CHARLOTTE – For all the crazy finishes, Cinderella stories, and buzzer beaters the NCAA Tournament has produced in its history, March had never reached complete madness until Friday night. Unfortunately for the Virginia basketball team, the new level of insanity came at its expense.
In front of a lively late-night crowd at the Spectrum Center, the Cavaliers became the first No. 1 seed to fall to a No. 16 seed when UMBC shocked UVA, 74-54. Prior to the historic win, the top seeds owned a 135-0 record against 16 seeds. The upset left with the building with a palpable buzz as everyone processed what they just witnessed.
The Retrievers basked in the golden glow of the moment.
“Of course we just made history tonight. It’s always exciting to make history,” UMBC senior Jairus Lyles said. “It’s a very exciting moment for us in UMBC especially.”
“I think we kind of all wanted to be in the One Shining Moment video,” freshman Joe Sherburne. “We were all in the locker room singing the first line because that’s all we know, but I think we’re going to have to learn the rest of the song, too.”
The Hoos, however, slumped in their seats and tried to handle being on the heartbreaking side of history.
“This is bigger than the game. One-sixteen, that sucks for sure, but this is bigger than that,” Virginia senior captain Isaiah Wilkins said. “This is family in here. That hurts more than the game.”
“I love Coach Bennett, but there’s not really a whole lot that can prepare you for this kind of feeling,” Cavalier sophomore Kyle Guy said. “He has instilled a lot of humility and unity throughout our team. So it will be easy for us to bounce back, but there’s not really any answer to make you feel better in this situation.”
As Guy alluded to in his response with reporters, Virginia coach Tony Bennett often provides calm perspective in both good times and bad at the helm of the UVA program. Whether that’s been quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson with “The hero is not fed on sweets” during the program’s rise or an old church hymn with “Weeping may endure for a night; But joy cometh in the morning!” when the program suffered a heartbreaking loss to Syracuse in the Elite Eight, he’s tried to frame things in some sort of context.
Following Friday’s loss, he didn’t quote anything outright but he made reference to the famous quote of President Theodore Roosevelt that reads in part that “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Virginia experienced the good end of that world last week when it won three games in the ACC Tournament to win the program’s third title in that event. The loss in the NCAA Tournament brought the season to a screeching halt less than a week later. Providing the right words to help soothe the loss for his players or for fans of the program is hard when the end is a crash landing like that.
“A week ago we were cutting down the nets at ACC Tournament and how good that felt and they had a historic season, they really did … in terms of ACC wins and ACC Conference Tournament Championship and then we had a historic loss being the first 1 seed to lose,” Bennett said. “So, that’s life. We talk about it all the time. The adulation, the praise, it comes and we got a lot of that this year. Then on the other side, there will be blame and people pointing that out. That can’t, in the end, you know, define these guys and our team or us, because it was a remarkable season but we got thoroughly outplayed. That’s the reality of it. And I hate for this team, the way they played to lose like this, but for Devon [Hall] and Isaiah to go out like that and Nigel [Johnson] being a fifth year for us.
“So, with that, if you play this game and you step into the arena, this stuff can happen,” he continued. “And those who haven’t been in the arena or in the competition, maybe they don’t understand that. But there’s chances for wonderful things to happen, but when you’re in the arena, stuff like this can happen and all those who compete take that on. And so we’ll accept it.”
History unfolded as Virginia unraveled on the floor. The things that helped lift the Cavaliers to the top of the ACC and to the No. 1 line in the NCAA Tournament didn’t hold up in this game. They had been a rock solid defensive team that featured enough shooters to get the offense going on most nights.
Against UMBC, however, Virginia allowed a season-high 54.2% shooting and a season-high 53 points in the second half. The loss marked the first time this season that a team reached 70 points against the Hoos too. The Retrievers knocked down 12 of 24 3-pointers, the most ever against UVA in an NCAA Tournament game, surpassing 11 by Michigan in 1989, Tennessee in 2007, and UNC Wilmington in 2017. The defense gave up 11 fastbreak points.
On the flipside, the Cavaliers shot a season-low 18.2% from 3-point range. They logged more turnovers (7) than assists (5) and generally struggled to get the offense on track. Virginia also scored a season-low 21 points in the first half.
Still, the game stood tied at 21-21 when intermission arrived. The stalemate gave the underdogs some hope, while the favorites tried to regroup.
“Gave our guys some life there,” UMBC coach Ryan Odom said. “They felt like they could play, you know, with them.”
