Out of Sync ‘Hoos Escape Raleigh With Win

By Jerry Ratcliffe

RALEIGH – Kyle Guy took the inbounds pass from teammate Ty Jerome and hurled the ball high in the air down court, knowing by the time the ball landed it was game over.

Third-ranked Virginia had escaped No. 23 N.C. State’s upset bid by pulling out a 66-65 win by the hair of its chinny chin chin. This was a trap game, the kind that brings Top 10 teams to its knees.

More than 18,000 red-clad, screaming fans thirsty for a stunner, tired of watching the Cavaliers own the series. State, desperate for a statement win, threw everything including the kitchen sink at their nemesis.

It nearly worked.

Virginia won for seventh straight time over the Wolfpack, the last six at wild and wooly PNC Arena, and for the 12th time in the last 14 meetings. This time it wasn’t so easy.

“It was a feeling of relief,” Guy said in describing his emotion when he tossed the ball toward the rafters to end the game, to finally bury the pesky Wolfpack that had pushed the Cavaliers to the limits.

State had a strong game plan against UVA, harassing the Cavaliers’ 3-point shooters on the perimeter, crashing the boards hard, playing aggressive, taking what some consider the nation’s best team out of its rhythm. Indeed the Wahoos looked out of sync.

But when a team sells out to stop one thing, good teams always find another weakness and that’s exactly what Virginia did. You might say State picked its poison by limiting the Cavaliers’ shooters to only four made 3-pointers for the night. UVa is the 13th-best 3-point shooting team in the country, but on Tuesday night, it made the ones it had to.

Instead, the Wolfpack didn’t deny the passing lanes, so Cavalier guards relentlessly carried out assaults on the lane and just enough damage to survive. Virginia is now 19-1 overall and 7-1 in the ACC, while State dropped to 16-5/4-4.

For those who missed the game, it eventually boiled down to Guy hitting his only 3-pointer of the night, taking a pass in the right corner from Ty Jerome, and sank it to break a 61-61 deadlock with 1:59 to go in overtime. The 3 extended Guy’s 20-game streak with at least one make from beyond the arc and the timing was beautiful.

After State guard Braxton Beverly scored, cutting it to 64-63, Hunter drove the lane and was fouled. He calmly sank both free throws, 66-63. But then he made an aggressive boo boo. He fouled Wolfpack guard Markell Johnson’s desperation 3-point attempt with nine-tenths of a second on the clock.

Johnson incredibly missed the first, almost dooming the ‘Pack, made the second, made the third. 66-65.

All Virginia had to do was inbounds the ball and avoid the foul, which is exactly what Guy accomplished.

The Cavaliers collectively knew that they could have gone down in an ugly heap on this night. They stunk at times and they knew it.

So did Coach Tony Bennett who gave them a good chewing after the game. In his choir boy manner, Bennett was thankful for the win, especially in a place that could have been a house of horrors.

He didn’t relent from letting his players know that their play wasn’t acceptable.

“Coach was rightfully mad after the game and got after us because we didn’t play anywhere near our standard, and he holds us to a high standard,” Guy said. “We know we didn’t play very well and [State] played pretty good, and they had a pretty good game plan, so hats off to them.”

Bennett wasn’t pleased with the first half even though Virginia shot the ball at a high clip (61 percent, 11 of 18). He was frustrated that his team was getting beaten on the boards and turning the ball over at an alarming rate.

“Went in one ear and out the other,” Guy said of Bennett’s halftime message to his troops.

Meaning it didn’t get any better in the second half. State finished with 16 offensive rebounds, five by bullish Wyatt Walker, who was so strong that he moved Jack Salt off the block a couple of times.

Oh, and that’s not all. Virginia, which led the nation in fewest turnovers per game with an average of only 8.4 coming into Raleigh, doubled that number.

“We played well enough to win but a couple of those stats stick out,” Bennett said afterward. “NC State plays good defense. They’re good with their hands, they’re athletic, they’re aggressive, and they did rattle us and take us out of our rhythm.

“Usually when you give up that many offensive rebounds and that many turnovers, you’re not going to be successful,” Bennett added. “We need to grow from this and learn from it. We brought losing into the equation when I didn’t know we had to in certain situations with fouls and turnovers and unsound decisions.”

State had howled back from a 14-point deficit midway through the second half when Coach Kevin Keatts asked his team to be patient and not get frustrated against UVa’s defense.

“They just frustrate you and they make you play one-on-one basketball,” Keatts said of the Wahoos, who lead the nation in scoring defense.

Walker, who finished with 11 points, seven boards and three blocks, was impressed with Virginia.

“They’re a really good team, give all the credit to them,” Walker said. “We don’t take any moral victories and I’m obviously disappointed in the loss. That is a tough team and we fought hard.

“There were just a few key plays down the stretch that we needed to convert,” Walker continued. “[The Cavaliers] stick to their game plan, and they are really good at it.”

It wasn’t like this was a jolt to the Cavaliers nerves. While their winning margin is off the charts (21.5 points per game), they’ve had some brushes like against Dayton and Wisconsin in the Bahamas, at Maryland in the Big 10 Challenge, and of course, to two-point loss at Duke in the biggest ACC showdown to date.

“We are absolutely prepared for these moments, especially with last year’s team winning some close games and the experience we have,” Guy said. “Ultimately that’s what’s going to get us through a lot of close games.”