Eighth-ranked Virginia overcome god-awful free-throw shooting, streaky three-point shooting from Duke, and a dunk that would have won the game for the Blue Devils at the buzzer.
Phew.
The Cavaliers won, 69-62.
It’s OK if you feel like you’re the one who needs a shower after watching that one.
Duke (17-8, 8-6 ACC) led by as many as seven in the first half, but the ‘Hoos (19-4, 11-3 ACC) battled back to go into the break down just two, 27-25.
Virginia got out to an early five-point lead after back-to-back threes by Armaan Franklin and Kihei Clark, but Duke threatened to run away with it, with a 19-9 run over 4:40 stretch to go up five, at 49-44, on a Dariq Whitehead jumper with 10:44 to go.
A 10-2 UVA run, punctuated by a Ben Vander Plas layup and foul, put Virginia back on top, 54-51, with 4:51 left.
But BVP missed the free throw – a theme for the day; Virginia was 3-of-12 in regulation and 9-of-22 on the game.
After some back-and-forth, a Jacob Grandison three from the right corner tied the game at 58-58 with 51 seconds left.
Virginia’s last possession in regulation resulted in a missed Vander Plas three with 28 seconds left, giving Duke the last chance to get the win.
After a loose ball gave Duke an inbounds with 1.2 seconds left, the ball was inbounded into the hands of Kyle Filipowski, who had a straight lane to the rim for what would have been a game-winning dunk.
Beekman blocked the shot at the buzzer, but the officials called a foul on Beekman on the play, before a review that led to the foul being overturned, with replays in the arena seeming to confirm that Beeks had gone straight up and got a clean block, sending the game to OT.
Virginia controlled the extra session. Vander Plas, after being fouled on a take to the basket, banged in two free throws to put UVA on top, and then a Clark driving layup made it 62-58 with 3:28 to go.
Duke got the margin back to one on a nice, bully-ball driving layup by freshman Tyrese Proctor, getting the score to 63-62 with 1:11 to go.
On Virginia’s next possession, the Cavaliers calmly worked the shot clock, then Clark found Franklin in the left corner for a three that Franklin splashed, extending the lead to four.
The Cavaliers closed things out from there, forcing three misses in the final 28 seconds, and connecting on 1-of-2 at the line on three different occasions.
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Box score
Inside the box score
Franklin had a game-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting, a nice, and very important, bounceback for him after he’d put up single digits in the past two outings.
Clark had 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting, with six makes on drives to the basket that ended at the rim, to go with five assists in 37 minutes.
Vander Plas had 13 points for Virginia, which shot 51.9 percent from the field, despite the 9-of-22 at the line, and 4-of-14 from three.
It was attacking the rim that paid off – UVA was 19-of-28 on layups and dunks.
Duke got 16 points from Jeremy Roach, who fouled out with 3:15 to go in regulation.
Filipowski, who had been averaging 15.7 points per game coming in, put up a goose egg – zero points, 0-of-6 shooting, in 30 minutes.
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Chris Graham
