The Virginia basketball team built a lead late in both halves Saturday at Pittsburgh. Fortunately for the Cavaliers, the Panthers only finished a comeback rally in the first half, though. The Hoos held off a surge in the final two minutes to grab their fourth straight win, 59-56.
UVA improved to 19-7 and 11-5 in the ACC with the victory. That secured 11 conference wins for a school-best eight straight seasons under Tony Bennett. The Cavaliers have won five straight against Pitt and own a 9-1 record in the series since the Panthers joined the ACC in 2013.
“First I want to congratulate Virginia on their win,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “Both teams out there fought and battled. We did some good things in the game, but we have to get to the point where we minimize mistakes, capitalize when we have opportunities, and we have to be mentally tougher for 40 minutes, especially against that team since that program is established that’s their culture. Tony has done an amazing job with this group. They get better and better as the season’s going on. I thought coming into this game that they were playing really well at a very high level.”
Virginia appeared poised to take full control of the game and leave a struggling Pittsburgh team behind for good several times throughout the afternoon. The visitors jumped out to a 7-2 lead capped by a Jay Huff 3-pointer in the opening three minutes, for example, but the Panthers quickly came back to take the lead. UVA reasserted itself later in the half and grew the lead to 26-19 just inside of five minutes when Tomas Woldetensae connected from deep.
The Cavaliers couldn’t make that lead stick either. Pitt rallied with a 7-0 run to tie the score with 2:27 to go before intermission, though UVA eventually led 31-29 at the half anyway. As it turned out, however, there was some foreshadowing in that late-half run by Pitt.
In the second half, Virginia stayed ahead throughout and established a 14-point lead at 51-37 on another Woldetensae triple with 6:24 remaining. Like the late minutes in the first half, however, UVA couldn’t completely close the door. Pittsburgh hung around over the next four minutes and finally sliced into the lead significantly in the final two minutes.
Au’Diese Toney got a bucket in the paint plus made a free throw when Braxton Key tried for a late block in transition. That chopped the score to 58-52. Following a missed 3-pointer from a wide open Casey Morsell, Xavier Johnson scored in the paint for Pittsburgh and the lead was down to four. Johnson scored again with 56 seconds to go to make it 58-56, but that’s as close as the comeback got.
The Panthers had two late possessions to either take the lead or tie, but couldn’t get the bucket they needed. Down two with just five seconds left, Trey McGowens created a good look at a 3-pointer after some good ball movement but missed. On the game’s final possession down three, the hosts didn’t run their planned action fast enough and didn’t get the shot off on time for a 3-pointer that appeared to be on target for the tie (Key jumped up and batted it away after the horn so it didn’t actually go in).
While UVA struggled both with offense against fullcourt pressure and late in the shot clock during that rally, Key did make one free throw for the final 59-56 margin. That was Virginia’s only point in the final 2:40. In the closing stretch, Kihei Clark had a shot blocked late in the clock, a turnover when the ball was tipped away from behind, and a shot clock violation on a driving attempt that missed the rim. On two of those possessions, the coaches decided to hold the ball and called for a late ball screen for Clark, likely with hopes of forcing a switch that didn’t come.
“The last four minutes I think we were up double digits,” Bennett said. “They made some plays, a couple off the glass, but they attacked and made some plays and we had too many uncharacteristic turnovers. Kihei was really good but just had some errors. I think he’s frustrated with it and I liked how he played up until that point but you grow from it, you learn from it and of course it’s hard to get wins and we’re fighting, and so we’ll take it. They had a great look on the possession before the end of game. So, we were fortunate, played well, and that would have been a hard one to swallow but thankfully we held on.”
Even though the Hoos barely missed the 60-point mark for the seventh time in the last 10 games, there were still some good signs on offense again. Four players hit double digits, which came on the heels of five players with 10 or more points against Boston College earlier in the week. Against Pitt, Clark led all scorers with 17 points. He had 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 6 turnovers. Key, Woldetensae, and Diakite all chipped in 10 points each. Key posted 7 rebounds and 4 assists too, while Diakite snared 10 rebounds for his second career double-double.
Huff had 5 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots to help the cause. That’s his 13th multi-block game of the season and he’s up to 47 blocks on the season with 30 of those coming in conference play. Casey Morsell, who was a game-time decision after an ankle injury Wednesday night, ended up playing 25 minutes and contributing 7 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 assist.
As a team, UVA made 11 of 13 free throws and 6 of 18 3-point attempts.
Pittsburgh countered with 16 points from Johnson, who also had 4 assists, and 13 points from Toney. Justin Champaigne and Terrell Brown had 9 points each, while McGowens finished with 8. The Panthers generated some of their early offense with offensive rebounds, but the Hoos cleaned that up in the second half. The visitors ended up with a 33-32 edge on the glass. Pitt shot 38.6% for the game and just 20% from 3-point range.
“They are the best defensive team in the country. And so year in, year out, they’re pretty consistent there so I think a lot of it had to do with them,” Capel said. “They are a hard team to score against. That’s why teams don’t shoot a good percentage against them and on average don’t score a lot of points against them. So I do think a lot of it was them. Some of it was us. We were trying to avoid contact instead of trying to go through contact. You know we had opportunities, we had a couple of careless turnovers that can avoid. But overall I thought we did some good things offensively, they are just elite on the other side of the ball.”
It all added up to another close win for the Hoos. After dropping three straight close games in early January (60-53 at Boston College, 63-55 at home vs. Syracuse in overtime, and 54-50 on the road at FSU) to fall behind in the ACC standings and the NCAA Tournament chase, UVA has won eight of its last 10 games. That includes close victories along the way at Georgia Tech (63-58), at Wake Forest (65-63 in OT), and at UNC (64-62) as well as home W’s against Florida State (61-56) and Notre Dame (50-49).
In other words, the tightrope act that Virginia’s season has become created some more tense moments Saturday. While the Wahoos teetered, they didn’t tumble. In a road game that could have hurt their tournament resume and certainly their seeding line if they make the madness, they pulled it out.
“We say it all the time the guys that have been in those environments or been in spots like that, maybe Kihei took it for granted too much, he was pretty relaxed, but Mamadi has been in a lot of those spots as Kihei has and Braxton has, and Jay a little bit,” Bennett said. “Those guys I think are helpful for us, but it still comes down to home or away, are you playing good basketball, just the doing the little things well. … I think any experience is good as long as you grow from it and learn from it and because we’ve been playing better basketball the last few games and I think that may be as much [of it] as of anything. The way our system is geared it shouldn’t matter home or away.”