The Retrievers had closed the first half on an 11-5 run to get the tie score and they quickly extended that momentum across the halves. Sherburne got things started with an old-fashioned three-point play and then followed up with a triple on the next possession. K.J. Maura followed with a layup before Lyles and Sherburne added two more 3-pointers within the first four minutes to give their team a double-digit lead at 35-24.
Surprisingly, Virginia never got things under control. UMBC kept the lead above 10 points the rest of the way. Lyles had a lot to do with that. After scoring just five points in the first half on two shot attempts, he erupted to the delight of the gold-wearing faithful in the second half. Through a mix of 3-pointers and drives, he finished with 28 points on 9-of-11 shooting with three assists in 39 minutes. While it didn’t count due to a whistled foul, he even tossed in a one-handed shot from several steps behind the line in the second half.
With Sherburne’s 14 points plus 12 from Arkel Lamar and 10 from Maura, the Retrievers simply shredded the defense in the second half. They shot 67.9% after halftime, including 58.3% from 3-point range.
“Their quickness … they put a lot of pressure on you with that and they run their offense,” Bennett said. “That’s why I wanted to give credit to Ryan [Odom]. They run their offense so fast. That ball just pop, pop, pop and they do the dribble handoffs, keeping it and moving it. If you’re not really disciplined and really sound – and we worked as hard as we could preparing for it, but it’s like you can’t mimic that until you go against it.”
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While UMBC’s confidence bubbled over, Virginia’s offense simmered for most of the day until a few buckets late while in desperation mode helped bump up the numbers. The Hoos shot 41.1% for the game, including the season-low 18.2% from 3-point range.
Ty Jerome and Guy led the team with 15 points each. Jerome went 6-of-16 shooting, including 2-of-9 shooting from behind the arc. Guy couldn’t find shots for much of the night, but ended up 7-of-11 shooting with an 0-2 line from 3-point range. Senior captain Devon Hall, the third wing in the starting group, battled some foul trouble early and ended up with two points on 1-of-9 shooting, including 0-of-6 shooting from downtown.
Nigel Johnson and Mamadi Diakite provided some boost with nine and six points respectively, while Wilkins closed his career with seven points and five rebounds.
While the scoring ended up balanced in the end, UVA struggled to get much going early and that may have been where the team missed De’Andre Hunter in the first half. The redshirt freshman gave the Hoos the versatility to post up, face up in isolation, or to step out for deep jumpers. He broke his left wrist in the ACC Tournament, however, so that option was off the table for the rest of the postseason. With the missing offense in the first half, UVA also missed his defense and ability to switch actions more comfortably on defense in the second half onslaught.
“For us to be able to beat a Virginia basketball team that’s had an amazing season – I know that they just lost one of their best players, so that is a factor as well,” Odom said. “You know, they probably will not say that because that’s who they are, but Hunter is a big, big player for them but … take nothing away from our guys. Our guys just battled throughout.”
The same could be said of Virginia this season, though history won’t include that footnote. The Cavaliers came into the campaign unranked and predicted to finish sixth in the ACC. Instead, they rolled to a 31-3 record and climbed to No. 1 in the national rankings.
Bennett’s team won the ACC Regular Season Championship by four games in the standings and capped off a 20-1 overall record against ACC teams by winning the ACC Tournament Championship last weekend in Brooklyn. The Hoos also won the NIT Tipoff Tournament this season. All of that was part of a school-record 31 wins.
None of that provided much solace in the moment.
“Absolutely [we had a great season],” Hall said. “But if you were in my shoes right now, what do you think your mind would be on? You know what I mean? It’s tough to think about that stuff when you’re in this spot. Maybe in a few days or a week or something like that, we’ll think oh man heck of a season we had and it’s been a special season, but this just stings. This just stings. I won’t be able to wear this uniform again and I’ve had amazing memories wearing it.”
I sincerely feel for your team, your coach and your fans. Sincerely thought you guys were the team to beat this year.
Our margin of error and overall talent level never matched our gaudy record. You guys showed it by beating us at JPJ although not as thoroughly as UMBC did it. We had Hunter then tho. I can’t help but think losing DeAndre put the Hoos in a mental funk. They simply became victims of a reverse “Cavalanche”.
The ACC tournament banner will hang from the rafters. It didn’t end as you expected but it was a remarkable season. Record 17 ACC wins and #1 in country for first time in 25 years. Won and then lost with class and integrity. It stings but be proud!