Virginia won its first game since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, notching a 67-54 victory Thursday night at JPJ against a Duke team that has to be wondering which end is up right now.
The Cavaliers (4-21, 1-14 ACC) led by five at the end of one, 10 at the half, 16 at the end of three, then went 9-of-11 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to seal their first conference victory since before life as we knew it changed forever.
Grad student guard Amandine Toi scored 21 points to lead the Cavaliers, one of four UVA players to finish the game with double-digit points. Sophomore guard Mir McLean had a double-double with 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds.
Celeste Taylor led the Blue Devils (15-10, 6-9 ACC) with 11 points.
“I’m extremely proud of our kids,” UVA coach Tina Thompson said after the win. “We come in here after every game all season and talk about what we could do better. The one thing that I’ve always said is that we’re going to continue to show up, and they’re going to continue to show up, and they’re going to work. They did that tonight. We were always talking about putting a full game together, and putting several or all four quarters together, and starting a certain way, and finishing a certain way.
“We started the game with high energy, and we were really aggressive, and we carried that throughout the game. Duke is a really good team. We knew that at some point they were going to try to make a run or make a push and when they did, we did not fall apart. That’s what we’ve been talking about all season, keeping our composure and responding, and we did a great job of responding tonight,” Thompson said.
Duke opened the fourth quarter on an 8-2 run, but an and-one from Taylor Valladay put the Cavaliers back up by 13, 57-44 with 5:48 remaining, and it never got closer than 10 the rest of the way.
Story by Chris Graham
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