By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It wasn’t the most convincing of performances, but the Virginia Cavaliers made enough plays to win a key ACC men’s basketball game Tuesday night (March 3) at John Paul Jones Arena.
Time and again in the second half, 13th-ranked UVA appeared poised to pull away from Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons refused to fold, however, and cut the Cavaliers’ lead to four with 25 seconds to play and then to three with 6.1 seconds remaining.
They got no closer. Graduate student Dallin Hall made two free throws with 5.2 seconds left, and those were the final points in Virginia’s 75-70 victory. On a night when UVA (26-4 overall, 14-3) missed eight free throws, Hall was 4 for 4 from the line, all in the final 15 seconds.
“I thought our guys did a nice job finishing it out,” head coach Ryan Odom said. “I would have liked to have gotten [the lead] up a little more, but it didn’t happen.”
With the victory in their penultimate regular-season game, the Wahoos clinched the No. 2 seed in the ACC tournament, which starts next week in Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” said Odom, who’s in his first year at Virginia. “We talked about it in the locker room. You think back to June. Nobody outside of the locker room thought we had a chance to finish second. And probably at that point, nobody inside the locker room knew if we had a chance to do that or do something that special.”
Of the players on the UVA roster, only three were in the program last season. For this group to gel and have so much success is “a huge, huge deal,” Odom said.
“These guys are to be congratulated for that. We certainly did as coaches. We’re thankful for each one of them and the work that they put in over the course of the year and, and the belief that they have in one another, and we found different ways to win games.”
The Cavaliers won with offense and rebounding Tuesday night. In the second half they made 7 of 15 shots from 3-point range and 14 of 28 overall. In the final eight minutes, Malik Thomas made two treys, and Jacari White and Hall hit one apiece.
That helped Virginia overcome the production of Mekhi Mason and Juke Harris, who scored 26 and 21 points, respectively, for Wake (15-15, 6-11).
UVA led by eight at intermission despite shooting only 36.7% from the floor in the first half.
“Offensively, we were better [in the second half],” Odom said. “Defensively, we weren't quite as good. But Wake had a lot to do with that. They really just test you with the way that they play offensively.”
The Hoos were coming off a one-sided loss to top-ranked Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. That defeat ended Virginia's nine-game win streak.
Odom “had a great speech after the game [at Duke],” freshman center Johann Grünloh said Tuesday, “and then the next day at practice, he told us to look forward. We still had unfinished business in conference, and we put a focus on that. So it was not easy, but we found a good way to leave it behind.”
Five Cavaliers scored in double figures Tuesday night, led by 6-foot-9 forward Thijs De Ridder, who totaled 16 points, seven rebounds, three assists, one blocked shot and one steal.
“He’s so skilled,” Wake head coach Steve Forbes said, “and he’s physical.”
Grünloh, a 7-footer from Germany, continued his late-season resurgence, leading Virginia in rebounds (nine) and blocks (three) while scoring 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting.
The key for him lately, Grünloh said, has been his “self-confidence, believing in myself. I kind of lost that in, I don't know, January. But now in the last couple of games it came back [after] talking to Coach, talking to my teammates, having my family here. That helped me.”