Virginia was 5-of-24 from three, made two shots from the floor in the final nine minutes, had its two leading scorers foul out, gave up 14 Northwestern makes at the rim.
And won.
The ‘Hoos (5-0) got 26 points from Thijs de Ridder, who fouled out with 5:46 to go, and UVA down two, and 16 from Chance Mallory, who fouled out with 1:42 to go, and UVA up two, and somehow got the dub, 83-78, on Friday at The Greenbrier.
ICYMI
Burn the tapes of this one – from the venue looking in general like the middle-school gym in a hotel banquet hall that it was, to the floor playing like a hot night in an arena with hockey ice underneath, to the officials calling 51 fouls, 33 in the second half.
The opening tip was at 5:05 p.m.; the clock hit triple-zeroes at 7:32 p.m.
Two hours and 27 minutes to play 40 minutes of regulation college basketball.
Somebody cue Rob Manfred to get us some pace-of-play improvements, stat.
The game had no ebb, no flow, which you would expect to be told after reading about the 51 fouls in 40 minutes – 1.275 fouls per minute, for those who like the math spelled out.
What will be hard for Northwestern coach Chris Collins to figure is how his team lost a game in which it shot 46.6 percent, was 7-of-16 from three, 14-of-20 at the rim, had seven turnovers on 69 possessions, while holding the other team to 37.5 percent shooting, the aforementioned 5-of-24 from three, and 8-of-19 at the rim.
The quick answer on that: Virginia had 49 rebounds to Northwestern’s 25, and was 30-of-36 at the free-throw line.
It is concerning for UVA fans that their ‘Hoos really ran no semblance of organized offense for long stretches, getting most of what they got from hero ball – evidence: just eight assists on the 24 made baskets.
Dump-and-chase is only going to get us so far.
Outside of de Ridder, who was 9-of-15 from the floor, the other eight guys were a collective 15-of-49.
The other Virginia bigs – Johann Grunloh, Ugonna Onyenso and Devin Tillis – were barely there.
Grunloh had five points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots – one of the blocks, big, swatting an Arrinten Page three with Virginia up three with 41 seconds left – in 31 minutes.
Onyenso, who has scored in double-figures twice this season, had two points and three fouls and nothing else of consquence in nine forgettable minutes, in which he seemed lost on both ends.
Tillis, in his first game back from knee surgery, was 0-for-2 from the floor with a rebound in six minutes.
Mallory and starting point guard Dallin Hall came up big in the second half – Mallory hit a three to snap a three-minute scoring drought that cut a seven-point Northwestern lead to four, on his way to seven second-half points; Hall, shut out in the first half, went for 11 in the final 9:35, including a three with 2:31 to go that extended the Virginia lead to four, and going 5-of-6 from the line in the final 1:01.
Malik Thomas finished with 14 points – he had nine early, in the opening 10 minutes, then went stone-cold silent, but he did help close the game out at the line, going 4-of-4 at the stripe in the final nine seconds.
Jayden Reid had 25 points for Northwestern (4-1), with Page chipping in 20.
Nick Martinelli, the reigning and defending leading scorer in the Big Ten, who came in averaging 20.5 points per game, had nine, on 3-of-12 shooting, in 38 minutes.
Virginia concludes its trip to the West Virginia mountains on Sunday at 2 p.m. with Butler (4-1), which defeated South Carolina, 79-72, earlier in the day on Friday.
Highlights: UVA 83, Northwestern 78
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Chris Graham
