#2 Virginia Dispatches Georgia Tech, 81-51

Story by Scott Ratcliffe

No. 2 Virginia officially wrapped up a double bye in the upcoming ACC Tournament with a convincing 81-51 victory over Georgia Tech Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena. The Cavaliers (25-2, 13-2 ACC) got production from up and down the lineup and used a decisive first-half scoring run to create a comfortable margin for the duration.

The double bye means the Wahoos will be at worst a 3-seed and won’t play until quarterfinal Thursday in Charlotte.

“That’s a great accomplishment and we’re thankful for that,” UVA junior guard Ty Jerome said. “You never want to take anything for granted. We worked really hard to [secure a top-4 seed], so we’re thankful for for that but we have such a long way to go, so much better to get. So we just have to keep working.”

Added Wahoo coach Tony Bennett of the feat: “That’s great. We’ve been fortunate to be in that spot the last few years and so that’s good. That means you’re one of the top four for sure.”

The Yellow Jackets (12-17, 4-12) jumped out to an 11-7 advantage after a Kristian Sjolund 3-pointer fell through just over five minutes in. Then came the Cavalanche.

Virginia reeled off a 25-4 run — including the next 11 straight — over the next eight-plus minutes. Hunter scored nine over the spurt and had 14 at the break, just a few days of setting his career high of 26 against Louisville.

Braxton Key got it started with a triple on an assist from Hunter, who then dunked one home out of a timeout and completed a 3-point play, then sliced his way around GT defenders before back-to-back Guy 3-pointers made it an 8-point Cavalier lead. Jay Huff jammed one down on a nice feed from Kihei Clark and then Hunter and Ty Jerome capped the run with a pair of baskets each to stretch the Wahoo lead to 17, and the Jackets never could climb out of the hole.

James Banks III scored on a 3-point play to stop the run with 6:10 to go, but at that point the Jackets trailed by 14. The Cavaliers led 41-22 at the half, shooting 55 percent (6 for 11) from downtown over the opening 20 minutes.

The ‘Hoos kept it up out of the locker room, shooting 14 for 24 from the field after halftime, as a Clark 3-ball capped a 10-2 spurt to start the half and push the lead to 27. Midway through the second half, Mamadi Diakite was the recipient of a beautiful Jerome dime and dunked it down with authority, and then Jerome found Key wide open for 3, and the lead ballooned to 63-35. Jerome sank a fallaway floater and finished another drive to the bucket before watching the final few minutes from the bench with the rest of the starters.

Marco Anthony took advantage of his reserve minutes down the stretch, finishing a powerful baseline throwdown before a pair of Huff dunks punctuated the effort.

The Yellow Jackets shot 38 percent on the night (21 for 56) and 5 for 17 from beyond the arc. Jose Alvarado led Tech with a dozen points and 4 assists, while James Banks III added 11 points and 7 rebounds and Michael Devoe chipped in with 10 points.

Jerome led all scorers with 19 points to go with his 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Hunter scored 14 of his 18 in the first half, adding 4 boards and 3 assists, while Guy finished with 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting, all of his points coming from downtown.

Four other Cavaliers scored 7 points or more. Clark, Key and Huff all had 8 points while Diakite added 7 to go with a career-high 8 rebounds and 3 blocks. Diakite has now blocked at least one shot in 20 consecutive games. Clark tied a career mark with his six helpers on the evening.

“We played solid tonight. We did what we had to do,” Bennett said of the spread-out production. “And I thought the group at the end (reserves) did a nice job. … To have the game in a spot where you could balance the minutes and get different looks at guys and lower that minute count, that’s always a positive. Sometimes in this league, you don’t have that opportunity, but we played well enough to get everybody an opportunity, which I think is important.”

UVA dominated the glass, out-rebounding the Jackets 41-21, and outscored Tech 42-26 in the paint.

“We just wanted to get the ball into the middle [of the GT zone] and attack from there,” explained Hunter. “Usually there was one guy guarding two or three people so it was easy to hand it off to other guys and get points in the paint.”

The Cavalier bench put up 18, compared to just 7 for Josh Pastner’s squad.

“They’re good enough to win the national championship,” Pastner said of the Wahoos afterwards. “If they play like they did tonight, they’ll win the national championship.”

Next up is a date with Pittsburgh at JPJ on Saturday afternoon before wrapping up next week against Syracuse (on the road) and Louisville.

“I just feel like we’re playing better,” Hunter said when asked on the team’s performance as of late. “We’ve been working at practice and it’s been translating back to the game a lot more.”