Virginia gets 21 from Reece Beekman, 18 from Jake Groves, in 65-53 win over Notre Dame

A month ago, it had been Notre Dame lighting up the scoreboard. On Wednesday, it was Virginia’s Jake Groves.

Groves had five first-half threes to key the Cavaliers to a 15-point halftime lead, and UVA got 21 points and six assists from Reece Beekman in a 65-53 win over the Irish.

The win is the fifth in a row for Virginia (16-5, 7-3 ACC), which is now in sole possession of third place in the ACC, a half-game back of Duke, and two games behind North Carolina.

You, of course, foresaw that two weeks ago, when it looked like the sky was falling, the world was coming to an end, the rest.

Notre Dame (7-14, 2-8 ACC) had won the first meeting between these two, 76-54, shooting 69.6 percent in the first half, hitting 7-of-10 from three, to get out to a 17-point halftime lead.

The script got flipped in the return bout, because of Groves, who subbed in at the 13:21 mark, hit a three 26 seconds later, and went on to make 5-of-6 in 13 first-half minutes.

His third three triggered a 12-2 run that got Virginia a double-digit lead, and a buzzer-beating three from Isaac McKneely made it 38-23 UVA at the break.

Notre Dame got it as close as eight on two different occasions in the second half, but a 9-2 run that was punctuated by another Groves three pushed the lead back to 15, at 57-42, at the 7:31 mark.

It never got closer than 11 after that.

Groves finished with a season-high 18 points in 22 minutes off the bench.

Beekman’s 21 points, on 7-of-13 shooting, 4-of-7 from three, tied a season- and career-high.

One other ‘Hoo scored in double figures – McKneely, with 11 points, on 4-of-10 shooting, 3-of-5 from three.

Virginia shot 45.3 percent (24-of-53) from the floor and 13-of-25 (52.0 percent) from three on the night.

Markus Burton had 17 points to lead the Irish, who also got 16 points from Braeden Shrewsbury, who was 4-of-8 from three-point range in the defeat.

Notre Dame shot 46.5 percent (20-of-43) from the floor and 9-of-18 (50.0 percent) from three. The issue for the Irish was turnovers – 18 of them, leading to 20 UVA points.