With fans clapping their hands together like a bird’s beak as a tribute throughout, Reece Beekman helped Virginia soar past Georgia Tech on Saturday night, 72-57. The Cavaliers finished the regular season at 22-9 and 13-7 in the ACC with the win.
Beekman gave fans plenty of reasons to make that chomping salute on his Senior Night. He stuffed the stat sheet with 21 points on 8-10 shooting to go with 6 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, and 1 blocked shot.
Beekman’s performance captured a lot of what’s great about college basketball for coach Tony Bennett, who also took to the microphone after the game to honor the guard with a basketball commemorating his place as the program’s new all-time steals leader.
“I want to say this. A lot of stuff gets talked about the state of college basketball. Well let’s celebrate a guy like Reece Beekman, who came to Virginia and he stayed four years,” Bennett said. “He tested [the NBA Draft], he went, but he decided to come back and help a team win. He’s always been a good player, but he’s taken a step each year, and he’s improved, and he’s been here for four years. Let’s talk about that. I know we talk a lot about transfer portal, I know we talk a lot about NIL, I know we talk about a lot of things, but this young man chose to come here. He’s the career leader in steals. He’s won two ACC Championships. He’s done so much. That’s what’s right and it’s good to see.”
Senior Night and Beekman’s final home game at the John Paul Jones Arena provided the backdrop for an important game for Virginia in terms of its NCAA Tournament hopes. A loss likely would have put the Hoos on the wrong side of the bubble headed to the ACC Tournament.
That’s a lot of emotion packed into the finale, but Bennett encouraged his team to put on blinders and immerse itself in the task at hand. Beekman, who generally looks calm and poised in almost any setting, provided the perfect tone-setter for that advice. Whether it was pointing out directions, calmly working through the Georgia Tech defense, making shots, or firing off assists to open teammates, he controlled the game from start to finish.
Beekman had his fingerprints on many critical moments too. He opened the game’s scoring with a 3-pointer, the first shot of a 3-4 night from behind the arc, and seconds later added a steal that helped establish a stingy night on that end too. He had the assist to Blake Buchanan that broke the game’s final tie at 15-15, the bucket that pushed the lead to double digits for the first time, and the assist that kept the advantage at 10+ for the rest of the night as well. His final stat at the JPJ? An assist on a 3-pointer for Isaac McKneely.
“Today was just an emotional day,” Beekman said. “We had a shoot-around and we kind of went through each senior and manager and recapped their years here and just looking back at that got a little emotional, but at the end of day we needed to play the game. We’re in a race something so we just wanted to stay the course and come out ready to play.”
That last helper to McKneely capped off a big outing for him too. He posted 16 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists in the win. That included 4-8 shooting from 3-point range as he found several openings to let it fly. That was true for senior Jake Groves too, who made 3 of 7 triples to rally 9 points and 6 rebounds in his final regular season game. The sharp shooting from those two plus Beekman led UVA to a 46.2% night from 3-point range (12-26), a shot-making show that makes this team a much tougher opponent. The Wahoos shot 51.8% overall (29-56) and had 18 assists vs. 5 turnovers.
The biggest X factor in the victory, however, was Taine Murray. The junior logged 28 minutes after coming back from an illness in recent weeks and made the most of his time on the floor. He recorded 12 points on 5-10 shooting with a pair of 3’s in the mix. He had 3 assists as well. Murray said the team knew the game’s high stakes in relation to bracketology projections and wanted to be focused to produce a good Senior Night performance.
“Obviously we’re all aware of how big this game was and I think we obviously wanted to send off the seniors in a nice way, obviously Reece has given so much to this program,” Murray said. “So that was pretty cool for everyone to come out and play the way we did and just really make a special night for everyone involved.”
For the good shooting and balanced scoring to lead to the winner’s circle, however, Virginia had to pair it with a strong night defensively. The hosts did that by bothering GT’s rhythm and regularly contesting shots. They had 9 steals and 4 blocked shots as part of that effort, which helped force Tech into 12 turnovers. UVA held the visitors to 40.4% shooting overall (21-52) and 19.0% shooting from 3 (4-21) as well.
While Baye Ndongo finished with 21 points and 9 rebounds on 8-12 shooting, the rest of the Yellow Jackets found things difficult for long stretches. Naithan George and Kyle Sturdivant checked in with 8 points each, but it came on a combined 7-18 shooting. Virginia also held Miles Kelly, Tech’s leading scorer this season, scoreless on 0-4 shooting as he nursed a sore back.
Overall, the winning effort locked UVA into the No. 3 seed for next week’s ACC Tournament in Washington D.C. where it will play the team that emerges from the Clemson-Boston College-Miami part of the bracket. The Eagles and Hurricanes play Tuesday to decide who faces the Tigers on Wednesday. The Cavaliers will wait until 9:30 p.m. Thursday night for the winner.
“Georgia Tech’s been playing good basketball, they had won I think four of their last five, they went into Wake [and won],” Bennett said. “And boy did we get good lifts from Taine Murray and Dante [Harris] and the stats obviously of Jake and the other guys. It was really important. When they get the ball moving, they can get to shooting and they’re athletic and they have some guys so to stand in there and the crowd got behind us with the importance of the game, it was just about that stuff. So we tried to dig in and lean on each other. I thought it was obviously a special night.”
Solid win with confidence going into ACC tourney Thursday night 9:30
Great Senior day effort! Was concerned about this game as well as GT has played recently. Great to the guys really tighten things up!