On the day that the University of Virginia honored legendary coach Tony Bennett with a Court Dedication ceremony, it was fitting that the outcome of the game came down to one thing. A defensive stop.
Leading 86-83 after 3 free throws from Chance Mallory, the Hoos exited a timeout just 3.2 seconds from a win. To get it, though, they needed to avoid a foul and a potentially disastrous 4-point play opportunity and they had to prevent Miami from hitting a 3-pointer to force overtime. With a roaring John Paul Jones Arena at its back, UVA got exactly what it needed when Thijs De Ridder intercepted a Miami pass to seal the win and set off a jubilant celebration.
With that, Virginia improved to 24-3 overall and 12-2 in the ACC to remain in the thick of the conference title race. The Cavaliers are just one game behind Duke in the league standings.
"We were just reacting," Mallory said. "Thijs made a great play on the ball. We've been in that predicament before at Florida State so I feel like we were well prepared for that, switching and communicating very well."
A down-to-the-wire finish suited what had been a tightly contested game between a pair of teams with 20+ wins. The Hoos and Hurricanes swapped the lead 12 times and battled through 14 ties. Each rallied from deficits too with UVA trailing by 11 in the first half and Miami by 7 in the final 10 minutes.
Both squads had plenty of good moments and could point to good things in the box score.
Miami shot 47.5% overall, 50.0% from 3-point range, and 94.1% from the free throw line. The Canes had four players in double figures led by Tre Donaldson and Shelton Henderson posting matching 18-point performances. Donaldson also had 7 assists. Malik Reneau added 16 points and Tru Washington had 15 points, while Ernest Udeh Jr. chipped in 8 points and 9 rebounds. The visitors had 18 assists against just 9 turnovers and won the rebounding battle 30-23.
UVA countered with 58.0% shooting overall, 50.0% shooting from 3, and 88.9% shooting at the free throw line. The Cavaliers had six players in double figures with a big night from Jacari White leading the way with 17 points and 5 assists. Sam Lewis had 15 points and Malik Thomas added 10. In addition to his sealing steal, De Ridder tallied 14 points with 3 assists. Mallory recorded 12 points with 6 assists and Johann Grünloh also had 12 points with 4 rebounds and 5 blocked shots.
Miami coach Jai Lucas summed up the showdown as one where you couldn't point to any specific area as the decisive category, noting that the game came down to handful of plays between two high level teams.
"Like I told the team, this is a like a Sweet 16, Elite 8 type of game," Lucas said. "Things happen. It's one possession here, one possession there. You wish you had something back. I sure they wish they could have some back. But we were right there. They battled"
In other words, a game with the competitive intensity fitting for the day of Bennett's celebration. Virginia honored its all-time winningest coach in a pre-game ceremony, revealing his signature on the court across from the Hoos' home bench. Bennett unveiled a fun fact of his own while speaking to the arena as he shared that the signature includes names of players, managers, coaches, staff, and the pillars in a shaded text within his name. Honoring the Unity pillar in that way clearly meant a lot to Bennett as he shared the spotlight with many of those names watching courtside.
Former players Malcolm Brogdon, London Perrantes, Anthony Gill, and Jay Huff were among the many it attendance along with former managers and support staff. Current Cavalier coach Ryan Odom said it was a "really cool moment for the Bennetts" and said the two had talked this week about the ceremony. He shared that Bennett had said the current team did not need to come out to watch the court unveiling, but Odom thought it was important for his players to see it. He said it connected the present to the past, a theme weaved throughout his first year at the helm.
Odom praised Bennett's success and his character while getting there.
"Like I said out there, he's what college basketball is all about in terms of from a coaching perspective," Odom said. "He was about all the right things. He proved you could win at the ultimate level, the highest level and do it with dignity and class and integrity and a ferociousness from a competitive standpoint. His teams were well balanced and knew who they were and knew what they needed to do to win."
Here are some additional takeaways from the win against Miami.
