GREENSBORO, N.C. – Only five days after the teams’ double-overtime thriller, Virginia and Georgia Tech once again found themselves in a nailbiter on Friday, this time in the four vs. five match-up of the of the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals played at the Greensboro Coliseum. As was the case Sunday afternoon in Charlottesville, the Cavaliers emerged victorious, 52-43.
This game, however, took on a whole different look as the teams combined for 95 points, six points fewer than Georgia Tech’s 101 points it put up in the loss Sunday afternoon.
“It was a very highly contested, physical, defensive oriented game,” UVa coach Debbie Ryan said. “Both of our teams are very defensively oriented and our last game was the opposite of the way we normally play. Today, I knew that both teams would adjust to get back into their normal flows.”
The Cavs and the Jackets went back and forth all afternoon with neither team obtaining a lead greater than five until 37 seconds remained in the game.
“It was a game of ebbs and flows,” Ryan said. “It was three of four points by them, three or four points by us. There weren’t any long runs until the very end of the game.”
With five minutes to play, Lyndra Littles drilled two free throws to give Virginia a 40-39 lead. Georgia Tech then countered with a lay-up from Chioma Nnamaka courtesy of an offensive rebound by Janie Mitchell. The 41-40 lead was the last the Jackets would enjoy.
Virginia closed the game on a 12-2 run, clearly benefiting from the rest afforded by its first round bye. The Yellow Jackets had to dispose of Miami on Thursday afternoon in the first round of the tournament.
“Not playing yesterday, that is the advantage that you have,” Ryan said. “If you can get this bye, you have the advantage because you didn’t have to play the game and the team you are playing in the last five minutes is still pretty fresh.”
The Cavs tightened up the defense down the stretch, forcing two shot clock violations and allowing Georgia Tech only two field goals in the final 8 minutes of the game. Virginia’s solid defense led to easy buckets on the other end, evidenced by a pair of lay-ups from Aisha Mohammed and Sharneé Zoll.
“Our transition game is built off our defense,” Zoll said. “We have to defend it and rebound in order to get our running start. So that is what we focused on and we wanted to run them and get them tired. Like Coach said, [Georgia Tech] playing yesterday went to our advantage.”
A big part of Virginia’s success in the game’s final minutes was due in large part to the play of Littles. She had 8 points in the last five minutes, shaking off a 2 for 9 first half performance and finishing the game with 15 points. The junior forward did not let her slow-shooting start detract from her effort on the boards as she grabbed a team-high 16 rebounds. Overall, Virginia out-rebounded Georgia Tech 44-35.
“I just tried to focus on doing something else,” Littles said. “So I focused on going to the boards. … You can’t control whether or not your shots go in, but you can control how hard you work to get rebounds.”
The Cavaliers also got a strong performance out of Mohammed who contributed 12 points and 11 rebounds for her 13th double-double of the season. Monica Wright followed up her career-high 28-point performance with a team-high 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting.
Next up for Virginia is a match-up with top-seed North Carolina. The Cavaliers dropped their only game with the Tar Heels 90-82 at John Paul Jones Arena but had a chance late in the game to tie or take the lead.
“Carolina is Carolina,” Ryan said. “They deserve everything they have. They went through this conference 14 and 0. They are younger in spots than we are, but they have great experience and they have a great leader [in Elana Larkins.] I feel we played them well in Charlottesville. I feel it was a one or two possession game. You know, it’s up to us to be able to compete all the way through the game with a team like Carolina. Obviously, it’s a tough, tough challenge for us, but I think we’ll be as up to it as we can be tomorrow.”
Tip-off for the game tomorrow is scheduled for 1 p.m. and will be televised by FSN.
