Virginia Tech ended Virginia’s first long winning streak earlier this season, but the Hokies seemed powerless to repeat that feat Tuesday night. The Hoos handled the Hokies from the opening jumpball to the final buzzer in a 67-49 victory at the John Paul Jones Arena.
The hosts led by double digits for the final 26:54 and the margin never dipped below 15 points in the final 16:07. That wire-to-wire performance lifted UVA (20-4, 9-3 ACC) to its seventh straight win and avenged the 70-68 loss in Blacksburg that snapped an 11-game winning streak in early January.
”That whole span of games that we played and didn’t win them, I think that really got under each and every one of our skins,” Cavalier senior Anthony Gill said. ”We all understood that is not how we play UVA basketball. Of course this one means a little bit more because it is a rivalry game in state and everybody loves to beat Virginia Tech. We all knew that we were a better team tonight than we were when we first played Virginia Tech and we wanted to go out there prove it.”
Playing Virginia basketball means coupling stingy man-to-man defense with an efficient load-sharing offense and the Cavaliers had both pieces of that equation working Tuesday. Defensively, UVA bothered Virginia Tech’s spacing and dribble drive opportunities for most of the night. The Hokies made just 16 of 45 shots to finish at 35.6%, which included a 4 of 14 outing from 3-point range (28.6%). The visitors scored a season-low 49 points, including a season-low 20 points in the first half. They had 70 points on 47.1% shooting (52.9% from 3-point range) in their upset win in January.
The visitors had 7 assists and 15 turnovers too. That helped UVA post a 21-9 advantage in points off turnovers, a complete reversal from the first meeting where VT held a 26-6 edge in that category. The Hoos committed 16 turnovers in Blacksburg, while the Hokies had just 8. Tech had 8 turnovers in the first 17 minutes of the Charlottesville rematch.
Virginia Tech is the fourth straight opponent to shoot less than 40% from the floor. Each of Louisville, Boston College, Pittsburgh, and VT finished with 50 points or less in those games. The Cavaliers have ratcheted up the reps in practice in order to improve the defense in the past several weeks.
”I think we did a really good job in practice of trying to get back to the way we need to play defense and really emphasizing the defensive end,” UVA’s Mike Tobey said. ”That’s what made this team successful in the past so we’re trying to get back to that.”
”It’s something we really focus on in practice,” Gill said. ”Then when we get in games, we go out there and try to execute it the best way we can. Like I say after every game, the only way we’re going to win games here at UVA is by the defense. We understand that as a team and we strive to be the best defensive team that we can be. We go out there every night and try to prove it.”
On the other end of the floor, Virginia had things clicking for long stretches of the game. The Hoos made 24 of 49 shots in the game to finish at 49% shooting and made 17 of 20 at the free throw line to finish at 85% shooting there as well. The Cavaliers logged assists on 18 of their 24 made field goals and tallied just 10 turnovers. They posted assists on 12 of the first 13 made baskets in the game.
That included a key stretch in the first half that helped UVA build the lead that never wavered. In a span of 2:30 just past the halfway point of the opening half, the Wahoos scored on four of five possessions and all four trips featured assists. First, Evan Nolte (4 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 steal) hit a corner jumper on a pass from Darius Thompson. After a missed layup on the next possession, Devon Hall scored a layup on a pass from Malcolm Brogdon. The next time down, Tobey got an easy bucket on the baseline on a pass from Nolte. Finally, Brogdon drained a 3-pointer on an assist from Hall.
That flurry carried the Hoos to a 22-9 lead and they were never really threatened again.
“We try to move the ball side to side and get good shots,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said. “If there’s a good one early, we’ll take it. Virginia Tech did a good job pressuring us and bogging us down a little bit. At times, we couldn’t quite run our offense that well. But when we got the ball reversed and ran our stuff hard, we got some good action. … Virginia Tech really jams the lane. They flood it, pack it and pick up a bunch of charges. You’ve got to make the extra pass and they really forced us to do that early.”
Gill was one of four Cavaliers in double figures as he scored 16 points. Isaiah Wilkins added 14 points and 4 rebounds, while Brogdon came through with 12 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists. Tobey added 10 points as well. Gill, Wilkins, and Tobey combined for those 40 points on 15-of-23 shooting (65.2%). It was a nice bounce-back game for Gill, who scored just 4 points while battling foul trouble at Pitt. For Wilkins, meanwhile, it was a career night.
Wilkins made 5 of 7 shots and added 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 blocked shot, and 1 steal too. Wilkins helped slam the door on any comeback hopes early in the second half as well. The Hokies cut the lead to 10 points at 32-22 on the first possession of the second half, but Wilkins got fouled by hustling for an offensive rebound shot attempt to immediately answer with two points. He added a dunk and a short jumper in the first 3:18 of the second half as well and Virginia’s lead ballooned from there.
“I think he has been playing well,” Virginia Tech coach Buzz Williams said. “I’m not coaching their team, but I think there is more productivity from top to bottom than when we played them last month. They changed the starting lineup, and so the minutes have varied a little bit since the last time. I would say that a portion of that is why they have been playing at such a higher clip.”
