All Hands on Deck for Virginia in Gritty Overtime Win Over Boston College
Nine double-digit losses, several of them complete and utter blowouts. That's the answer to the question: how does a team that won 22 games and finished third in the ACC standings end up on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament entering Championship Week? Well, while it is true that they have a distressing tendency to let games get away from them, fortunately for the Cavaliers, they also have a highly-encouraging tendency that offsets those blowout losses: when they're in games, they win games. That's a trait of an NCAA Tournament team.
UVA is now 12-0 in games decided by single digits, 9-0 in games decided by six points or fewer, and 2-0 in overtime this season. The latest game to check all three of those boxes came late on Thursday night, as No. 3 seed Virginia (23-9) was pushed to the limit by No. 11 seed Boston College (19-15) and nearly suffered a loss that might have knocked the Cavaliers out of contention for the NCAA Tournament, but UVA got significant contributions from up and down a nine-man rotation and relied on its smothering defense in crunch time to escape with a 66-60 overtime win in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament on Thursday night at Capital One Arena.
"Just obviously a hard-fought game, had to overcome a lot," said UVA head coach Tony Bennett after the game. "It was a little bit of every man, when they were called upon, had to do it. And we had to fight to get that one."
Those words from Tony Bennett just about sum it up. Virginia overcame quite a bit in this game. It's easy to start with injuries, as Bennett mentioned that "a couple guys" got injured earlier this week in practice and then specified that Isaac McKneely had sprained his ankle and hadn't practiced for four days. That much made sense when McKneely was 0/5 from the floor in regulation. But what was more significant was that the Cavaliers had to overcome all of their worst flaws surfacing in their most important game of the season.
Whether it was rough shooting nights from their two best players - McKneely and Reece Beekman were a combined 5/25 from the floor and 2/11 from three - or abysmal free throw shooting (8/18) that nearly cost them the game late, or most concerning, the fact that the Cavaliers nearly lost the game in the first few minutes as they have so many times this season when double-digit deficits early in games have led to lopsided blowouts, this game had all the makings of a crushing loss for UVA.
Starting right was a chief concern for Virginia coming in, for while Boston College would be at a stamina disadvantage by the end of the game after playing three games in three days, there was no question who would have the edge in terms of starting the game on the right foot. Claudell Harris Jr. proved that right away, as he knocked down three three-pointers within the first two and a half minutes and helped the Eagles build a 10-point advantage before the under-12 timeout.
"Harris has played so well and you could tell they were sort of used to playing," Bennett said of Boston College. "I just thought they hit us in the mouth first, but we stayed the course, got some stops, and then got to it."
It was at that point that Virginia showed real growth. UVA fans have probably lost count of the number of times a first-half double-digit deficit clearly and without exception meant Virginia was doomed to lose by a wide margin. But in a game that they had to have, the Cavaliers grew up and found a way to get back into the game.
As Tony Bennett said in that aforementioned quote, that path back into the game required "every man" to step up. With the usual offensive producers struggling to find the bottom of the basket, Jake Groves picked up the slack, hitting three three-pointers, leading the team in scoring with 15 points, and posting a double-double with 11 rebounds. A pivotal swing in momentum was provided by a pair of guards off the bench, as Taine Murray and Andrew Rohde each scored six points in the first half, sparking multiple 7-0 runs to get Virginia back in it.
"Taine did a great job and Taine picked up where he left off from our last game and then just carried it. And we knew we were going to need that," Bennett said. "But I thought Andrew Rohde gave us a great lift on the perimeter."
Murray sustained the momentum from his 12-point effort against Georgia Tech with 11 points on 5/6 shooting. Meanwhile, Rohde, who was the guy Murray took a lot of those minutes from in the regular season finale, bounced back from his benching by hitting a pair of threes in the first half, playing solid defense, dishing out a couple of assists, and knocking down a big contested jumper off of an inbounds play midway through the second half that gave UVA its first lead since the first half.
"It felt great. And I mean, whatever they need me to do, I'll do, whether that's five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, it doesn't matter to me," Rohde said after the game. "All I care about is playing for these guys and playing for these seniors. So, whatever I can do off the bench to provide a spark, anything like that, I'm gonna do it."
