The Virginia basketball team started slowly at Louisville last weekend, but that was nothing compared to the rematch in the ACC Tournament on Wednesday night.
The Hoos missed their first 4 shots in the regular season finale, but recovered quickly and surged to a big lead. In Brooklyn, they made just 2 of their first 18 shots and had only 4 points in the first 11:23. The climb to the lead took much longer, but the Cavaliers got the same winning result. This time, it ended up as a 51-50 victory that sent UVA into the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals for the 10th straight season.
“To me it was beautiful, and I say that because yeah, we were struggling offensively, but to me it’s beautiful when a team finds a way,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “They guard hard, they just take care of – they do tough things. We’ve been down this road, and again, it’s about getting a victory. I don’t apologize for how we play. I want our guys when they have shots to take them. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. But you have to, when you know you’re struggling in certain areas, do you have the wherewithal and the identity to say, we’re going to rely on stops and squeeze out a few points here and there, and then try to go win a game, and that’s what happened.”
The tough shooting start certainly presented a challenge, but the Hoos still trailed just 13-4 so the comeback trail wasn’t too daunting. It took some time, though. They closed the gap several times in the first half but never got a tie or a lead before trailing 24-20 at intermission. UVA gained the lead for the first time at 25-24 as part of a 7-0 run. A nip and tuck second half followed, but Virginia broke a 45-45 stalemate in the final two minutes to prevail.
Jayden Gardner and Kihei Clark played big roles in all three phases as they helped steady the ship early, take the lead in the middle, and get the team to the winner’s circle in the end.
Facing the 9-point deficit in the first half, Gardner finally got things on track with an old-fashioned 3-point play at the rim and followed that with a short jumper. After a Malachi Poindexter jumper, Clark sandwiched 5 points around a Gardner layup and Virginia was back in it. Early in the second half, Gardner gave the team its first lead with a turn-around jumper that made it 25-24. Clark eventually broke scoreboard ties 4 times in the second half as he tried to will the Wahoos to the finish line. Finally with the scored tied at 45-45 entering the final 2 minutes, Gardner was at it again as he hit a short jumper for the lead and then sealed the win with a pair of free throws with 4 seconds to go.
Gardner finished with a team-high 17 points on 7-12 shooting. He added 4 rebounds and a steal as well. Clark, meanwhile, posted 15 points on 7-14 shooting with 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2 steals.
The Cavaliers got contributions elsewhere too. Reece Beekman tallied 8 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 blocked shot, and 1 steal. The helpers included a drive and pass to Gardner for that go-ahead bucket in the final two minutes. Beekman also capitalized on a designed play out of a late timeout when he drove for a layup to make it a two-score game at 49-45. Beekman (155 assists) passed London Perrantes (153 assists in 2015-16) for 10th place on the program’s single season assists list. Kadin Shedrick, who had a career game at Louisville to end the regular season, added 5 points and 3 blocked shots. He moved into 7th on the program’s single season blocks list with 64. Francisco Caffaro had 4 points and 8 rebounds.
After the 2-18 shooting start, Virginia landed at 42% shooting on the night. The Hoos, however, made 7 of their last 9 shots in the first half and continued that with a 52.2% number after halftime. UVA had 11 assists and 10 turnovers.
“I thought Jayden and Kihei made some tough – whether it was off the ball screen and tough mid-range shots and then Jayden some physical plays,” Bennett said. “Again, we’ve struggled to shoot this year at times. There’s no mystery there. And when we played them last time, we knocked down some shots and boy does that open up the floor and do things, but you’ve got to play true to who you are and just find ways, and that’s where our defense hangs us in there and you find some tough baskets, and I thought Jayden had some. And there was just enough plays and made enough free throws down the stretch. … The second half was better. We call it a knuckle buster game. That was a knuckle buster and that’s all you could do. Sometime that’s how it gets in tournaments, so again, we get to play [Thursday], and that’s a good thing.”
The Cavaliers did get the job done defensively for sure. They forced Louisville into 35.7% shooting and 12 turnovers. While UVA struggled out of the gates, the defense did hold the Cardinals to 3-10 shooting in the early stages of the game to prevent too large of a deficit.
Malik Williams was the only Louisville player in double figures with 11 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, and 3 steals in his final game for the Cards. Noah Locke added 8 points, which included a late 3-pointer that tied things at 45-45, and Sydney Curry had 6 points and 7 rebounds after posting 24 points and 14 rebounds in the regular season finale against UVA. A mix of post traps and foul trouble helped slow down Curry on the interior.
When the score was tied in the final two minutes, Virginia knew it had to step forward on the defensive end. Some of the team’s losses this season came from late-game defensive issues, but in this game, the Hoos also allowed 3-10 shooting after falling behind briefly at 42-41 with less than 5 minutes remaining.
“Yeah, we knew we had to get stops,” Beekman said. “That was kind of our mindset for the whole game. So just coming down the stretch, it was kind of going back and forth, and at the end of the day, we knew we had to get a couple stops to win the game. And at the end that’s what we did.”
“I thought we did a good job,” Clark said of handling tournament pressure. “We had a couple close games throughout the year, and I thought we showed good poise for the most part, and we tipped our hat on the defensive end and got stops down the stretch, so I thought it was good to pull out that one tonight.”
The Cavaliers face North Carolina in the quarterfinals. The Tar Heels won the only regular season meeting 74-58.
