Virginia put together its best effort of the season on both ends of the floor Saturday. The result: a 65-39 blowout of a surprisingly good Virginia Tech team.
Kihei Clark scored a career-high 18 points, consistently getting into the lane. Braxton Key had 18 points and 10 rebounds, and made Landers Nolley work.
About Nolley. The freshman came in averaging 17.4 points per game, and he had 15 in the first half, on 6-of-10 shooting.
Problem for the Hokies (10-4, 1-2 ACC): his teammates had two points on 1-of-14 shooting in the first 20 minutes.
Virginia (11-2, 3-0 ACC) led 30-17 at the break, and it never got to single digits in the second half.
Nolley found himself neutralized by Key in the second half, going 1-of-6 from the field, to finish with 18.
The Hokies, which came in shooting 45.5 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from three, the latter figure ranking 10th nationally, couldn’t get anything going, other than the hot first half from Nolley.
Tech shot 27.1 percent from the floor (13-of-48) and 16.0 percent from three (4-of-25).
Another fun number to point out: 13 turnovers in 60 possessions.
The math tells us that’s a 21.7 percent rate.
The Hokies had come in with a 14.3 percent turnover rate on the season, third-best nationally.
The Virginia D, then, turned Tech over with greater frequency than you’d expect, made them miss shots, miss threes.
And the offense was as good as you’ve seen from a Virginia team this season.
The 65 points ties the season-high, and Virginia shot 46.3 percent from the floor (25-of-54) and connected on a respectable 7-of-21 from three.
That was easily the best we’ve seen from this Virginia squad this season.
Because, remember, this Virginia Tech team has a win over Michigan State.
That was a nice win.
Story by Chris Graham
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