Virginia Opens Final Homestand With a Loss Against Miami

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia women’s basketball team (3-21, 0-14 ACC) suffered a 71-55 loss against Miami (14-10, 7-7 ACC) on Tuesday (Feb. 15) at John Paul Jones Arena.

Miami jumped out to a 20-3 lead in the first quarter and used a 10-0 run at the start of the second half to build up a 20-point lead.

Junior guard Taylor Valladay scored 17 points with a career-high nine rebounds. Sophomore guard Mir McLean scored 12 points with nine rebounds.

Destiny Harden led the Hurricanes with 16 points, going 6-of-9 from the field. Kelsey Marshall scored 15 points with seven rebounds.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Miami opened the game on a 9-1 run with a putback from Mir McLean with 5:22 left in the quarter being UVA’s lone field goal of the period. The Hurricanes built up a 20-3 lead by the end of the period. Sophomore guard Aaliyah Pitts ended the UVA shooting drought, making a layup 1:17 into the second quarter, making the score 22-7. The Cavaliers mounted an 8-0 run, fueled by a pair of jumpers from Valladay, to cut the deficit to 10, 27-17, with 4:31 left in the period. The Hurricanes built back up a 14-point lead, but a layup from grad student center Eleah Parker right before the buzzer cut the deficit to 35-24 at halftime.

Miami opened the second half on a 10-0 run, with junior forward London Clarkson scoring UVA’s first points of the quarter at the free throw line with 4:50 remaining in the third. Virginia had missed nine straight field goal attempts before Clarkson made a layup with 4:20 remaining. Grad student guard Amandine Toi ended another four-minute field goal drought by hitting a three with 24 seconds left in the period. Valladay closed out the frame with a fastbreak jumper to make it 57-38 heading into the final period.

The Cavaliers and Hurricanes traded baskets, including Toi hitting her second trey of the game, and trips to the free throw line in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter. Virginia put together a 6-0 run, all coming at the free throw line, to cut the deficit to 65-51 with four minutes left in the game. Valladay scored a layup with 2:19 remaining to extend the Cavalier run to 8-0. Miami ended a four-and-a-half minute scoreless streak with a jumper with 1:51 remaining in the game.

FROM HEAD COACH TINA THOMPSON

“Really tough first quarter. It seems to be the story of the game as hard as we worked, as well as we played in the second, third, and fourth. That hole we dug for us in the first quarter was just insurmountable. It just wasn’t something we could dig our way out of and anytime you start the game down 17 the effort that you have to give in order to get back in the game is just too much and we just ran out of time.”

NOTES

• Virginia shot 30.9 percent (17-of-33) while Miami shot 45.7 percent (21-of-46)
• Both teams had 33 rebounds
• Miami’s largest lead was 24 points with 2:54 remaining in the third quarter
• Virginia outscored Miami 21-15 in the second quarter and 17-14 in the fourth
• The Cavaliers went 18-of-19 from the free throw line (94.7 percent). It was the Cavaliers first time shooting 90.0 percent from the line since going 22-of-24 (91.7 percent) against Miami in 2020
• Virginia went 1-of-12 (8.3 percent) from the field in the first quarter with eight turnovers
• Virginia 3-of-14 (21.4 percent) from the field in the third quarter, but 7-of-7 from the stripe. Miami was 6-of-10 (60.0 percent) from the field in the third quarter
• Taylor Valladay was one point shy of matching a career high for points. Her previous best for rebounding was eight, which she has done twice this year
• Valladay was 7-of-12 from the field
• Mir McLean was a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line
• London Clarkson scored 10 points, going 6-of-7 from the free throw line
• This is the first of four straight home games to close out the regular-season for the Cavaliers

ON THE HORIZON

• Virginia hosts Duke on Thursday, Feb. 17 in a Play 4 Kay game. All fans are encouraged to wear pink to the game and the first 500 fans will receive a free t-shirt. The game tips at 7 p.m.