#2 Virginia Blasts Pitt

By Scott Ratcliffe

No. 2 Virginia pushed its home record to 14-1 on the season with an easy 73-49 walloping of Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon at John Paul Jones Arena. The Cavaliers (26-2, 14-2 ACC) got a combined 42 points from the trio of De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy on a day when the offense was clicking on all cylinders.

The last-place Panthers (12-17, 2-16) dropped their 12th straight with the loss. UVA has now defeated Pitt eight times in the schools’ nine meetings as ACC foes.

The ‘Hoos kept their place atop the conference standings with just a pair of contests remaining on the schedule, and have now won at least 14 league games for the fourth time in school history (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019).

“There’s something I read in a book, but it was a coach talking about the joy of competition and the fun in the pursuit of a championship,” said UVA coach Tony Bennett. “We’re fortunate for the conference to be in the pursuit. So have joy, have fun doing it, and then you better be as locked in and ready to go. … Over the regular-season conference title, if you’re in contention for that, that’s a test. That’s long, a lot of games.”

UVA got off to a bit of a sluggish start, not grabbing its first lead of the contest until there was 15:23 showing on a Hunter basket out of the first media timeout. It didn’t take long for the ‘Hoos to kick it into high gear.

Back-to-back Panther buckets made it 11-10 Virginia at the 11:20 mark before the Cavaliers strung together 16 straight — highlighted by consecutive Guy triples — to push the lead to 17.

“What I told our team afterwards [is], ‘This is what elite looks like,’” said Pitt coach Jeff Capel referring to the ‘Hoos. “It’s what we aspire to get to. It’s not just [the Cavaliers’] defense, or just their offense, or their good players, but they don’t take a play off. Every possession, they understand that.”

Pitt went over six minutes during that stretch without scoring until Sidy N’Dir drove to the hole with 5:06 left in the first half. Freshman point guard Xavier Johnson, the team’s leading scorer, was blanketed by Kihei Clark and went scoreless (0-4 FG, 0-2 3PT) in the opening half.

“That was quick-on-quick when you’re talking about [Johnson] and [Clark] going at it,” Bennett said. “Those are two quick guys. I thought [Clark] really set the tone for us defensively and then he set the tone with his ball security. He touched the paint, finding some guys. I thought he really ignited our defense.”

Johnson finished the game with just 3 points on 0-for-7 shooting, while Trey McGowens, another talented freshman who averages close to a dozen a game, wound up with only 3 points of his own on the night.

Pitt’s Jared Wilson-Frame led the team with 15 points, with Au’diese Toney being the only other Panther in double figures with 12.

Pitt shot 39 percent on the afternoon, including 6 for 19 from beyond the arc.

The Cavaliers went into the locker room up comfortably, 39-19, marking the fifth time this season (and first time in league play) that they’ve held their opponent under 20 points over the opening 20 minutes.

“We’ll play on Monday, our third game in however many hours or days, so {Guy and Jerome] did they job early and to start the second half,” said Bennett, when asked how nice it was to give his backcourt leaders more rest than usual. “It was a way to also reward the guys who work hard in practice. So, of course, to do be able to do that was important. I like the way we came out defensively. I thought we were alert. I thought we were together in how we needed to play.”

The ‘Hoos shot 62 percent (13 for 21) from the field in the first half and 59 percent (24 for 41) on the day, and scored the first six points out of the locker room to begin the second half.

UVA led by as many as 27 in the second half, as Guy added two more long balls to his tally to finish with 5 makes on the day. Guy moved up into 39th place in school history with 1,159 career points. He also ended the contest in 5th place on the Virginia single-season 3-pointers list, besting his output from last season (83) with 86 makes on the year.

Guy led all scorers with 17 points, while Jerome put up 13 and Hunter finished with 12. Clark, Mamadi Diakite and Marco Anthony each added 6 points, while Jay Huff and Braxton Key chipped in with 5 apiece. Hunter racked up a team-high 5 assists, while Huff led the Cavaliers in rebounds (6) and steals (3) in his 17 minutes off the bench.

Diakite did not come away with a block, ending his streak with at least one swat at 20 games, the third-longest stretch in UVA history.

Austin Katstra sank a 3-ball in the corner with a minute and a half to play to a well-deserved applause from the JPJ crowd of 13,452.

The Wahoos scored 13 points off of 15 Pitt turnovers while committing 10 giveaways of their own. UVA matched a season-best tally of 9 steals on the night.

The ‘Hoos have little time to prepare for Monday’s road trip to Syracuse’s Carrier Dome at 7 p.m.