
Pat Connaughton, who led his team with 21 points, drained his fourth 3-pointer of the night at the 4:53 mark to give the Irish the advantage one last time at 51-50. Over the next four minutes, however, Virginia allowed just one more bucket. Notre Dame didn’t break that slow spell until Demetrius Jackson finally hit a meaningless 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds to go when UVa was up by nine points.
Jerian Grant had his team’s only basket in that string at the 4:00 mark to tie the score for the ninth and final time at 53-53, but he found little traction for most of the night. Grant, who entered the game averaging 17.3 points per game, finished with 6 points on 2-of-8 shooting; he did dish out 6 assists. With that effort on Grant as the cornerstone of the defensive performance, the Cavaliers held the Irish to 33.9% shooting in the contest. ND entered the game with the nation’s No. 1 shooting offense at 54.8% on the season and the No. 1 offensive efficiency rating at 1.248 points per possession.
Tony Bennett’s team, which now has held 40 straight ACC opponents to less than 50% shooting, found a way to slow down the Irish.
“I think it was just a matter of they’re a great defensive team. I think that overall they got the timely stops that they needed and the timely offensive rebounds that they needed and they hit big shots,” Connaughton said. “At the end of the day, I don’t think it was losing the game as it was them winning the game. I think we can learn from what they did on those winning plays that will help us down the stretch.”
While the defense held Notre Dame in check, the offense needed to overcome a sluggish stretch in order to get the job done. The Hoos scored just eight points in the final 11:38 of the first half as the Irish took a 27-24 lead to the locker room and eventually built a 34-26 lead early in the second half.
Virginia, however, found its groove after intermission when it made 15 of 26 shots (57.7%). That included a 5 of 7 flurry to finish the game, which helped erase that aforementioned 51-50 deficit.
After UVa was awarded a timeout during a trap near halfcourt, Malcolm Brogdon buried a 3-pointer to make it 53-51 in the visitors’ favor. Grant tied things briefly, but Brogdon drove into the paint and kicked the ball to the corner where Justin Anderson used a fake pass to set up a 3-pointer of his own at the 3:44 mark. That made it 56-53 and the Hoos never trailed again.
Brogdon scored on a strong move to the basket at the 1:12 mark to push the lead to 58-53 and Virginia put the game away at the free throw line. Brogdon and Anderson each hit two there to finish with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Brogdon added 4 assists, while Anderson had 4 rebounds.
“Our offense, we started standing and I said at halftime ‘You guys look so finesse.’ I said ‘You’ve got to get back to running your offense with purpose, with screens and cuts instead of just standing and looking,” Bennett said. “And we really got away from making Notre Dame work. And then in the second half, that’s where I like that they adjusted that way and then we got great lifts from individual guys. We got to hang in there, make some big shots, get some key stops against a team that can go on spurts. It was a good game for us.”
Another pair of Hoos delivered big outings too. Junior center Mike Tobey stepped up with 8 points and 7 rebounds, including a pair of post baskets in the second half.
Senior Darion Atkins, however, came through with a clutch performance from start to finish. He set the tone at the start of both halves and was instrumental in jump-starting the offense after intermission. He tipped in a missed shot for the first bucket of the second half and then added a jump hook from the left block moments later. At the 15:45 mark, Atkins made a post move to draw the defense and then kicked it to Brogdon, who moved the ball to Anderson for a 3-pointer. He scored two more baskets during a see-saw stretch later in the half.
Atkins led Virginia with 14 points and 8 rebounds to go with 2 blocked shots. UVa outscored Notre Dame 18-10 in the paint in the second half.
“Overall, I thought Darion was the ‘X’ factor tonight,” Brogdon told The Associated Press. “I thought he was terrific on both ends: super-active, scoring, giving us buckets when we needed them.”
That was good to see Darion have a big game. This team is so cool. I like how the announcers like to think we don’t have anyone who can score when we need to take over the game but it seems like in reality there’s 8 people who could have a big game on any night and be the leading scorer depending on how the game is going. Justin could go for 20, Anthony could go for 25, Toby could go double double. One of these games you know it’s gonna be Shayok or Nolte coming out of nowhere and scoring 15-20 points when a team game plans to take someone out of the game. That’s what I’ve loved about Bennett’s teams. Even when we had guys on the team who couldn’t shoot the team finds a way to keep scoring efficiently. I remember sitting in the Dean Dome with my brother whose a Carolina fan and Mike Scott was in foul trouble and Jontel was in the game. My brother was like “there’s no way they’ll be able to stay in the game”. I said, they will run their stuff and score. Sure enough, they hung in there with that high scoring team with Henson and Zeller and company. WAHOOWAH!!!
Excellent comments and agree 100%. Truly a team !