Cavaliers get past Mountaineers, 56-54, thanks to late-game heroics

By Scott Ratcliffe

In a tie ballgame with the clock winding down on Wednesday night, Virginia needed its hero to step up and deliver, and senior floor general Reece Beekman answered the call in the clutch.

The preseason first-team All-ACC selection wound up with the rock in his hands — thanks to a huge offensive rebound by Leon Bond III — in the waning seconds, and drew a foul on West Virginia’s Quinn Slazinski with 2.3 ticks to go.

Beekman connected on his first free-throw attempt before purposely missing the second to make things tougher for the Mountaineers to get a final shot off. As it turned out, teammate Ryan Dunn was there to secure the miss, drawing another whistle and splitting a pair of his own from the line with four-tenths of a second remaining, and the Cavaliers escaped with a 56-54 win in the third-place game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off.

“I’ve never seen someone miss a free throw as perfect as Reece did,” Tony Bennett said with a grin in the postgame press conference.

The Wahoos (5-1) trailed by one with under two minutes left when Beekman scored on an aggressive take, and UVA led, 52-51, with 1:30 on the clock. The Mountaineers (2-3) had a chance to retake the lead on the ensuing trip, but Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards came up short on the front end of a 1-and-1 and Bond grabbed the board, leading to a nifty Dunn spin move in traffic that gave the Hoos a three-point edge with 45 seconds to play.

On the other end, Slazinski misfired on his 3-point attempt with 36.8 showing, but drew a shooting foul on Dunn and proceeded to knock down all three of his freebies — despite being iced with a Bennett timeout after his second — and knot the score at 54-all.

The Cavaliers inbounded and milked the clock down under 10 seconds before setting up a look for Dunn from downtown. When the ball caromed off the rim, Bond was there for the board with 8 ticks on the clock, and kicked it back out for what turned out to be the game-clinching play.

Virginia took its largest lead of the contest, 36-26, on an Andrew Rohde backdoor layup to cap a 10-1 scoring run with 13:18 left. WVU had missed six in a row from the field and went over six minutes without a bucket until Edwards, who picked up three quick fouls out of the break, jammed one home on the next trip down the floor.

UVA led by a 40-33 margin when Edwards picked up his fourth midway through the second half, but the Mountaineers grabbed the momentum with three-consecutive 3-pointers and went ahead by two, 42-40, with 8:40 on the clock.

A Beekman jumper rattled in to tie it back up before Jake Groves buried a triple to put the Hoos back in front. From there, things began to heat up as UVA sophomore (and West Virginia native) Isaac McKneely took issue with a rough foul by Ofri Naveh, and then shoved Slazinski after he had the ball slapped out of his hands, resulting in offsetting technical fouls.

Slazinski responded with a 3-ball of his own to make it 45-all with 6:08 to go, and then the Cavaliers fell behind again as WVU scored on an easy layup off of a turnover.

Dunn gave his team the lead back on a three-point play with 3:35 remaining, and then Beekman’s turnaround jumper over Edwards made it a 50-47 affair with 2:45 to play.

“As the point guard and leader of the team, you’ve got to choose your time to be assertive and kind of take over,” Beekman said of his performance in crunch time, “so you never want to force it, but you always want to be looking at attacking… we were getting a little stagnant on offense so I just decided to go make plays.”

After Edwards split a pair of free throws, Seth Wilson swung things back in the Mountaineers’ favor with his third 3-pointer of the half, and it was 52-51 as the clock went under two minutes, setting up the nail-biting conclusion.

UVA shot 40 percent (21 for 52) for the game and just 22 percent (4 for 18) from 3-point land, but limited WVU to 37-percent shooting (19 for 51) from the field and 33 percent from long range (7 of 21).

The Cavaliers made 10 of their 16 free-throw tries (63 percent) and turned the ball over 9 times. Once again, Virginia got crushed on the boards, 41-28, including a 12-6 deficit on the offensive glass (WVU had 8 second-chance points).

The stat of the night was the points-off-turnovers category, where UVA thrived, converting 16 Mountaineer miscues into 18 points on the other end. The Cavaliers also outscored West Virginia in the paint, 24-16.

Dunn led the Hoos with 13 points to go with 5 rebounds, 2 steals and a block, as he continued his solid play on both ends of the floor. Beekman added 12 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals, committing a season-high 4 turnovers on the evening. Bond and McKneely each scored 8 points, with Bond coming down with a team-high 7 boards and McKneely sinking a pair of long balls (2 for 9 overall; 2 for 5 from deep).

Edwards and Slazinski led the Mountaineers with 17 points apiece. Edwards added a game-high 9 rebounds, a pair of blocks and a steal.

Team Notes

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

• Reece Beekman sank 1 of 2 free throws at 2.3 seconds left to give Virginia (5-1) a 55-54 lead
• Ryan Dunn added one free throw to make the final score 56-54
• UVA is 170-51 in non-conference action under Tony Bennett
• UVA owned a 24-16 advantage in points in the paint
• West Virginia out-rebounded UVA 41-28
• West Virginia gained a 42-40 lead on a 9-0 run
• UVA started second half on 10-3 run
• UVA led 26-23 at halftime, limiting WVU to 9 of 28 shooting for 32.1 percent
• UVA led 2-0 at U16 timeout as the teams combined for a 1 of 10 start from the field
• UVA forced two shot-clock violations (6 in 2023-24)

Series Notes

• Virginia is 10-10 all-time vs. the Mountaineers in the series that dates to the 1915-16 season
• Virginia head coach Tony Bennett holds a 2-2 record against the Mountaineers
• UVA is 4-2 vs. West Virginia on neutral courts

Player Notes

• Double Figure Scorers: Ryan Dunn (13), Reece Beekman (12)
• Beekman reached double figures for the 34th time
• Beekman had four steals, moving into a tie with Bryant Stith for seventh on UVA’s all-time list with 177
• Dunn reached double figures for the fifth time
• Dunn had three “stocks” (two steals plus one blocked shots) to increase his team lead to 32 stocks
• West Virginia native Isaac McKneely had eight points and five rebounds

UP NEXT

Virginia hosts No. 12 Texas A&M next Wednesday (Nov. 29) in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge (7:15 p.m., ESPN2) before welcoming Syracuse to John Paul Jones Arena next Saturday (Noon, ESPN2) for the conference opener.