The Virginia basketball team held the nation’s longest home winning streak. Notre Dame owned no wins in Charlottesville. UVA wanted to get payback for a loss in South Bend a month earlier. That all proved to be too tough of a combination for the Irish on Wednesday night as the Wahoos claimed the 65-53 victory at the John Paul Jones Arena.
That moved the Cavaliers’ streak to 22 straight victories on their home floor. It extended the current overall streak to five straight wins in the ACC as well. Given where this season’s team sat as the calendar turned to 2024, this recent run paired with a 34-point turnaround from the 76-54 loss at Notre Dame shows how the Hoos have developed and found a way to get better results over the last month. The Hoos are 16-5 overall and 7-3 in the ACC exiting January.
“I think we’re improving, still have a ways to go and you just gotta show up every day in practice and every game,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “But early you could see trying to find our identity, myself trying to figure out how to help these guys to play the best way, and I kept saying, we just kept chipping away, simplifying some things on both ends and really demanding more quite honestly, but also being more patient if that makes sense. It’s in practice, it’s been done. We’re just digging in and trying to figure it out. Again, I think guys are getting a little more comfortable. … You’ve got to go through some stuff and figure it out. I’m glad we’re getting there and we’ve still got a ways to go of course.”
UVA manufactured a win Wednesday with a combination of strong 3-point shooting and passing along with timely defense.
On the offensive end of things, the Cavaliers hit Blackjack with 21 assists on 25 made baskets. Ball movement and cutting helped generate those opportunities as seven different players got in on the assists category. Reece Beekman led the way there with 6 assists, his fourth straight game with at least that many helpers. Taine Murray (4), Dante Harris (3), Andrew Rohde (3), Isaac McKneely (2), and Jake Groves (2) all had multiple assists in the game too.
The stellar passing took advantage of a packed-in Notre Dame defense by creating open 3-point looks throughout the game. Virginia ended up 13-25 shooting from behind the arc (52.0%). That included a red-hot first half where the hosts made 9 of 15 triples (60.0%). The Hoos shot 24-53 overall (45.3%).
Beekman made 4 of 7 long-range shots, which the Irish forced him to take per coach Micah Shrewsberry’s description of the visitors’ game plan. Beekman matched his career high with 21 points. McKneely knocked down 3 of 5 3’s on the way to 11 points. McKneely opened and closed the first half with made 3-pointers.
As impressive as those stat lines are, however, Groves stole the spotlight. He came out of the gates firing on all cylinders and finished 6-8 shooting from 3-point land for 18 points. Those 6 triples set a new career high. At one point, a fired up Groves turned with a celebratory fist pump.
“It was great,” Beekman said. “I know he hit his second three and he turned around to the bench and celebrated – I was like ‘OK, he’s going to be on fire for the rest of the game.’ I feel like we did a great job finding him when he’s open, getting him open looks. He knocked it down. That was big for us today.”
“Jake Groove Groves, there we go I guess,” Bennett said smiling. “Groves was grooving tonight. He had his rhythm and you could just see it, the ball was coming out of his hand. Ran a couple of actions for him and the guys did a good job of finding him.”
Notre Dame matched the distance shooting party to a degree, making 9-18 3-point attempts (50.0%) too. UVA’s defense bothered the Irish in other ways, though. The visitors had 18 turnovers, while Virginia recorded 8 steals and 6 blocked shots as well. Beekman accounted for 4 steals, while Ryan Dunn posted 2 blocked shots. Markus Burton (17) and Braeden Shrewsberry (16) combined for 33 points to lead their team, but that wasn’t enough to keep pace.
That’s because the Wahoos repeatedly came up with big stops at momentum points. At the end of the first half, for example, Notre Dame appeared to have the final possession in hand but great on-ball defense from Beekman forced Burton into a travel turnover. McKneely drained a 3-pointer on the final shot of the half to push the lead to 38-23. In the earlier stages of the second half, ND climbed back to within 8 points before McKneely struck with a triple again. Virginia followed that up by forcing 5 straight missed shots and a turnover. A few minutes later when the margin hit 8 points again, UVA got an immediate bucket coupled with a shot clock violation on the next Irish possession.
The visitors never really made a serious run thanks to those momentum-busting sequences.
“I think they’re really good defensively, how they play, how physical they are, how they guard their yard off the dribble, and how they help each other at the rim,” ND coach Micah Shrewsberry said.
That sets the stage for another Saturday road game. Virginia travels to Clemson for a 2 p.m. tipoff with hopes of a third straight road win in mind. The Hoos won at Georgia Tech and Louisville the past two weekends after struggling to four consecutive road losses earlier in the season.
“Big test,” Bennett said. “They all are. I feel good about tonight. We’ll figure out what we’ve got to do tomorrow, have a good prep day leading into the Clemson game, and of course knowing on the road they’re a mature, real veteran, physical team that is one of the better teams I think in our league.”
Another excellent post game re-cap! Groves, IMac & Beeks were deadly from the arc. Was surprised by Cavs failure to defend the Irish deep shots. A bigger concern for the Cavs is ball security. Some of the turnovers were lazy and careless. Must get shots on every possession to reach potential. Fingers crossed.
Big difference in Hoos’ 3-point production versus last year