Valentine’s Day weekend or not, Cameron Indoor Stadium has a habit of breaking Virginia’s hearts in recent years. For the third straight trip to the venue, UVA watched Duke sneak out a close win in the final seconds. The Hoos haven’t won in the building since 1995.
This time, Grayson Allen banked home a sidearm one-hander as time expired to lift the Blue Devils to a 63-62 victory, negating a go-ahead reverse layup from Malcolm Brogdon just seconds earlier in the process. In 2014, Virginia had the lead in the final 20 seconds as well but an offensive rebound led to a Rasheed Sulaimon 3-pointer that bounced high off the rim and through the net with 18.8 seconds to go and Duke won 69-65. In 2012, UVA lost 61-58 but had two 3-point looks to tie in the final 15 seconds.
“It looked to me like he made a really hard shot,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said of Allen’s game winner on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. ”It looked like we spread out, we stayed on him, we bothered – did his foot hit the floor? and all of that – but it seems like he got it off. He just kind of hung and moved it and made a huge play. … They called a timeout with about six seconds and boy they used all six of those to squeeze that one out.”
Allen’s last-second shot stung even more considering Brogdon’s acrobatic shot just seconds before gave the Hoos the lead with 9.9 seconds remaining. The visitors tried to set Brogdon up off a screen in the corner, but Duke had that covered so the ball ended up in Marial Shayok’s hands on the right wing. He drove to the free throw line and went to his favored fake spin and turn-back jumper move before spotting Brogdon cutting along the baseline at the last moment. Shayok bailed on his shot and fired a pass down to Brogdon, who made a backward over-the-shoulder reverse layup off the glass to give UVA the lead.
Unfortunately, much like last season’s Louisville game – the last time the Cavaliers lost on a shot in the final seconds – when a go-ahead 3-pointer by Brogdon didn’t hold up, Duke had the answer. Allen’s shot snapped a seven-game winning streak for the Hoos. Shayok had Allen smothered on the final shot attempt, but he changed the release point on his shot and got it to go down.
“When we went up one with a couple of seconds left and it came down to our defense, that’s what we pride ourselves on … it’s just tough to lose that way, but we fought hard,” UVA guard London Perrantes said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “That’s the best he could have done without fouling. I mean he made an extremely tough shot. We’ll live with that all day. I don’t think he’ll make that nine times out of 10, but it’s just tough to lose like that.”
Those final dramatic seconds were fitting for a game that was a see-saw battle of runs throughout the afternoon. The lead changed hands eight times and the score was tied eight times. Duke opened an early 11-6 lead with a 7-2 run, but saw Virginia respond with a 19-3 burst to lead 25-14. That 11-point lead didn’t shake the Blue Devils, who ripped off a 7-0 surge to get back in it. The two teams traded blows to close out the half with the Wahoos leading 34-31.
The second half started the same way with each team trading shots en route to a 44-44 tie. That’s when Duke put together a 7-0 spurt in less than two minutes to lead 51-44. But UVA answered again with a 9-2 run to tie at 53-53 with 7:29 to play. Neither team led by more than three points the rest of the way, which set up the final fireworks.
“To say that was a hard fought game would be underselling it. Wow, what a great competitive game,” Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski
said. “It was hard to get buckets for everybody. I thought they knocked us back; we started off the game and we couldn’t get off a shot and obviously a lot of it has to do with their defense. I thought it really affected us and for about six minutes they dominated the game. We were fortunate that it didn’t go up more than 11. At a timeout, we got it straight and the last six and a half to seven minutes of the first half we played really well. They played well; we played well and it was tough to get shots off. … The basketball gods were good. [Malcolm] Brogdon made a tough, good shot, … and then we made a great play.”
In a nip-and-tuck showdown, Duke’s victory hinged on the play of Allen and freshman Brandon Ingram. That duo combined 40 points as they took 33 of the team’s 51 shots. Allen made the final shot and got to the free throw line frequently in the second half to post 15 points, while Ingram heated up in a big way during the 20 minutes on either side of halftime. Late in the first half, he scored 12 points in the final 10 minutes. That included an individual 8-0 run in 1:13 as UVA tried to go with Anthony Gill and Mike Tobey together on the floor, but Ingram beat Gill’s defense.
Ingram started the second half with the same heat, scoring 10 straight points for the Blue Devils. During that 18-point surge, Ingram made all seven shots he took. He finished with 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 1 assist.
UVA finally cooled off Ingram’s hot hand by putting Brogdon on him as part of a four-guard lineup, but that’s also when Allen started to get to the free throw line since he now was clear of the senior stalwart’s defense.
”That was tough, because then Grayson got going a little bit,” Bennett said. “It just shows you that our team defense is strong, but Malcolm had the ability to really spread out and guard people. People should take note of that at the next level, in my opinion. Allen is so aggressive, can get going into the lane and draw some fouls, but Ingram can rise up so we just had to pick our poison in a way. I though we made the right decisions to go with Malcolm on Ingram, but they certainly have some talented offensive pieces.”
The four guard strategy also seemed to leave Virginia vulnerable on the glass. Duke ended up winning the rebounding category 34-26. Throw in a 8-2 advantage in 3-pointers – the Blue Devils made 8 of 22 triples (36.4%), while the Cavaliers made 2 of 11 (18.2%) – and that was just enough to get the win.
In other parts of the box score, UVA spread the wealth offensively as five different players had at least 8 points. Brogdon led the way with 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists, while Anthony Gill tallied 12 points and 4 rebounds. Isaiah Wilkins, Mike Tobey, and Perrantes each added 8 points. Wilkins had 5 boards, while Perrantes had 2 assists. The team had assists on 13 of 26 made shots and just 7 turnovers.
The Wahoos will try to keep that balanced approach intact when they return to the John Paul Jones Arena on Monday to host NC State. That’s a short turnaround after the heart-breaking last-second loss at Duke, but Bennett hopes his group will use the setback as a learning tool.
“I will watch the replay but it looked like Marial did a good job,” Bennett said. “They had six seconds; he made Allen hit a hard shot. I kind of joked with Coach K after, I said ‘I think he traveled,’ and Coach said, ‘Well I think he got fouled.’ That is what we said as we embraced each other. It was a big league play, and again nice play on defense. It was also a nice play played on the other end; Marial kind of had a little fall away, nice pass, and Malcolm hit a reverse layup. I give thanks because I told our guys you battled, and you showed some mettle in an obviously super charged environment. We will learn from it and we will grow, there were a lot of good things and some things that we have to adjust.”
