Anatomy of a one-point, buzzer-beater loss: #7 Virginia

Virginia lost this game by a point. Keep that in mind.

Duke freshman Brandon Ingram was 9-of-10 from the field over an 11-minute stretch.

Ingram had 22 of Duke’s 29 points during this run.

He had three points on 1-of-12 shooting in his other 27 minutes on the floor.

Grayson Allen went 7-of-8 from the line over a four-minute stretch of the second half when Duke otherwise couldn’t buy a basket from the floor.

(And neither could Allen, who went 4-of-11 from the floor and finished with 15 points with the freebies.)

None of the fouls, incidentally, were shooting fouls. All on the floor.

UVA had five fouls in the first half, 14 in the second half. Duke had five in the first half and eight in the second half.

Arm bars on dribble drives were called. On the one side of the floor. In the second half.

(And Dookies everywhere are still complaining. That more fouls weren’t called. Typical Dookies.)

Duke had 10 offensive rebounds. Virginia had come in as the ACC’s best offensive rebounding team.

Overall, Duke had a 34-26 advantage on the boards. For the season, Duke averages a pedestrian +2.7 rebound advantage.

Virginia shot 2-of-11 from three-point range, and was 0-of-5 in the second half. Coming in, the Cavs were the best three-point shooting team in the ACC (40.5 percent).

London Perrantes, the ACC’s best three-point shooter, didn’t even attempt one from long-range.

Duke was 8-of-22 (36.4 percent) from long-range, a little below its season average (39.5 percent), though negligible.

All of this, and Virginia lost by a point. And that’s not even getting into the particulars of that last play.

Yes, he pushed off. Then traveled. Then went up, hit the floor before releasing, meaning he traveled again.

The shot did get off before the final buzzer, so there was that.

All of this, and Virginia lost by a point.

It’s not an elimination game, so you learn a bunch of lessons, build on them and go out and win the next one.

– Column by Chris Graham