A guy that two coaches gave up on had nine blocked shots. A projected top-four pick who plays power forward was 3-of-17 from the floor, but his coach ran the offense through him, because he had to, and the kid had eight assists.
It was back-and-forth all night, until the projected top-four pick made two free throws with 3.9 seconds left to clinch it.
ICYMI
Helluva game.
Sucks that somebody had to lose, and that the somebody had to be our favorite team.
The difference in this one, in the final 3:10, with the game on the line: offensive rebounds, and free throws.
Virginia left three points on the floor with misses at the line, and Duke got a stickback layup from its point guard to take the lead for good, and another one that led, in essence, to four game-clinching free throws, to take the championship in the 2026 ACC Tournament by a 74-70 final score.
I feel bad here for Ugonna Onyenso, who is the unanimous tourney MVP if Virginia wins.
Onyenso had eight points and eight blocks in the win over NC State on Thursday, then 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting and four blocks in the win over Miami on Friday.
Tonight, Onyenso had six points, eight rebounds, and nine blocked shots – and was the guy guarding ACC Player of the Year Cameron Boozer, who was 3-of-17 from the field, and only got into double-figures because of the blessings Duke guys get from the ACC refs that get them to the line when the wind changes direction.
Onyenso is a guy who averaged 3.0 points and 3.3 rebounds in two seasons at Kentucky and one at Kansas State.
Saturday night, he was the most important chess piece on the board for UVA coach Ryan Odom, who stuck with Onyenso on Boozer, the projected top-four pick, which got Duke coach Jon Scheyer to counter by using Boozer as a point forward, to try to draw Onyenso away from the basket.
Scheyer tried to run some basic YMCA pick-and-roll with Boozer and his guards to get Onyenso in space against shooters, but what was more effective was keeping the middle open for backdoor cuts.
Boozer exploited the passing lanes enough to finish the night with eight assists, but I’m getting away from my point here.
What should stand out tonight is: a guy who averaged 3.0 points and 3.3 rebounds for three seasons went head-to-head with a guy whose 13-year NBA veteran daddy works for the ACC Network when he’s not taking up two seats on the front row looking like Suge Knight in Duke togs, and the guy that two coaches gave up on made the nepo baby look human.
The game itself was just good basketball – neither team led by more than seven, the biggest scoring run was a 10-0 UVA burst in the game’s opening minutes, so, not really material, in terms of the outcome.
Duke (32-2) led 38-36 at the half, got the lead to five in the opening minute of the second half on an Isaiah Evans three, then, Virginia (29-5) countered with a 13-4 run that got the ’Hoos up four.
From there, it was a dogfight.
Thijs de Ridder, another first-team All-ACC guy who struggled on the night – five points, 1-of-6 FG, 3-of-4 FT – made one of two at the line with 3:10 to go to tie the game at 66.
Boozer and Evans ran a nice pick-and-roll action that got Evans an open three on Duke’s next possession, and Evans did everything but make the shot – frustratingly for our side, Cayden Boozer, aka The Other Boozer, the 6’4” point guard, got the offensive rebound, and was all alone for the stickback layup that put Duke back on top.
Virginia’s next possession was too much respect for Duke, the guards dribbling and passing around the perimeter, awful execution, leading to a shot-clock violation.
Evans made both ends of a one-and-one with 1:59 left to get the lead to four.
Onyenso scored on a stickback at the 1:40 mark to get us back to two.
The Good Boozer missed both ends of a two-shot foul with 1:15 left that kept the door open.
Malik Thomas, who had a team-high 18 points for Virginia, was fouled splitting a double-team with 50 seconds left, and had a chance to tie the game, assuming he could hit both ends of the one-and-one.
He missed the front end.
Onyenso blocked a Good Boozer shot at the rim with 22 seconds left, but Good Boozer snared the loose ball, and got the ball back out to the guards – and it took Virginia six seconds to foul Evans to stop the clock.
Evans made both ends of the two-shot foul to get the margin back to four.
Thomas made a spinning, falling-to-the-floor layup with six seconds left to get the score to 72-70.
The ball was inbounded to Good Boozer, who had just missed two at the line.
He made these two; ballgame.
Game notes
- Isaiah Evans had 20 points to lead Duke; The Other Boozer had a surprising 16, but most of that was on BS high screen-action in the first half, which relied entirely on a Duke big, either The Good Boozer or Maliq Brown, setting a moving screen to free The Other Boozer up in the middle of the lane. Virginia took that away in the second half by putting Onyenso in drop coverage on the screens.
- Sam Lewis had 17 points (7-of-11 FG, 3-of-5 3FG) for Virginia. For the tourney, Lewis averaged 15.0 points per game, and shot 17-of-30 (56.7 percent) from the floor, and 11-of-15 (73.3 percent) from three.
- Duke had a 41-31 advantage on the boards, and had 20 offensive rebounds – but the line item on second-chance points had it at Duke 13, Virginia 10, so, the issue with defensive rebounding only killed our side in the last 3:10, with the Other Boozer stickback, and the second-chance free throws by Evans in the final seconds.
Selection Sunday preview
Virginia has to be a #3 seed now, right? At this writing, the ’Hoos are:
- 7 in ELO, KPI, Strength of Record, Wins Above Bubble
- 10 in RPI
- 12 in NET
- 13 in KenPom
- 14 in BartTorvik
The average ranking from those eight: 9.6
That’s borderline #2 seed.
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Chris Graham
