Hall's 25 lead No. 3 Virginia past NC State 68-51

Jan. 14, 2018

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) Devon Hall scored a career-best 25 points and No. 3 Virginia pushed its winning streak to eight with a 68-51 victory over North Carolina State on Sunday night.

Kyle Guy added 17 points for the Cavaliers (16-1, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference). Virginia has won 11 straight regular-season meetings against the Wolfpack.

Torin Dorn scored 16 points to lead N.C. State (12-6, 2-3), which arrived with a 3-0 record against ranked teams. The Wolfpack has beaten the No. 2 team twice – Arizona on Nov. 22 and Duke on Jan. 6 – and was coming off a 78-77 victory against No. 19 Clemson.

N.C. State scoring leader Allerik Freeman (15.2 points per game) did not score in 29 minutes, missing all five of his shots from the field.

Virginia led 30-20 at the break and quickly built its margin to 37-20 in the opening minutes after halftime. The lead grew as high as 21.

BIG PICTURE

N.C. State: The Wolfpack does a good job of forcing turnovers, ranking second behind Virginia in turnover margin with a plus 4.18 (Virginia’s is plus 5.19). The Cavaliers matched their season-high with 14 turnovers, but N.C. State committed 15 and was outscored off those mistakes 22-17.

Virginia: Virginia’s defensive focus increasingly appears to frustrate teams with its consistency, eventually leading to forced shots late in the shot clock. The Wolfpack had several of those, as well as a few 30-second violations and finished 23 for 56 (41.1 percent) against the nation’s top field goal percentage defense.

UP NEXT

The Wolfpack returns home to face Wake Forest on Thursday night.

Virginia goes on the road for just the second time in its last nine games as it plays at Georgia Tech on Thursday.

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