Big Plays To Help Win It
When Miami's Tru Washington scored with 2:07 remaining, it pushed his team ahead 79-78 and that meant Virginia would need to make some key plays to win. Several players came through.
Dallin Hall stepped forward first and it came just 11 seconds later. Following Washington's bucket, Hall brought the ball up the sideline, crossed Bennett's signature, and then slipped around the basline for a reverse layup. UVA retook the lead on that basket with 1:56 to go.
On the defensive possession that followed, Thijs De Ridder took his first turn for a big play. With the shot clock running down, Tre Donaldson tried to shake De Ridder after a defensive switch but he could not get free. When the Miami guard used a fake to get De Ridder in the air and stepped under him for a long-distance leaning jumper, De Ridder managed to jump again and got a piece of the shot attempt from behind. That blocked shot kept UVA in the lead and set off a transition opportunity.
Enter Jacari White. After a scramble for the rebound, Chance Mallory took a pass and then spotted White rushing up the sideline toward the Cavaliers' bench. He fired the ball to White at halfcourt. The senior attacked with three dribbles from there, using the last one to get into side-step jumper from 3-point range. He drained a shot that UVA coach Ryan Odom called "amazing" as it gave the team an 83-79 lead with 1:16 on the clock. Miami coach Jai Lucas said it was the type of shot where a coach might being thinking no, don't shoot it but in this case as the opposing coach, he was thinking "No, no, no 'cause I knew it was going in." Understandably. That was White's fifth triple of the day.
Asked if he had any fear in the moment, White said there wasn't really time for that.
"I mean in times like that like you can't really think about the what if I miss?" White said. "So it's kind of like I just went for it and you've seen the result."
That shot set off a thunderous reaction from fans at the JPJ, but it did not knock out the Hurricanes. They clawed back to a tie at 83-83 after two layups sandwiched a defensive stop.
Following Malik Reneau's layup to knot the score with 7.5 seconds to go, however, Virginia quickly go the ball inbounds to Mallory. He came flying up the court and created enough space to attempt a jumper from behind the 3-point line. Donaldson got caught for a foul while trying to defend what went from a dribble to a shot in a blink, sending Mallory to the free throw line. He made all 3 free throws to provide the 86-83 Virginia lead. He said afterward he didn't think of Kyle Guy's famous 3 free throws in the Final Four in the moment, but that it had crossed his mind after the fact.
As for the play itself, Odom said the Hoos have worked on getting the ball up the floor as quickly as possible to preserve the possibility of a shot or a timeout. Odom said he prefers not to call a timeout in that situation generally and credited Mallory's court sense for getting the ball to a good spot. Mallory said he was thinking about both making the shot and getting fouled as he noticed Donaldson's arm was reaching in, something that he joked "the refs were calling that on me so I knew they had to call it at that point." He said he thought the shot might go in when he was taking it.
"I wasn't really planning on getting it before they could stop the game," Mallory said of the fast possession. "I was just trying to get it out as fast I can just to get a chance to get a shot up and maybe get an offensive rebound, which is our strength. So I was just trying to get out and go as fast as possible."
After a Virginia timeout to set its defense, Miami ran a play to throw the ball to halfcourt and called its own timeout to set up a final play with 3.2 seconds left. The Canes came out of the huddle with their players stacked across the floor from the passer. They brought all four players toward the ball and inbounded to Reneau posting up for the catch just inside the 3-point line. At the same time, Donaldson slammed on the breaks and reversed his cut to move away from the ball and toward a waiting flair screen from Ernest Udeh Jr.
De Ridder, however, stayed near the free throw line and Udeh the whole way. When Reneau attempted the cross-court pass to Donaldson, the ball couldn't get over the 6'9" De Ridder. He got the steal and Virginia got the win.
"We were just trying to flood one side and kind of clear the back side for a flare but the length bothered us," Lucas said.
Shaking Off Zone Jitters
Virginia fell behind by 11 points midway through the first half at 24-13.
