Northeastern, #212 in KenPom, with the 318th-best defense coming in, did everything but beat Virginia on Saturday, and honestly, I feel bad for them, because it was their game.
Virginia got a pair of free throws and a runner in the lane from Reece Beekman in the final minute to eek out the 56-54 win.
You’re going to have to win games like this as the season plays out, particularly in March, so, might as well get some reps in it now, right?
Northeastern (4-7) got out to an early 16-4 lead – Virginia (9-1, 1-0 ACC) was 2-of-11 from the floor in the opening eight minutes.
An 11-0 UVA run put the ‘Hoos on top, 20-18, on a transition and-one from Elijah Gertrude, but Northeastern closed the half on a 12-4 run to go into the break up six, 30-24.
The run would extend to 19-4 as the Huskies opened up a 37-24 lead two minutes into the second half, and it felt like the rout was on.
Virginia didn’t get back into the game with a run, but rather, a sustained slog.
The second of a pair of Isaac McKneely threes put the Cavaliers back up, 45-44, with 7:01 left, and a Ryan Dunn throwdown on a nice lob pass from Beekman.
Northeastern battled back to lead two more times, the final one on an oddly quick inbounds pass that led to an easy Chris Doherty layup with 1:06 left.
A pair of Beekman free throws with 52 seconds left tied the score, and Virginia forced a Doherty miss with 24 seconds left, giving UVA the ball with a chance to hold for the last shot.
Beekman got it going a little early, driving into the lane and hitting a tough bank from just outside the lane to make it 56-54 with five seconds left.
Northeastern called a timeout with 3.1 ticks on the clock to set up a last shot, but the inbounds pass was skipped out of bounds, and Virginia was able to get the ball inbounds to Andrew Rohde, who was fouled with eight-tenths of a second left.
He missed the front end of the one-and-one, but Northeastern was not able to get a shot at the rim.
Game Notes
Beekman did his best impression of Malcolm Brogdon, taking the game over basically because no one else seemed to want to.
Beekman was 9-of-18 from the field – the 18 shots were a career-high; his previous career-high: 13 – and scored 21 points to go with five assists in his 34 minutes.
McKneely, who’d had 22 points in each of Virginia’s past two wins, finished this one with eight, on 3-of-12 shooting from the field, and 2-of-6 from three.
Northeastern had a 35-28 rebounding edge; though Virginia did well on the defensive boards, with a 75.9 percent defensive-rebound percentage.
Northeastern had 17 turnovers, but UVA was only able to get five transition points out of the TOs.
In the past two games, the ‘Hoos had scored 40 points in transition (25 against North Carolina Central, 15 against Syracuse).
Virginia, a 39.3 percent three-point shooting team coming in, was just 2-of-14 (14.3 percent) tonight.
Shots at the rim: Northeastern was 15-of-22; Virginia was 11-of-22.
Free throws: Northeastern was 0-of-3; Virginia was 10-of-18. Three of the misses were airballs (two from Blake Buchanan, one from Dunn).
Speaking of Dunn: he wasn’t good tonight – five points on 2-of-5 shooting, four rebounds, two blocks, two turnovers in 29 minutes.
He’s getting lottery-pick love; his stock wasn’t helped by what he did on either end tonight.
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Chris Graham
