No. 14 Cavaliers Find No Joy Against No. 1 Duke

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

DURHAM, N.C. — The Virginia Cavaliers aren’t the first ranked team to struggle against Duke in the madness of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and they undoubtedly won’t be the last. That didn’t make the proceedings any less painful for them Saturday afternoon (Feb. 28).

The No. 11 Wahoos came to Cameron riding a nine-game win streak. That ended in emphatic fashion, as the Hoos fell behind early and chased top-ranked Duke the rest of the way. The Blue Devils buried UVA under a barrage of first-half 3-pointers and rolled to a 77-51 victory.

The 51 points were a season low for Virginia (25-4, 13-3), which remains in second place in the ACC, behind only Duke (27-2, 15-1). The Cavaliers’ 29.1% shooting from the floor also was a season low.

Neither Malik Thomas nor Sam Lewis, who entered the game as UVA’s second- and third-leading scorers, respectively, made a field goal Saturday. They were a combined 0 for 10 from long range. Another one of Virginia’s primary offensive threats, reserve guard Jacari White, was 1 for 7 from the floor.

The Blue Devils, meanwhile, shot 49.1% overall and 50% from 3-point range. In the first half, Duke was 8 for 13 from beyond arc, to 4 for 17 for UVA.

“Duke played a great basketball game today,” Virginia head coach Ryan Odom said. “They put a ton of pressure on us from the get-go.”

Guard Isaiah Evans scored the Devils’ first nine points, all on treys, and finished 5 for 9 from long range. Evans scored a game-high 19 points, and forward Cameron Boozer added 18 for Duke.

It’s customary for the Blue Devils to have a roster full of gifted offensive players. What makes this Duke team so formidable is its defensive prowess. Virginia came to Cameron averaging 82.3 points per game, but freshman forward Thijs De Ridder (16 points) was the only player to score in double figures Saturday against Duke, which is long and athletic. The Blue Devils have only player shorter than 6-foot-5 on their roster: 6-foot-4 Cayden Boozer.

“I thought their guards did a great job of applying pressure to our guards without getting beat off the bounce regularly,” Odom said. “They did a great job of just keeping us in front of them. And when we did get in there, there was help. You have to make shots when you get in that situation. When the balls kick back out, we had some open ones that did not go down that maybe would have given us a little bit more confidence. But in a situation like we were in today, when you're kind of playing from behind, it gets harder and harder and harder.”

Even against Duke’s stifling defense, though, his team had some good looks, Odom said, and “when you're wide open and you don't knock it down, that hurts even more, because they're going to get you to the end of the clock on a lot of the other ones.”

At the end of a first half in which three of its starters went scoreless, Virginia trailed 41-26. The second half went no better for the Cavaliers, who were seeking their first victory at Cameron since Feb. 7, 2022.

“I think we were just not ready to play,” said De Ridder, who’s in his first year at UVA.

De Ridder is from Belgium, and in Europe, where he played in front of crowds “even more crazy than this," he said. No. 28 was one of the few UVA players who appeared unfazed by the cacophony inside Duke’s 9,314-seat arena.

The atmosphere contributed to the Cavaliers’ woes, forward Devin Tillis acknowledged. Only one UVA player—reserve guard Elijah Gertrude—had played against Duke at Cameron before Saturday.

“When people are yelling like that and it's super loud, the gym's rocking, there's times when you really have to pull everybody together,” Tillis said, “and when people are pulling apart then it's hard to stay on the same page. So definitely, I think there were times where we split apart a little bit and we can't do that.”

None of the Hoos’ first three defeats resembled their one-sided loss to Duke.

“We haven't really got our butts kicked before,” said Tillis, who contributed five points, two rebounds and two assists in 18 minutes off the bench. “We’re 25-4, but we kind of need something like that to learn, especially going into March. Those are the teams we have to beat and compete against. So I think it was a good experience for us, no matter how it went.”

Point guard Dallin Hall agreed.

“We will learn from it,” said Hall, who made two 3-pointers and led Virginia with four assists. “That's what this team has done all year. They've responded after adversity. It’s hard. There's a lot of emotion right after a game, so we've got to really look at the tape and dial in on the things that we need to improve on, but we're definitely going to get better from it.”

Odom said: “This is a competitive sport, and we punch people, and they punch us. They punched us a lot more than we punched them today ... And so you got to cover yourself. You’ve got to make sure you're not getting hit as much, and you move on to the next thing. And our guys have been really excellent at doing that all year.

“We've been in some tight situations, and they've found ways to win games. And so I'm really confident in this group and the leadership that we have, the connectivity that we have within the locker room. The connection between the coaches and the players is really strong, and you have a chance for success, when you do that. And so we're not going to lose our confidence because of one game, but we are going to learn from it.”

UP NEXT: The Hoos have two regular-season games left, both at John Paul Jones Arena. UVA hosts Wake Forest at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Virginia Tech at noon next Saturday.

The Wake game will air on ACC Network and the Tech game on The CW.

Wake was 14-14 overall and 5-10 in ACC play heading into its Saturday night game against Syracuse in Winston-Salem, N.C.

In a series that’s tied 72-72, the Cavaliers have won 12 of their past 14 games with the Demon Deacons.

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