Hot-Shooting Virginia Gets Revenge on Notre Dame, Wins Fifth Straight
A little over a month after matching a season-low with just two made threes in a shockingly-lopsided 22-point loss to the Fighting Irish in South Bend, the Cavaliers avenged that loss by delivering a shooting performance that was the direct opposite of the first meeting between these two teams.
Behind a season-high 13 made threes, 21 points from Reece Beekman and six three-pointers from Jake Groves, Virginia (16-5, 7-3 ACC) picked up its fifth-straight win with a 65-53 victory over Notre Dame (7-14, 2-8 ACC) on Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena.
It's fairly rare to see the complicated game of basketball reduced to one simple statistical category. But in the first half of Wednesday's game, the Fighting Irish and Cavaliers essentially had a three-point shooting contest. And while Notre Dame shot well above its season average and made five threes in the first half, that wasn't nearly good enough to keep up with Virginia, which knocked down nine threes on 60% shooting to build a 15-point halftime advantage.
In the first meeting between these two teams back in South Bend, the Fighting Irish were red-hot from beyond the arc, making 7/10 threes in the first half and shooting 11/23 from three for the game en route to a 76-54 win over the Cavaliers, who shot a dismal 2/11 from three in that game. For the season, Notre Dame is a 29.8% three-point shooting team, ranking 332nd in the country. But for whatever reason, the Irish enjoy deviating from their poor perimeter shooting habits whenever they play the Cavaliers. Notre Dame made its first three attempts from downtown and shot 5/10 from three in the first half.
This time, however, Virginia was even better, shooting 9/15 from beyond the arc in the first half. Jake Groves led the way on that front, coming in off the bench and raining down threes, five of them to be specific, for 15 points in the first half alone. The Irish left Groves open at the three-point line five times and Groves made them pay every time. Isaac McKneely made both of his three-point attempts, including one just before the buzzer that gave Virginia a 38-23 halftime lead. Reece Beekman also made two threes, scored nine points, and dished out four assists in the first half.
While Groves was essentially a non-factor on the offensive end in the first meeting, scoring four points and attempting zero threes, he was perhaps the biggest reason the Cavaliers built their 15-point halftime advantage, with the key difference being that Groves has now returned to his natural forward position with Jordan Minor emerging to play the center spot for UVA.
"Blake [Buchanan] and Jordan [Minor] sort of play that five position... and that allows Jake to play his natural position and not have to maybe guard and be locked in against some of those big strong bodies," said Tony Bennett after the game. "His ability to stretch the floor and shoot the ball, and that showed in the first half, it was just beautiful."
Notre Dame stayed within reasonable striking distance for the entire second half, but never drew closer than eight points. Braeden Shrewsberry knocked down a couple of threes and scored 10 points after halftime and Markus Burton, despite dealing with the typical hounding on-ball defense from Beekman, managed to score 12 points in the second half to keep his team in the game.
Unable to rely solely on its defense to protect the lead, Virginia continued to execute at a high level offensively. Beekman knocked down two more three-pointers, setting a new career-high with four threes. He dished out another three for Jake Groves, who also broke a career-high with six threes in the game, finishing with 18 points.
Perhaps looking to atone for the baskets Burton scored on him, Beekman more than made up for it on the other end, knocking down a corner three and following that up with a baseline jumper on the next possession to essentially put the game away up 16 with a little over two minutes to go.
Beekman tied a season-high 21 points and also had six assists and four steals in another well-rounded game. Groves made six of hits eight three-pointers and finished with 18 points, four rebounds, two assists, and a block. Isaac McKneely joined those two players in double figures with 11 points and made three of his five three-point attempts.
"Offensively, I thought it was good to see Jake play like that, Reece, different guys at different times," Bennett said. "We've improved, shortened our rotation in this game, but you know, doesn't mean that's going to be the case."
Markus Burton had 17 points and four assists and Braeden Shrewsberry made four threes and had 16 points for the Irish, who shot 50% from beyond the arc and 46.5% from the floor, but couldn't keep up with the Cavaliers, who shot 45.3% from the floor and 52.0% from three. Virginia scored 20 points off of 18 Notre Dame turnovers and had 21 assists on 24 made baskets while committing only 10 turnovers.
Winners of five-straight games, Virginia heads back on the road to take on Clemson on Saturday at 2pm on ESPN.
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