The Virginia basketball team has taken ACC road trips to both league Techs at this point. At least the Yellow Jacket fans got to enjoy $2 hot dogs on an otherwise frustrating night.
A little more than two weeks after UVA blasted Virginia Tech, 78-52, in Blacksburg, the Hoos handed out another double-digit defeat in Atlanta with a 64-48 win against Georgia Tech. While the Jackets scored the game’s first bucket, the Cavaliers took the lead less than three minutes in and never relinquished it over the final 37:17. The visitors led by 10 points or more for the final 19 minutes.
The Wahoos will take a 17-1 record, including 6-0 in the ACC, to Wake Forest on Sunday for a 6 p.m. contest.
“They play some match-up zone, then we got them into man, then they had to switch and I thought we did a good job with our ball screen offense,” Cavalier coach Tony Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “For the most part, defensively, it seemed like that held us in there. I’ll use the golf term again, you win on the road, that’s a birdie. We’ll take that any day.”
Georgia Tech did throw several defensive looks out early, but ultimately UVA’s offense had too much balance to slow down. Five players, four starters and a super sub, ended up with nine points or more in the game with four players in double figures. Reserve De’Andre Hunter led all scorers with 17 points as he made seven of nine shots on the night. Ty Jerome added 12 points, while the Hoos got 11 each from Devon Hall and Kyle Guy. Isaiah Wilkins chipped in nine.
Jerome and Wilkins stuffed the stat sheet elsewhere too. Jerome tallied five rebounds, five assists, and three steals in 37 minutes of work. Wilkins posted five rebounds, one assist, three steals, and two blocked shots as well.
It took a while for the Hoos to find the balanced scoring groove, though. They opened the game just 3-of-13 shooting (23.1%) before eventually getting on the right track. By the end of the game, they finished 27-of-58 shooting (46.6%). That included a strong second half of 15-of-28 shooting (53.6%). UVA never really found the range from 3-point range where it hit three of 13 attempts (23.1%).
“I think we settled in ,” Wilkins said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “Their defense is good. They switch up a lot and do a lot of different things. We just kept going and doing what coach said and eventually we found our groove with a lot of ball screens and things like that to open the court up. The guards got it going for us.”
Hunter seemed to be the one that helped spark the offense when he checked in and got into the middle of Tech’s defense. He drove for a pair of layups that challenged GT center Ben Lammers, who had blocked six shots in the early minutes. Those buckets were sandwiched around a Guy 3-pointer as the lead first started to grow.
Later in the first half when the Jackets got within five points, Hunter had a pair of answers. First, he got another layup to go near the four-minute mark to offset a potential surge from the hosts. Just before intermission, Curtis Haywood hit his second 3-pointer for Georgia Tech to trim the lead to 24-19 in the final 20 seconds, but Hunter came through with a four-point play on a 3-point make and free throw in the final second to shut down that momentum. Early in the second half, Hunter tipped in a missed shot that put the lead at double figures for good too.
Hunter’s ability to defend players inside and outside again allowed Virginia to play him as a fourth guard. That, in turn, makes him a tough cover on the offensive end when he gets it going with his 7’2” wing span. He scored on drives, tip-ins, post-ups, and the 3-point jumper against this Tech.
“He’s so tall. He’s two, three inches taller than I am and he moves like a guard and you don’t see a lot of those guys,” Wilkins joked on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. ”Once he gets going in practice, I try to switch Mamadi [Diakite] on him (laughs) and make somebody else do it. He’s good and he practices hard and all of that good stuff.”
Once the offense started to produce, the Hoos started to separate from Georgia Tech on the scoreboard. That’s because the defense, as usual, made life tough for an opponent. The Yellow Jackets managed 48 points on 17-of-42 shooting (40.5%), which included making three of five triples in the second half to keep the margin from getting too out of hand. The hosts also had troubles with turnovers, however, with 18 on the night and that helped UVA build a 16-2 advantage in points off of turnovers.
The Cavaliers held the Yellow Jackets scoreless for 7:50 in the first half when they allowed just 19 points.
Those struggles left GT with just one double-digit scorer. Tadric Jackson came off the bench for 14 points, while Josh Okogie and Haywood each had nine. For the second straight meeting, the Virginia defense also frustrated Lammers as he recorded only four points on 1-of-5 shooting with five turnovers. In last season’s only matchup, he managed seven points on 3-of-12 shooting.
“I thought Zay did a good job on Lammers. He’s a big kid,” Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “They run a lot of actions and they’ll take you down in the shot clock. For the most part, we didn’t yield. We just said win the majority of the possessions and get a great look if you can. Then make them shoot contested shots. We had a few breakdowns, but overall it was a whole effort [defensively].”
