Wake Forest closed out Virginia’s season, and perhaps the Tina Thompson era, with a 14-2 run in the final 5:32, on its way to a 61-53 win in the first round of the 2022 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Virginia (5-22, 2-16 ACC) led 39-31 with 4:53 remaining in the third quarter, but a three-pointer from Jewel Spear capped a 7-0 Wake run that made it a one-point game, 39-38.
The Cavaliers answered with back-to-back layups from Clarkson and sophomore guard Aaliyah Pitts to preserve the lead. UVA went into the fourth quarter leading 45-42.
The Cavaliers built back up a seven-point lead on a Pitts layup with 8:41 remaining, but another Spear three-pointer followed by a jumper from Olivia Summiel cut the UVA lead to 49-47 with seven minutes left in the game.
Wake Forest (14-15, 4-14 ACC) took its first lead since early in the second quarter on a steal and fastbreak layup from Elise Williams with 4:55 remaining. UVA retook the lead on a jumper from Valladay with 3:47 remaining, but a jumper followed by an and-one from Morra gave Wake a 59-53 lead with 1:44 remaining.
The Cavaliers missed their final three field goal attempts.
Sophomore guard Mir McLean scored 11 points with nine rebounds to lead the UVA effort. Junior forward London Clarkson also scored 11 points for the ‘Hoos.
Jewel Spear led Wake Forest with 23 points. Christina Morra had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“Really tough one for us,” Thompson said. “We felt like we controlled the game for most of the game. We had a really tough fourth quarter where we were having problems executing as well as missing a few assignments defensively.
“I’m proud of my team. It’s really, really tough to kind of have the bumps that we’ve had during the season but continue to show up and continue to fight. We just wish that this one would have ended a little differently. I kind of feel like we ran out of time,” Thompson said.
And Thompson’s run at Virginia may have run out of time as well. Her teams have a 30-63 record in her four seasons at Virginia, her best being a 13-19 finish in 2019-2020.
The program called last season after just five games, all losses, due to issues with COVID and injury, then fell to the 5-22 mark this season that included two forfeits.
This can’t be considered acceptable, though Thompson, in her final press conference of the year, maybe of her UVA run, tried to make the case for herself.
“We’ve been working kind of fighting all year to just find chemistry as well as be consistent in our schemes, and like I said, our kids have continued to show up every day and work and try to apply the things that we’ve been giving them,” Thompson said. At the end of the season, it was starting to come together for us, and we were gaining confidence, you know, in the things that we were doing, our schemes and execution offensively, and just kind of fell a little short. Of course, in hindsight, we could say that we wished that we would have kind of turned that corner a little earlier and maybe our season would be a little different, but we had opportunities to do so. But I’m glad that it came together when it did, but it allows us to see what is possible moving forward.”
Story by Chris Graham
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