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Slumpbuster: Virginia guts out ugly win over #8 Miami

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virginia basketballYou almost had the feeling that #13 Virginia was like a good hitter going through a slump. The longer the slump goes, the more things you try to do to get out of the slump.

One guy tells you to move up in the box, another tells you to pick up your front leg, and you do all of that, and a bunch of other stuff, and before you know it, you’re not doing what you were doing right in the first place, before the slump.

UVA coach Tony Bennett tried a little of everything Tuesday night to shake his team out of its recent funk, starting freshman Jack Salt at center, inserting little-used senior Evan Nolte for a six-minute stretch of the first half, not using Darius Thompson, until recently a starter who was getting 30 minutes a night, until the 7:07 mark of the first half.

And even then, after Miami opened the second half on a 7-0 run to take a three-point lead, the Cavs were back to square zero.

They were still a very good basketball team on a losing streak that was about to get extended another game, the way things were going.

And then it happened. You can call it muscle memory, but the ‘Hoos got back to basics. Ball movement on offense creating open shots, effort on defense making it hard for the eighth-ranked ‘Canes to get good looks, closing out on jump shooters when they were about to get good looks.

Miami point guard Angel Rodriguez would score 11 points in the second half, but it took him 10 shots to do it. Leading scorer Sheldon McClellan would score 13 for the game, but needed 12 shots to get there.

UM shot a respectable 42.0 percent from the field, but the Hurricanes were just 6-of-22 from three-point range, including 4-of-15 in the second half.

Fifteen threes in a half speak to lanes getting shut down on that end of the floor.

Virginia would end up just 2-of-7 for the game from three, but that number is deceptive. The Cavs were 2-of-3 in the second half, when they shot 11-of-18 (61.1 percent) from the floor overall, scoring 1.258 points per possession in the second half, against a team that had come in with the nation’s 16th-best defense, according to KenPom.com.

Malcolm Brogdon, who looked out of sorts at times, putting up two airballs, hit a three early in the second half, and seemed to get going thereafter, scoring 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting after the break, to finish with a game-high 20.

London Perrantes was scoreless in the first half, and had a coolly efficient 13 on 3-of-5 shooting, 1-of-2 from three, and 6-of-6 at the line in the second half, including maybe the three biggest shots of the game.

A Perrantes three with 11:20 to go gave Virginia the lead for good, and he added to it with a jumper on Virginia’s next possession as the Cavs started to put some space between themselves and the Hurricanes.

After Miami had closed to within three in the final two minutes, a Perrantes floater with 1:04 to go pushed the margin back to five, and it would never get closer.

Anthony Gill was the usual Anthony Gill, going for 15 on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, pulling down eight rebounds, dishing out a team-best three assists, and notching a team-best +8 plus-minus.

Mike Tobey did his part, putting up 12 points, 10 in the first half, on 6-of-10 shooting, pulling down seven rebounds and putting up a +7 rating.

Tobey, Gill, Perrantes, Brogdon. And defense.

That’s how Virginia was hitting before the recent mini-slump. It was good to see the muscle memory still there from the wins over two other Top 10s, West Virginia and Villanova, from what until a few minutes ago seemed like a different lifetime.

– Column by Chris Graham

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