During that stretch, Miami broke up the rhythm with a soft press and an extended 2-3 zone that made the Hoos uncomfortable. After Jacari White scored on a layup at the 12:52 mark, the Cavaliers went scoreless for 4:17 and Miami pulled further ahead. That drought featured 5 missed shots with 4 3-pointers in that mix. The hosts just seemed a little hesitant and they committed 2 turnovers to boot.
"I told the guys like in a huddle, guys let's not overthink it," White said. "Like get in the open area, get in an open spot, let's move the ball around, it's not hard. We made it harder than it needed to be I felt like. I had to wake the guys up a little bit."
White brought an alarm clock in the form of plays on the court to back up that talk. He blocked a shot and got the rebound, which led to a Thijs De Ridder layup to break the drought. On the next possession, he notched a steal and then assisted on a kickout 3-pointer for Sam Lewis. Then on UVA's next offensive possession, he canned a triple of his own. Lewis followed with 4 points in a row before White got free for another 3-pointer himself.
By the time Johann Grünloh knocked down a 3-pointer at the 5:15 mark, Virginia had the lead again at 31-30. It took just 3:20 off the clock and White was in the middle of it with 6 points, 1 block, 1 steal, and 1 assist. The Hoos scored on 7 straight possessions.
Battle To Neutralize Strengths
One storyline within the game was how both teams tried to stop or slow down opponent strengths. In Miami's case, that focused in part on rebounding. The Hurricanes won that category 30-23, holding UVA to 4 offensive rebounds in the process. While some of that came from the strong shooting splits by the Hoos (there were only 23 shots or free throws missed by Virginia in total), Miami coach Jai Lucas came into the game knowing that his team had to try to slow down UVA's work on the O-Boards. The hosts had just 2 second chance points.
"A big part of what we talked about was keeping them off the offensive glass," Lucas said. "To limit them to only 4 offensive rebounds, which is one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, to win the glass by 7, have less than 11 turnovers, we made our free throws. It's one possession here or there that kind of changed the game."
On the flipside, Virginia entered the game knowing it had to try to stop Miami's penetration and play in the paint. Miami ranks 22nd nationally in 2-point shooting percentage at 58.2% and scores 48.1 points on 2's. In other words, the Canes get high quality shots with a lot of them coming in the paint or at the rim.
There were some good moments from UVA in this one, but the Hurricanes also took it to the UVA defense at times. There were multiple plays where a Miami player scored through the chest of Virginia's tough shot-blocking duo of Johann Grünloh and Ugonna Onyenso. The visitors ended up with 40 points in the paint. The Cavaliers' best possessions defensively seemed to come when they used switches effectively.
"We were tight with our switches. They had a harder time getting inside our defense," Odom said. "When we had the miscommunications, all the sudden you saw an edge and we weren't quite ready or early enough to help on the baseline there. It's something we've got to improve upon and they're really good. They get to the basket and they're a very physical team. You have to stop them before they get to the paint if you're going to have a chance. When we did, we were pretty successful. When we didn't, they made us pay."
Fortunately for the Cavaliers, they did manage to get some stops. There were 14 combined steals and blocked shots that helped the cause, for example. Grünloh did a lot of the heavy lifting there with 5 blocked shots in the game. That set an ACC high for Grünloh and followed up a game with 4 blocks earlier this week. He's gone back-to-back games with double-digit points too, scoring 11 at Georgia Tech and 12 on Saturday. The center also did a good job with post double teams defensively in this game, another fitting storyline with Bennett in the house.
"Johann was tremendous," Odom said. "I thought it was one of his better games if not his best game of his early career so far. Really proud of him. Talked to the team about that in the locker room just a second ago. He blocked so many shots around the rim. One was a foul unfortunately, but he's just a really good player and it's great to see him kind of coming out of, you know he had a couple of games where he wasn't at his best and that's how seasons go but he's a determined player and a confident player and I thought he did a nice job tonight."
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