Notre Dame raced out to a 10-point lead in the opening six minutes and never looked back in a 71-58 win over UVA in the 2017 ACC Tournament on Thursday.
The Cavs (22-10, 12-8 ACC) managed to cut the deficit to six, at 32-26, at the half, but the Irish (24-8, 13-6 ACC) opened the second half on a 9-0 run to go up 15, and Virginia wouldn’t get closer than 10 the rest of the way.
Notre Dame sliced and diced an uncharacteristically porous Cavs defense all night long, shooting 52.2 percent from the floor (24-of-46), doing the most damage in the lane.
The Irish were 15-of-18 on shots at the rim – layups and dunks.
UVA could never get its offense going, shooting 38.6 percent from the floor (22-of-57) and going 7-of-19 from three-point range.
Kyle Guy, who had 20 points in the Cavs’ tournament-opening win over Pitt on Wednesday, went scoreless in 24 minutes, missing all eight of his shots.
Leading scorer London Perrantes had just three points on 1-of-9 shooting in 32 minutes.
Darius Thompson had 12 points off the bench, including nine on three three-pointers in the first half, which helped get Virginia back into the game after the ragged start.
Devon Hall also had 12 for UVA, and Marial Shayok and Ty Jerome each had 10.
The story for Virginia was the lack of productivity on the defensive end. The ‘Hoos lead the nation in points per game and points per possession, but had no answers for a Notre Dame team that spread the floor and found seams in the Pack-Line defense.
The Irish were effective offensively despite shooting just 5-of-17 from three-point range.
Notre Dame advances to the ACC Tournament semifinals to play #2 seed Florida State Friday night.
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