Virginia overcame an all-too-familiar typical Virginia situation, a nearly nine-minute first half scoreless stretch, defeating Boston College in all-too-familiar typical Virginia fashion, 61-49, on Saturday in Chestnut Hill.
A Justin McKoy jumper at the 12:19 mark of the first half put the ‘Hoos (7-2, 3-0 ACC) up 18-11, and was UVA’s seventh make in 10 tries.
It would be all the way to the 3:35 mark when Virginia would score again, when a Trey Murphy III three ended a 14-0 BC scoring run to get the Cavaliers back to 25-21.
That would ignite a half-closing 11-2 run that put Virginia up two, 29-27, at the break.
UVA would take control with two lengthy second half bursts – a 12-2 run over a 7:08 stretch that pushed the lead to 10, and then, after the Eagles fought back to single digits, , a 13-1 run that put UVA up 56-39 on a Sam Hauser layup with 6:01 to go.
Boston College (2-9, 0-5 ACC) would get back to 11 on a DeMarr Langford dunk with 2:56 to go, but that was as close as it would get thereafter.
About that scoring drought: nine straight misses from the field, five turnovers.
Fourteen possessions, 8:44 off the game clock, zero points.
Aside from that, the numbers looked good – UVA shot 45.3 percent (24-of-53) from the floor, though just 4-of-15 (26.7 percent) from three.
Just seven turnovers at the end of the day, after the five in the rough stretch.
Jay Huff (18 points, 7-of-11 shooting, eight rebounds, five blocks, 29 minutes) and Hauser (17 points, 7-of-16 shooting, 10 rebounds, 35 minutes) had big games.
Almost a clean sheet from point guard Kihei Clark (12 points, 6-of-8 shooting, three assists, just one turnover, in 40 minutes).
The bench was short – Murphy (eight points, 3-of-9 shooting, four boards) and Reece Beekman (four points, all free throws, 0-of-4 from the floor, three assists, no turnovers) each went 37 minutes.
The bench – McKoy, Tomas Woldetensae, Francisco Caffaro and Carson McCorkle – was on the floor for a combined 20 minutes, and only produced two points, the McKoy make ahead of the scoring drought.
The defense, an issue of late, and really all season, was back to what you’ve come to expect from a Tony Bennett-coached team.
BC shot 30.9 percent (17-of-55) and had 11 turnovers in 59 possessions, scoring .831 points per possession – after having averaged 1.067 points per possession coming in.
This was a Boston College team, remember, that had just put up 82 in a one-point loss at Duke on Wednesday.
The Eagles’ previous season low was 63 points in a loss to Syracuse last month.
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
