By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Every missed free throw by Virginia elicited groans of disbelief from the capacity crowd, and that was a constant refrain Saturday at John Paul Jones Arena. But the fans never stopped exhorting the home team, and the 8th-ranked Cavaliers rewarded their supporters with a victory that was as exhilarating as it was improbable.
Against ACC rival Duke, the Wahoos missed 13 of 22 foul shots and 10 of 14 attempts from 3-point range. Moreover, Virginia was outrebounded 39-24 and gave up 16 second-chance points to Duke.
None of that stopped the Hoos, who rallied from five points down in the second half and then outlasted the Blue Devils in overtime.
“You have to be able to do that,” UVA head coach Tony Bennett said after his team’s 69-62 victory. “You gotta find different ways to win.”
The Cavaliers (19-4, 11-3), among the nation’s most experienced teams, know that when adversity arises, “you just got to keep pushing through,” said forward Ben Vander Plas, a sixth-year senior. “You got to be able to control your effort on the defensive end and just keep doing everything else.”
Defense, as it so often has during Bennett’s tenure, saved the Hoos on Saturday. They forced Duke into 22 turnovers, including four shot-clock violations.
“The crowd helped,” Bennett said. “It was wild in here, and we loved that.”
Virginia also shut down 7-foot freshman Kyle Filipowski, Duke’s leading scorer this season. Filipowski was 0 for 6 from the floor and 0 for 2 from the line and turned the ball over five times against the Cavaliers.
“Look, they’re physical and really good,” Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said. “He didn’t have that same pop that he normally does and for whatever reason had a hard time getting out of it.”
Bennett said: “He’s young. That experience shows at times. But he’s good, really good and he plays hard, which I respect.”
Filipowski played a leading role in the game’s most controversial sequence. With 1.2 seconds left in the second half and the score 58-58, Duke inbounded the ball to Filipowski, who drove to the basket and tried to dunk. Reece Beekman, a 6-foot-3 guard, met Filipowski at the rim and blocked the shot, but a foul was called on another Cavalier, 6-foot-8 freshman Ryan Dunn. After a video review, however, the officials called for overtime, ruling that time had run out before a foul occurred.
“They told me after the fact that the call was made after the buzzer,” Scheyer said.
(Late Saturday night, the ACC released a statement in which the conference said the officials’ call was incorrect. The outcome of the game stands, but Filipowski should have been awarded two free throws, the ACC said, citing Rule 5, Section 7, Article 3c of the NCAA rule book. Although the foul occurred after expiration of play, the ball was still in flight, the ACC said, and so Filipowski should have been granted two free throw attempts.)
Virginia never trailed in the extra period. The Cavaliers’ first possession ended with two free throws by Vander Plas—a feat that earned him a rousing ovation from the crowd—and they stretched their lead to 63-58 before the Devils (17-8, 8-6) scored in overtime.
Back-to-back drives by Duke freshman Tyrese Proctor made it 63-62 at the 1:10 mark, but the Cavaliers didn’t panic. On their next possession, Kihei Clark spotted Armaan Franklin open in the left corner, and the 6-foot-4 senior buried a trey that made it 66-62 with 39.4 seconds left.
“I shoot a million of those a day, so it was good to see one go in,” said Franklin, who led all scorers with 23 points.
Duke turned the ball over on its next possession, and the Hoos hit 3 of 6 free throws in the final 29 seconds to seal the victory.
“We needed one more stop that we couldn’t get down the stretch in overtime,” Scheyer said.
This marked the first time the Blue Devils came to JPJ, which opened in the fall of 2006, unranked in the Associated Press poll. But Duke is still loaded with future NBA draft picks, and its height was a concern for the Cavaliers.
In addition to Filipowski, Duke’s rotation players include 7-foot-1 freshman Dereck Lively II and 6-foot-10 Ryan Young, a graduate transfer from Northwestern. But the smaller Cavaliers, including Dunn and Vander Plas, blanketed the Devils’ big men, none of whom had a major impact on offense.
“It was just one of those games where guys figured it out,” Bennett said.
The Hoos outscored Duke 42-24 in the paint. The Devils did more damage from the perimeter, hitting nine treys: three by Jacob Grandison and two apiece by Jeremy Roach, Dariq Whitehead and Tyrese Proctor.
Roach, who starred in the Blue Devils’ win over UVA at JPJ last season, scored 12 of their first 14 points Saturday. He finished with a team-high 16 points but fouled out with 3:13 left in overtime.
“We’re gonna be better with him in the game, always,” Scheyer said.