Virginia Rallies, Defeats 16 Seed Gardner-Webb, 71-56

By Scott Ratcliffe

COLUMBIA, S.C. — When 16-seed Gardner-Webb took a 14-point lead in the first half of Friday’s NCAA Tournament matchup, Virginia fans were likely breaking a sweat, possibly uttering a few profanities here and there, thinking, “Not again.”

Thanks to a game-changing, 25-5 Cavalanche to start the second half, the top-seeded Cavaliers will live to fight another day, as they pulled away and prevailed, 71-56, against the Big South Conference champion Runnin’ Bulldogs at Colonial Life Arena.

UVA sophomore De’Andre Hunter led the charge, scoring 17 of his game-high 23 points after halftime, as the Wahoos outscored their opponent 41-20 over the final 20 minutes.

Virginia coach Tony Bennett said there were a few minor halftime adjustments made, but that his players just stepped up and answered the call when it mattered most.

“When you’re in that spot, you feel the crowd,” Bennett said from the postgame podium, “but it’s something we had to go through. I’m glad I’m up here this year feeling a little different than when I had Ty [Jerome] and Kyle [Guy] with me last year.

“But it’s the beauty of the tournament, you just don’t know. But we played well in the second half and the end of the first half, which we needed to do. I was proud of these guys, the way they responded when it got a little, well, it was just intense. That’s the reality of it.”

The ‘Hoos will face No. 9 seed Oklahoma on Sunday, with the tipoff time to be announced.

Mamadi Diakite scored two quick buckets to start the second half and then Hunter took control, scoring on a dunk off a nice assist by Ty Jerome, then followed that up with an old-fashioned 3-point play to put Virginia back ahead to stay, 39-38, with 16:16 to play.

“I took it upon myself,” Hunter said, when asked what sparked his big second half. “The coaches talked to me, the players talked to me, but it was more of a personal thing and I was more in my head than anything to come out more aggressively.”

Hunter, playing in his first NCAA Tournament game after sitting last year’s Big Dance out with an injury, sank a jumper out of a timeout to cap a 14-2 spurt out of the locker room before Gardner-Webb’s leading scorer on the season, David Efianayi, hit a 3-ball to stop the bleeding at the 14-minute mark.

UVA answered with 11 straight points over the following four minutes to stretch the lead to 14, and the Wahoo faithful could start to breathe again.

“In the second half, the big difference was that we were getting closer to the basket, we were more aggressive, we were helping each other, and we were more alert,” Diakite pointed out. “

Five Virginia turnovers in the first few minutes of Friday’s contest allowed the Bulldogs (23-12) to grab the early advantage, and then an 8-2 Gardner-Webb spurt made it a double-digit lead midway through the first half.

Bulldog senior DJ Laster was 5 for 9 from in the first half and led all scorers with 10 at the break, as GWU was making it look like they’d been there before.

“At the beginning of the first half, our fans really had us going and we fed off their energy,” said Laster, who put up a career-high 32 against Radford in the Big South title game. “We were just playing well as a team — passing the ball, making the right cuts, making the right plays.”

GWU pushed its lead to 30-16 with 6:44 left in the half, and the neutral fans in Columbia rallied behind the Cinderella-story Bulldogs, who were making their first appearance in the Big Dance.

That’s about the time UVA started creating turnovers and chipping away, little by little. Kyle Guy drained his first 3-pointer before the ‘Hoos hit 4 of 6 free throws to draw back within single digits, 30-23, late in the first half.

Efianayi nailed his second 3 of the half with 2:44 left in the half to push the Bulldog lead back to 11, but Jay Huff jammed one home, then Diakite blocked a shot to set up a huge Kihei Clark 3-ball with 44 seconds left, making what looked somewhat insurmountable into a two-possession affair by the halftime break.

Everything seemed to be going the right way for Coach Tim Craft’s squad.

“We felt like we had a great [first half], obviously, and we talked about some of the things that we felt like led to us getting stops and led to us being able to get good shots, and just kind of emphasized trying to continue to do those things,” said Craft.

Bennett admitted that his halftime speech was not too fiery, but was direct and to the point, and a different vibe than the UMBC game last year.

“It was a different halftime than last time,” said the coach, when asked if he tried to keep things calm in the locker room at the break. “It was just the ability, because I thought we had fought back at the end of the first half to get ourselves in a spot where there was a lot of basketball left.

“It was one thing I said to my staff and we just talked right before we went in there — I said, ‘Uplift them.’ And we talked about don’t panic, but play with fight because that’s what got them back in.”

After shooting 54 percent in the first half, Gardner-Webb came back down to Earth a little in the second, and finished the game 22 for 50 (44 percent) and 39 percent from 3-point land (9 for 23). Jose Perez had a team-high 19 points, while Efianayi added 12 (both hit four 3-pointers). Laster was held scoreless in the second half and finished with 10.

UVA shot 52 percent on the evening (28 for 54) and 30 percent from downtown (7 for 23), and outrebounded the undersized Bulldogs, 35-21. After committing 8 turnovers in the first half, the Cavaliers only gave the ball away 7 times while forcing a dozen GWU turnovers.

Diakite scored 17 points (on 8-of-10 shooting) off the bench, while grabbing a team-high 9 rebounds. Jerome was the only other Wahoo in double figures with 13 points to go with his 6 assists and 3 steals. Guy finished with 8 points (2-8 FG, 1-5 3PT).

“We’ve been there before,” Diakite said of the first-half hole. “Let’s focus on each possession, whether we’re down 20, 30 — if you want to win, you’ve got to take care of each possession.”

Cavalier fans are relieved that there will be more possessions to take care of this weekend.