As the night wore on, you felt that Virginia-Louisville would come down to, first one to 50 wins. Virginia was the first to 50, barely.
The Cavaliers kept their NCAA Tournament hopes alive with a rock fight 51-50 win Wednesday night in the second round of the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn.
A pair of Jayden Gardner free throws with 4.2 seconds left got Virginia (19-12) over the half a hundred hump.
The brief 51-47 lead for the ‘Hoos after the second Gardner make was Virginia’s biggest lead of the night, which is saying something about how tight as a tick this one was.
Louisville (13-19), which had defeated Georgia Tech, 84-72, in the first round on Tuesday, played like it wanted to be there, which wasn’t the case in either of the Cardinals’ two regular-season losses to the Cavaliers, including the 71-61 setback in the Yum! Center on Saturday.
Virginia had 19-point leads in both of those on the way to the pair of double-digit wins.
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Impassioned Louisville defense Wednesday night forced UVA into a 2-of-18 start from the field, and Louisville led by as many as nine in the first half, holding the ‘Hoos to four points in the opening 11:24.
A 7-of-8 stretch to close out the first half got Virginia back to down 24-20 at the break.
Neither team could get separation in the second half.
Virginia got its first lead of the night (25-24) two minutes in on a Jayden Gardner jumper, but the rock fight was on from there.
The biggest lead for either team over the next 16 minutes was three, and it was a Noah Locke three for Louisville with 1:54 to go that would erase that one, knotting the score at 45.
Virginia, on its next possession, got a short jumper from Gardner to go back up two.
Jarrod West missed a long three with 1:01 to go.
Virginia, after a timeout, ran a rare isolation play for Reece Beekman, who took the ball to the rim for an easy two that pushed the lead to four with 40 seconds left.
Louisville coach Mike Pegues called a timeout and set up a play for Locke, but he was whistled for a traveling violation, with good defense from Beekman forcing the turnover.
Virginia had a chance to run some clock and then try to close the game out at the line, but Beekman, after breaking the press, tried to get the ball to Gardner in the lane, and the ball went out of bounds, originally ruled off Louisville big Malik Williams, but after a lengthy replay review, the ball was awarded to the Cardinals.
West missed a three, and Sydney Curry, with the offensive rebound, missed a point-blank layup.
Kadin Shedrick blocked a third-chance Curry stickback, before Williams converted, with 4.7 seconds left, to get the margin back to two.
Gardner hit the two free throws to ice the game with 4.2 ticks left.
El Ellis drained a meaningless three with a tenth of a second left to get us the final margin.
Gardner led all scorers with 17 points (7-of-12 FG). Kihei Clark had 15 points (7-of-14 FG), and Beekman had eight points and nine assists.
After the 2-of-18 start from the floor, Virginia finished 21-of-50 (42.0 percent), and won in spite of not making a single three (0-of-6).
Louisville got 11 points (5-of-12 FG) and 13 rebounds from Williams.
Curry, who’d had 24 points and 14 rebounds in Saturday’s loss, had just six points (3-of-7 FG) in 18 minutes Wednesday night.
Virginia advances to Thursday’s quarterfinal round and will face North Carolina (23-8) at 9:30 p.m.
Story by Chris Graham
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