Basketball teams will not always have their best stuff over the course of a long season. That was the case for Virginia on Monday night at Syracuse.
Playing after a short turn-around from Saturday’s win against Boston College, the Cavaliers weren’t crisp or consistent on the road. They had a shaky first half defensively, a tough shooting second half offensively, and uncharacteristic turnovers in both. But the Hoos survived all of that to claim a 67-62 win that kept them in second place in the ACC standings.
UVA has won five straight games at the JMA Wireless Dome.
“First half, I think fatigue showed but I think the second half, we were resilient, we didn’t quit,” Virginia senior Jayden Gardner said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “You have to win in different type of ways. Not every outcome is going to be pretty, it’s not going to be 20-point, 15-point wins. You’ve got to learn different ways to win.”
A little resilience was needed down the stretch.
After building a 42-35 lead with a quick start to the second half, Virginia found itself down five with 12 minutes to go. At that time, Syracuse had put together a 12-0 run and the hosts maintained a small lead all the way through the under 8 media timeout.
The Orange led 54-51 before Armaan Franklin knocked down a couple of 3-pointers to shake off a tough shooting night. He had gone 1-6 from downtown prior to those two triples, but those shots seemed to spark the Hoos for the final minutes. They climbed back on top with Franklin’s second jumper at the 5:12 mark and then broke one final tie with a pair of Reece Beekman free throws.
The visitors still needed two key shots and a key defensive play to finish off the win, though.
With a 59-58 score at the 3:40 mark, Kihei Clark canned a crucial 3-pointer at the top of the key and followed it with two free throws in a 1-and-1 situation created against the Syracuse press. On the big 3-point shot, Ben Vander Plas secured an offensive rebound off of his own miss by establishing both feet back on the court after landing out of bounds and the ball pinged out to Clark for the bucket.
Gardner then sealed the win for good with a huge sequence in the final minute. He took a charge against Jesse Edwards at the 1:00 mark in a 64-62 game and then added a step-back jumper near the free throw line with 33 seconds to go.
Those baskets down the stretch accounted for much of UVA’s offense in the second half. The Wahoos shot 10-29 (34.5%) after intermission and the three 3’s from Franklin and Clark were the only long-range shots of the half. Still, Virginia shot 46.0% overall for the game (23-50). 42.9% from 3-point range (9-21), and 80.0% from the free throw line (12-15). The Hoos had 19 assists, but also 14 turnovers (7 in each half).
Gardner led the way with 17 points and 8 rebounds, while Franklin and Clark added 12 points each. Clark also had 10 assists. Vander Plas and Beekman chipped in 7 points each plus 6 and 2 assists respectively.
“Coach tells us that everyone, everyone has got to stay ready and it takes a village,” Gardner said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “We’re going to be together in this and you don’t know whose night it’s going to be because everybody’s capable.”
While the offense sputtered a bit in the second half, the defense was out of sorts in the first half. Syracuse posted a scorching 64.0% shooting half as Virginia struggled to provide much resistance. The Orange scored 26 of their 35 points in the first half in the paint with 11 combined layups and dunks, a clear sign of breakdowns defensively.
The Cavaliers cleaned that up significantly in the second half, allowing just 10 points in the paint. Syracuse made just 8 shots in the second half (34.8% shooting) and also went 10-17 from the free throw line (58.8%) after intermission. Judah Mintz led his team with 20 points, while Edwards added 14 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists.
UVA coach Tony Bennett said a better effort defensively in the second half was needed to get the game into the win column.
“I thought we were lethargic in the first half. We started real well defensively, shot well, and then I thought our defense sort of, it just didn’t fly around enough,” Bennett said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “We weren’t scrappy enough. We didn’t protect the paint. We got stretched. Then in the second half, I thought we flew around. We trapped the post quick, jammed the lane, and flew around for some offensive rebounds. … Became who we had to be in the second half. That was a hard first half for us. We looked lifeless at times.”
Virginia gets a chance to recover from the short turn-around weekend as the next game isn’t until Saturday. The Hoos travel to Virginia Tech for round two of the rivalry series at noon.
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Stupid picture. Not Syracuse
Stock photo. We didn’t have a photographer at Syracuse.