What’s past apparently is not always prologue.
For six minutes surrounding halftime Saturday, the Virginia men’s basketball team found itself stuck in a south Florida tempest. UVA went scoreless for 6:11 and had turnovers on two of its final three possessions of the first half and two more on its first two possessions of the second half.
Miami, meanwhile, uncorked a 9-0 run in the final five minutes before intermission and added an easy bucket in the first 30 seconds of the second half. The Hurricanes blew past the Hoos with that surge and took a 10-point lead. The momentum clearly sat with the hosts.
This season’s past results didn’t look promising for the visitors either. Virginia had not fared well this season when the offense suffered through elongated droughts nor when turnovers became a problem. Plus, the Hoos owned a 2-8 record when trailing at the half this season and were down 38-30 at the break.
What followed was an unpredictable 23-4 outburst that calmed the storm and propelled UVA to a big 74-71 road win. So much for prologue.
“We got down late in the first half and emotionally we just had to stick together, stay focused,” Virginia center Kadin Shedrick said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “Even to start the second half, we had I think two quick turnovers so just to stay focused was the main thing emotionally, to stay in it and win the game.”
The bell-answering run contained the stories – both expected and unexpected – of the night for the Hoos.
The expected parts rose to the occasion immediately after Virginia fell behind 40-30. First, senior guard Kihei Clark stepped into a 3-pointer on the left wing. On the next trip down the floor, Clark missed a layup but Jayden Gardner grabbed two offensive rebounds and scored a putback to cut the deficit in half in less than a minute.
That duo had fingerprints all over the rally.
Clark hit two more 3-pointers during the run and later added a key jumper to make it 55-51. He also scored a breakout layup in the final minute to finish with 17 points and 5 assists as part of a huge bounce-back performance after struggling at Virginia Tech on Monday. Clark also became the 50th Cavalier to score 1,000 career points and passed Othell Wilson for sixth on the program’s all-time assists list (496).
Gardner knocked down three more jumpers during the run as part of another huge night in orange and blue. He finished with 23 points and 7 rebounds, adding to a recent string of impressive games – he has posted 17 or more points in six of the last seven games. Gardner matched a career high with 3 blocked shots too.
At times, the forward was unguardable. That included a pair of big buckets down the stretch to help preserve the win. With 3:49 to go and UVA up 59-55, Gardner caught a pass at the free throw line, split two defenders, and then finished through contact by Isaiah Wong. Then with 1:39 remaining, he caught a pass in the same spot, spun away from the defense on a drive, and then hit a fall-away jumper despite a help-defense contest from Charlie Moore.
“Jayden Gardner is an outstanding offensive player,” Larranaga said. “He’s got probably the best shooting touch 15 feet and in that I’ve seen and it’s so quick a release, it’s very, very hard to bother him. He’s got a beautiful shooting touch. He’s a great free throw shooter so you can’t foul him and put him on the foul line. So he’s just a handful for any frontcourt player – it doesn’t matter if it’s your four or five, he’s skillful enough to score in almost any situation.”
Clark and Gardner being major contributors in the scoring column can be expected. Kody Stattmann coming through with some key buckets in the second half, though, is more unexpected. He posted 8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocked shots, and 1 assist in the win while playing the final 18 minutes of the game – in fact, he was UVA’s only sub of the second half when the checked in for Armaan Franklin in the early moments (Bennett said after the game that Franklin is nursing a toe injury).
During the big 23-4 run, Stattmann dropped a 3-pointer from the top of the key when Gardner flipped a pass out of the post to his open teammate. A little more than a minute later, he scored on a feed from Clark as he went up for a dunk and got a goal-tending call (Miami’s defender tried to block the shot but went up through the cylinder to do it). Later, Stattmann made a nifty spin move and scored to keep UVA ahead 57-53.
Finally, Shedrick contributed late to the surge that pushed Virginia ahead. He got a steal and dribbled to the other end where he was fouled on a shot attempt. He made a free throw to cap the 23-4 outburst. Shedrick already had posted a big first half at that point as he scored 10 points and grabbed 5 rebounds before intermission. He finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds, which included a career-best 11 defensive rebounds.
Throw in another stat-stuffing effort from Reece Beekman and you have the balanced attack from the quintet that closed the game for the Wahoos. Beekman tallied 6 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds in the win. That included a huge shot-clock buzzer beater with 4:58 to go that gave his team a 59-55 lead and allowed UVA to play with a two-possession lead until the final minute.
The Cavaliers shot 62.5% (15-24) in the second half and 49.0% overall (25-51). They made 19 of 25 free throws (76.0%).
“Hard fought. I didn’t think we started sharp in the first half or the second half, whether it was turnovers or a little loose,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “Then we regained some toughness defensively, made some shots, and then plays had to be made down the stretch. … We just battled. We talked about just trying to leave it all on the floor. I rode that group once I put them in and tried to use timeouts – I just liked how they were playing so we went with it.”
Defensively, Virginia once again made things tough on the Miami guards and forced them to work for their points. Kameron McGusty put in 20 points on 6-13 shooting, but he made just a single 3-pointer after making both of his attempts in the first half. Charlie Moore added 14 points on 5-11 shooting, but he didn’t make a second-half 3 until the final minute. Finally, Wong scored 10 points on 4-11 shooting as Beekman gave him fits for a lot of the night.
Miami finished at 41.8% shooting overall (28-67) and at 35.3% (6-17) from 3-point range. After starting the game by making 6 of 7 shots, the Hurricanes made just 36.7% of their attempts and that included a couple of conceded layups in the final 10 seconds with the game out of reach.
It all added up to a season sweep in the series for Virginia, which continues to try to make a late-season push. The Hoos are 17-10 overall and 11-6 in the ACC, which secured the 11th straight winning record in conference play under Tony Bennett.
“Both teams were a little gassed at the end so it was just who was going to flinch or who wouldn’t yield and I thought our guys didn’t yield,” Bennett said. “Again making some baskets like we did last time against them always helps.”
“Both times we’ve played them, the way they run their offense makes it very difficult for us to trap them and force turnovers,” Larranaga said. “When we’re not able to do that, our defense has never been one that can just play man to man and just guard guys. Their offense and their defense work very well against us. That’s why we’ve struggled against them throughout the years.”