Speaking of big buckets from unexpected places, Virginia got another huge one from Dante Harris, who has struggled to shoot jumpers this season but delivered an important pull-up jumper in the second half to cut the deficit after the Eagles had pushed their lead back to multiple possessions. It was a double-homecoming for Harris, who was not only born in the DC area, but played the first two seasons of his collegiate career with Capital One Arena as his home gym at Georgetown before transferring to UVA.
After allowing the problematic seven-footer Quinten Post to score 24 points in the first meeting between these two teams just a couple weeks ago in Chestnut Hill, the Cavaliers threw the kitchen sink at him in the rematch, but to no avail. Freshman Blake Buchanan got the start, but exited with an early foul. Virginia tried Buchanan, Jordan Minor, and Ryan Dunn on Post throughout regulation, but their hard work seemed to amount to only speed bumps as Post frequently got deep positioning in the paint and recorded 23 points on 9/20 shooting and 13 rebounds.
Dunn, who finished second to his teammate Beekman in voting for ACC Defensive Player of the Year, spent most of crunch time on the bench after picking up his fourth personal foul with six minutes remaining. With Post getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and Boston College still hitting the occasional three to stretch the UVA defense, it seemed the Eagles had the upper hand.
Then, the mid-season resurgence known as Jordan Minor finally cracked the code. With brute force and simple muscle-on-muscle physicality, Minor kept Post away from the basket and out of the box score from the 5:20 mark of the second half, all the way until the end of the game. As a team, Boston College scored only five points over that stretch of 10+ minutes, allowing Virginia to tie the game on a pair of free throws by McKneely, his first points of the game, and take the lead on a pair of free throws from Groves that came after Minor erased a fadeaway jumper from Post.
Those four free throws were Virginia's only points in the last five minutes of regulation, but they were nearly enough to get the job done. The Cavaliers could have won the game right there, but they were undone by nine missed free throws in the second half and one critical missed defensive rebound. Claudell Harris missed a three with six seconds left, but UVA failed to secure the rebound, allowing Mason Madsen to hit a long two-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
But for all of this team's problems and weaknesses - slow starts, poor free throw shooting, long spells of cold shooting - it can't be denied that the Cavaliers have something going for them when it comes to winning close games. That's why Virginia wasn't worried when the game went to overtime, but instead came out with confidence when the ball was tipped to start the extra period.
Behind Jordan Minor's stout defense against Post and a connected effort from the rest of the players on the floor, Virginia allowed only one made basket from Boston College in the five-minute overtime period. Isaac McKneely waited until a critical moment to deliver his only made shot of the night, a three-pointer on UVA's first possession of overtime. He later assisted on a Reece Beekman three that gave Virginia a six-point lead with less than two minutes to go.
"I think it just shows our grit and resiliency when we come down to close games," said Reece Beekman after the game. "We find ways to win. Not always pretty, but we find a way."
Claudell Harris kept Boston College in it with a three with 57 seconds left, but Beekman and Minor then ran the Pick and Roll to perfection with Beekman dropping the pocket pass to Minor for a layup. Minor recorded his third steal of the game on Boston College's next possession to seal the victory.
When asked about the contributions he got from several different players on his team, including 26 points from the UVA bench, Bennett said he had a feeling that was what it was going to take to win this game.
"I thought it would. We had a couple guys get injured on Monday or Tuesday that couldn't practice, so they were really hobbling, and I could see that, and I thought we were going to have to use everybody," Bennett said.
Reece Beekman, who had a quality all-around game despite the poor shooting numbers with 11 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds, didn't deny that he and his teammates knew how important this game was for Virginia's NCAA Tournament hopes.
"We're playing for something, for an NCAA Tournament bid. At the end of the day, we know that. I think that was in the back of everybody's minds," Beekman said.
It won't be confirmed until Selection Sunday, but the consensus among Bracketologists appears to be that the Cavaliers secured their at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament with that win over Boston College on Thursday night. Of course, that positioning can be undeniably solidified with another win on Friday, as Virginia takes on No. 10 seed NC State in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament at approximately 9:30pm with a spot in the ACC title game on the line.
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