At this point, North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams might hate his trips to Charlottesville as much as Mack Brown does. While Williams is not winless at the John Paul Jones Arena like his football counterpart is at Scott Stadium, the last four trips for UNC to face Virginia have been miserable for his program.
The Cavaliers picked up their seventh straight win in the series with a 60-48 victory Saturday night and it marked the fourth consecutive game in the JPJ where the Tar Heels failed to reach 50 points. Carolina averaged 74.1 points per game and 1.007 points per possession coming into the weekend matchup, but managed just the 48 and 0.814 points per possession in losing to the ACC’s leader. This is UVA’s longest winning streak in the series in more than 100 years – the program won the first eight games between the teams from 1911-16.
“I can’t speak to all of our teams in the past,” Williams said. “Last year we had a lead and they make one with 0.8 seconds to go. The year before we play them in the Smith Center and they had to go to the video … and both those calls went their way. Tonight, their big guys were tough for us to handle out on the perimeter. Tony [Bennett] does a great job. They guard you. I don’t think we’ve beaten them since [2017]. … Tony does a great job, they’ve got good players. … They’re a good basketball team and Tony does a great job with them.”
The most recent win in the series featured the same familiar foundation for success against North Carolina. The Hoos prevented transition baskets – the Heels had only 6 fastbreak points. The Hoos limited the damage on the glass – the Heels had 12 offensive rebounds for 13 points. The Hoos committed few turnovers to keep the pace down as well – UVA had only 6 turnovers in the game.
That resulted in another halfcourt battle and Virginia physically met the challenge of keeping UNC’s post players from dominating the game on the interior. The Heels still produced 28 points in the paint, but the quartet of Armando Bacot, Garrison Brooks, Day’Ron Sharpe, and Walker Kessler combined to shoot 11 of 27 (40.7%) to score 27 points. Kessler actually led the Heels with 9 points in 12 minutes, but no one in baby blue made it to double figures on the night. It’s the first time UNC didn’t have a double-digit scorer since March 4, 1966, a 21-20 loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament in Raleigh.
The outside balance was nowhere to be seen as the visitors made 2 of 16 3-pointers (12.5%). The starting backcourt duo of Caleb Love and Leaky Black combined for 4 points, while Kerwin Walton had 8 points with a pair of 3-pointers. To make matters worse, UNC made just 6 of 12 free throws on the night.
Virginia is now 103-2 in the Tony Bennett era when holding teams to fewer than 50 points.
“They kind of demand you to stand in there and be physical if you want to have any kind of success against them,” Bennett said. “That’s why I liked what Jay [Huff] and Sam [Hauser] did. I thought they were physical. And then there were the guys that didn’t play a lot that came in, they moved hard, they work hard, and we were locked in. Carolina missed some bunnies, some close ones and they didn’t have a very good shooting game from three, so all that stuff plays into it. It’s always a battle of kind of imposing your will or systems against them, so I liked how we had a level of patience and movement offensively, that helped us and then we didn’t give up too many easy breakdowns. A couple at the rim but not too many.”
“It’s not hard to figure out [the Virginia defense], you’ve just got to be able to handle it because they’re very aggressive on the ball without fouling, they sag in away from the ball, you’re going to get open shots – but you’ve got to make open shots,” Williams said. “You’ve got to be able to make shots to have some success against them. If you’re not making shots, it’s a long, long night. We were 0 for 9 at half and 2 for 16 from three. That’s going to make it a long, long night.”
With the defense putting the clamps on the Carolina offense, the Cavaliers relied on good ball movement and outside shooting to generate enough scoring for the win. The hosts dished out 16 assists on 19 made baskets with Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark leading the way with helpers. Beekman posted 1 point, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists (career bests in those latter two categories), while Clark added 6 points and 5 assists. The duo was getting the most bang for their buck on those passes too as 9 of their 12 assists led to 3-pointers.
Behind the arc is where the Wahoos did the most damage overall. They hit 10 of 22 3’s (45.5%) in the game, meaning that Beekman and Clark assisted on all but one of the 3-pointers. Hauser shredded the Heels from downtown where he hit 4 of 6 shots en route to 17 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal. Huff added 18 points that included 3-5 shooting from 3-point range. He posted a double-double with 12 rebounds, which tied his career high, and added 4 blocked shots, which moved him past Isaiah Wilkins into fourth place on the program’s all-time list. Throw in Trey Murphy III’s 12 points as he made 2 of 3 3-pointers and it was enough to separate on the scoreboard.
Each of those players got going from outside early to help establish an early lead. Huff opened the scoring with a triple and Hauser followed with one of his own to make it 6-2 at the 15:10 mark. Murphy then added a dunk and trey for an early 11-2 advantage. When Huff hit another long-range bomb and Tomas Woldetensae added one too, it was 21-4 Hoos before 10 minutes had elapsed. That held up as a 27-18 halftime lead, equaling the fewest point of any half in the Roy Williams’ era.
UVA eventually had a massive 24-point edge from behind the long line, which helped cover for a poor night inside the arc and an uncharacteristic night at charity stripe. Virginia made just 9 of 26 shots from 2-point range (34.6%) and only 12 of 19 at the free throw line (63.2%).
“Sam is always a lights out shooter,” Huff said. “I feel like I’ve been shooting it well recently. It’s hard to guard, they know our mover-blocker offense that we run. It makes it difficult when anyone that’s running back can shoot. Trey sometimes is the one setting screens and he’ll separate, [When] Sam is running on that, it’s hard to stop and he [can] either shoot it or he’ll shot fake, drive you to one of those mid-range jump shots that are super annoying when he’s on the other team but you got to love when he’s on your team.”
The Cavaliers never really connected with a knockout punch, but the Tar Heels never really made a real run at the lead after that either. For many years, Virginia experienced that hand on the forehead little brother treatment when North Carolina dominated the series and this was a lot like that in reverse. After the Heels fell behind by three possessions or more at the 13:48 mark of the first half, they never got closer than 7 points the rest of the night. Most moments that seemed like a potential run were more like a dripping faucet than any threat of a flood.
That pushed Virginia to 11-1 in the ACC standings, setting up a showdown with second-place Florida State, who stands at 7-2, on Monday night.
“We thought we did a good job with transition defense,” Bennett said. ”We took solid care of the basketball with only six turnovers. You can see how big and physical Carolina is and they got a few offensive rebounds, but we tried to be attentive to really trying to block out and do the things that we thought were so important in this. Trap when we could and then made enough plays. I thought a number of guys were solid. … We stretched them with our threes, because they’re big and we had to move them and do what we needed to do.”
