Make room at the buzzer-beater table Malcolm Brogdon and Darius Thompson, De’Andre Hunter just joined the club.
The Virginia basketball team trailed by two points with just 0.9 seconds remaining Thursday night when Hunter delivered a game-winning 3-pointer off the glass to stun Louisville, 67-66. That marked the third time in five years that the Hoos grabbed an ACC road win at the lost possible moment. In 2014, Brogdon knocked down a last-second shot to crush Pittsburgh, 48-45. In 2016, Thompson made a tricky bank shot at Wake Forest that gave UVA a 72-71 victory.
“That was my first game-winner ever,” Hunter told The Roanoke Times.
“There’s part of me that’s so thankful, excited, and happy how our guys showed resiliency and finished,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “I also feel some pain for them or compassion for them. … All of their guys, they played so hard and they played well. … Our guys had to make some tough shots and of course there’s some you need things to break right and they did for us but we kept plugging. Of course a good win but I know how hard of a loss that is for Louisville because of how well they played throughout that.”
Indeed, Louisville coach David Padgett confirmed that he had never experienced anything like that as a coach or player.
“That’s the toughest loss I’ve ever had,” Padgett said.
That’s understandable. The improbable finish defied probability logic.
The Cavaliers trailed by five points, 64-59, when Louisville’s Ray Spalding made two free throws with 13.6 seconds remaining. The sequence that followed, however, made the seemingly impossible possible.
First, Ty Jerome hit a step-back 3-pointer in front of UVA’s bench with 6.1 seconds to go. That made it 64-62. The Hoos fouled immediately on the next inbounds play and Darius Perry again appeared to put the game away for the Cardinals with two made free throws that gave his team a four-point lead with 5.8 seconds remaining and the visitors 94 feet away from their basket.
Jerome dribbled up the floor and took what usually is a meaningless 3-pointer in these situations, but Perry tried to heavily contest that shot and hit Jerome on the arm in the act of shooting. That led to three free throws with 0.9 seconds on the clock. Jerome made both free throws and then intentionally missed the third attempt to give his team a chance for a tip-in to force overtime with a 66-66 score. That plan went awry when Kyle Guy appeared to be called for a lane violation for rushing to the glass from outside the 3-point line too early or for Mamadi Diakite for entering the paint too early.
Louisville only needed to get the ball inbounds to seal the upset of the nation’s No. 1 team. Since the inbounds play was preceded by a violation, however, inbounder Deng Adel could not move on the baseline. Having trouble seeing anyone open, Deng slid along the baseline and that traveling violation gave UVA the ball back with an opportunity to pull off the unlikely comeback.
Jerome fired a pass to Hunter well behind the 3-point line on the left wing and the redshirt freshman banked in the game-winning shot as time expired. That set off a spontaneous dog pile by the Hoos and brought back memories of Thompson at Wake Forest.
“A couple years ago, we were at Wake Forest that might have been more improbable,” Bennett said. “It was a bank shot from the dead corner. That might have been more improbable as crazy as that sounds. But things happen, you don’t know. It’s unfortunate that the young man traveled but I’ve seen that happen a lot so that’s why you keep playing until the buzzer goes off, for real.”
Virginia needed the miracle finish to preserve its unbeaten run on the road in ACC play. The Hoos completed the 9-0 season sweep of league road games with the win, becoming the first team to post a perfect ACC road record since Duke went 8-0 in 2011-12. UVA’s ACC road winning streak now sits at 10 games overall.
For most of the night, that looked unlikely as Louisville dictated the flow of the game for most of the way after a 13-0 run pushed the hosts ahead 20-10 in the first 10 minutes. The Cardinals took the lead early in that run and led for the next 33:10 of game action. Adel, Ray Spalding, Quentin Snider, and VJ King all played big roles in building the advantage. Adel posted 18 points, six rebounds, and four assists. Spalding tallied 16 points, nine rebounds, two blocked shots, one assist, and one steal. Snider and King added 13 and eight points, respectively.
The margin grew to as many as 13 points in the second half when Adel nailed a 3-pointer and the hosts continued to control the game’s momentum. They got open shots as they created jumpers and inside buckets. They got to the free throw line. They bottled up Virginia with sturdy defense.
“Even Tony said it, we played well enough to win the game there is no question,” Padgett said. “You have to give them credit, they are the number one team in the country, and they showed grit, not giving up when they were down, whatever the lead was. They made big plays down the stretch, the biggest one of the game at the end.”
The Cavaliers never lost contact thanks to that grit. They hung around and tried to reel in Louisville’s lead. That effort never gained enough traction, however, until less than 4:30 remained. Still trailing by 10 at 56-46, Hunter knocked down a 3-pointer at the 4:12 mark to spark a 12-2 run that tied the game at 58-58. Kyle Guy, Devon Hall, and Ty Jerome each drove for layups in that stretch, while Jerome also put home three free throws.
Just when it looked like UVA might rally to steal the win, however, a turnover led to a Spalding putback that gave the Cards the lead again and set up the real heist in the final seconds. The Hoos ended up with 21 points in the final 4:12, which Hunter bookended with 3-pointers. In the end, that late flurry actually gave Virginia the edge in shooting percentage 42.9% to Louisville’s 41.3%.
Hunter finished with seven points and three rebounds. Jerome posted 21 points, two assists, and one steal. He had 15 of those points in the final 10 minutes. Guy and Hall scored 10 points each. Guy, who scored six of those points in the final 10 minutes, also registered four rebounds and two assists. Hall had nine rebounds and four assists for his line too. Diakite and Isaiah Wilkins chipped in nine and seven points, respectively. Wilkins also had seven rebounds and three blocked shots, which made him the 20th Cavalier with 600 or more career rebounds.
That proved to be just enough to get the win. Virginia enters the regular season finale with Notre Dame on Saturday with a chance to finish the regular season with a 17-1 record in ACC play. Louisville, meanwhile, heads to NC State the same day as it fights for positioning in both the ACC standings and on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
“I don’t know if other teams have gone undefeated but a really good accomplishment,” Bennett said. “To do it in this league, in this setting. It didn’t look promising but you have to go on and play. Clearly with the parity in this league, there’s not a lot of separation regardless of record, we know that, and you’ve got to play. We were in some tough situations when we were down at Florida State, down here, and it came down to making plays and that happened today. I’m very thankful and we’re going to go back and have one more regular season game at our place.”
