For much of Saturday night’s contest at the John Paul Jones Arena, Georgia Tech was hitting all the right notes. The final crescendo, however, belonged to the Virginia basketball team. The Cavaliers doubled up the Yellow Jackets in the last 15 minutes to erase a double-digit deficit and win 64-62.
The tight victory struck a chord with UVA senior Jay Huff, who has seen his fair share of close games during his career. In fact, the Hoos started their current 14-game winning streak in ACC games with repeated close wins at the end of last season. Of the final eight victories to close last season, seven came by 3 points or less. Saturday night’s two-point margin was the first conference game this season to come down to the final possession as Virginia reached 6-0 to open league play.
“I’ve been in probably a million two-point games with one minute left in my five years here,” Huff said. “It’s pretty freaking ridiculous, actually. But for some of the first years, that’s something that they got to get used to. So I think we just, you know, we learn from it. There were definitely mistakes that were made, but it also just helps to grow you as a player being involved in those type of late-situation games.”
The Cavaliers needed a series of clutch shots in the final five minutes to secure the win. Sam Hauser made a jumper with 4:57 remaining to give Virginia its first lead of the second half and he followed up with a 3-pointer to push the lead to 60-56. After Tech answered with a Michael Devoe 3-pointer, it was Jay Huff’s turn to step up to the moment. With a short shot clock on an inbounds play, Huff caught the ball on the left wing and made the mid-range jumper for a 62-59 lead with 2:03 to go. Finally, after GT tied the game on a shot clock beater of its own when Moses Wright made a triple on an inbounds play, Kihei Clark connected on a shot in the paint to provide the final margin at 64-62.
That closing kick capped off a strong finish for Hauser and Huff, while it proved to be the winning salve for an otherwise tough night for Clark.
Early in the second half, after all, it looked like the Yellow Jackets might storm out of the JPJ with a comfortable win. After leading by four at intermission, Tech came out and pushed that advantage to 11 in the first 5:34 of the second half. Jose Alvarado scored an easy layup off of a UVA turnover and Jordan Usher caught an alley-oop slam out of a timeout to push it to double digits at 49-38 with 15:26 remaining.
That’s when Hauser and Huff asserted themselves. Huff ripped off four quick points on two free throws and a dunk to pull the deficit back to single digits, but he lead remained at 9 points entering the final 10 minutes thanks to an Alvarado 3-pointer at the 10:08 mark. He celebrated that bucket with a little air guitar routine, which he had done in last season’s game in Atlanta as well. From that moment on, Virginia outscored the visitors 19-8. Hauser started that surge with back-to-back 3-pointers, while Huff had another dunk in the mix too. Then came their exploits in the final five minutes.
Hauser led all scorers with 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting. That included a 4-5 night from 3-point land. He added 6 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 blocked shot too. Huff matched his career-high once again with 18 points on 7-11 shooting. He posted 5 rebounds, 5 blocked shots, and 2 assists as well. Huff tied Travis Watson for fifth on the program’s all-time blocks list with 130 thanks to that performance. That duo helped UVA record 48.1% shooting (25-52) overall and 44.4% shooting from 3-point range (8-18).
“I thought our two seniors really carried us,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “Those guys, … Sam and Jay down the stretch really kind of took over the game. Kihei struggled at times but boy did he make a tough, tough shot. A tough layup and I thought, the one he missed that would have stretched it out to maybe five but Kihei’s shot was tough. Sam and Jay, offensively, made some really nice plays and the guys that played did a real good job out there but Sam’s ability, that he got hot kind of brought us back. Jay made a real big shot out of that underneath out of bounds play with three seconds left but some nice alley-oop plays and some good high-level play going on both teams.”
Clark couldn’t get a shot to go down into that critical one with 1:08 to go. Prior to that, he had missed all of his attempts and he finished 1-10 shooting on the night. His biggest contribution offensively before the go-ahead shot in the paint came via the pass where he dished out 8 assists, including several high passes that Huff dunked home.
Still, the Hoos had faith in their junior guard when the chips were on the table. Bennett called Clark a winner and a warrior, while noting that he challenged him to play better in the second half. Hauser called it a huge shot to take the lead.
“Kihei’s a competitor and you can see that in him,” Hauser said. “Staying aggressive and taking a big shot like that shows his character and that he’s just he just wants to win and he’s going to do whatever it takes and we trust him in that situation. He obviously had to shake off a lot of things, and I thought he did well, and he just stuck to the game plan and stuck with it and obviously made a huge shot down the stretch. You know we love Kihei. He’s our little energy bug and he showed it tonight.”
With Clark and Trey Murphy III missing shots (Murphy had 3 points on 1-4 shooting), the Cavaliers needed a jolt from other guards to challenge a solid Georgia Tech defense. They got that from Reece Beekman and Casey Morsell, who combined for 15 points. Beekman tallied 6 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 blocked shot. Morsell came off the bench with 9 points, 4 rebounds, and 1 assist. He scored 5 points in the final 15 minutes to help support the comeback effort significantly.
Those two getting some production offensively allowed Virginia to counter strong guard play by the Yellow Jackets. The trio of Clark, Beekman, and Morsell began to do a better job of containing Alvarado, Devoe, and Bubba Parham, which in turn slowed the production of Wright and Usher. Alvarado led GT with 20 points, while Usher had 19. Wright chipped in 13 points with 5 blocked shots to the cause. In the final 10 minutes, however, Alvarado and Usher did not score, while Wright’s only bucket came on the inbounds play 3-pointer. Huff shut down Wright near the basket, including a blocked shot with 41 seconds to play courtesy of strong post defense.
Until Devoe and Wright hit the 3-pointers mentioned earlier, the visitors had gone more than 7 minutes with only 2 points. That helped pull the Jackets’ shooting numbers down, but they shot 45.3% for the game (24-53) and 60% from 3-point range (9-15).
“Georgia Tech is a good team,” Bennett said. “They’re really good at playing with great confidence, they play fast and they’re quick. What I saw down the stretch is, I thought our on-ball defense really stepped up. Whether it was Reece, Kihei, or Casey and then I thought Jay did a heck of a job. You know, his blocks were a little different than Wright’s but there was a lot of paddleball going on up there the way Wright was blocking our shots. Jay used his length, he came up with some big blocks, stayed disciplined, and he stayed down. I thought our individual slides were really good. … It was that kind of buckling down and saying we’re going to be hard to get by and score against, and I thought that took place.”
