Virginia takes down No. 14 Aggies in ACC/SEC Challenge, 59-47

By Scott Ratcliffe

After dissecting his opponent’s statistical breakdown prior to Wednesday’s ACC/SEC Challenge, Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams had a plan in place for his 14th-ranked Aggies against a slow-paced Virginia team.

That plan was simple. Williams, who squared off against the Cavaliers for a decade during his previous gig at Virginia Tech, knew UVA’s most glaring weakness coming into the contest was its defensive-rebounding numbers (or lack thereof) in its first six games of the season.

“Everything is neon green on all of the things that matter defensively, except coming into tonight’s game, [the Cavaliers] were 327th in defensive-rebounding percentage,” Williams pointed out.

He figured if his squad could win the battle of the boards, particularly on their end of the court, he might walk out of John Paul Jones Arena with a rare victory.

Williams’ strategy worked pretty well throughout the first 20 minutes, but the Cavaliers used a 14-2 scoring run — fueled by their patented, Pack-Line defense — to begin the second half and create the separation needed to ultimately pull out a 59-47 upset win.

The Cavaliers (6-1) got double-figure scoring performances from all five of their starters, and they needed them, as nobody who came off the bench was able to put the ball in the basket (combined 0 for 4 from the field).

The Aggies (6-2), meanwhile, didn’t help themselves out with their 16 committed turnovers, which led to 10 Wahoo points on the opposite end. Williams knew giving the ball away would be costly, and he expressed his disappointment with the amount of miscues afterwards.

“I understand that we’re not going to play with zero turnovers,” said the coach, “but 16 is just an astronomically high number percentage-wise in a 59-possession game. They’re so good.”

For the record, A&M prevailed by 12 on the boards, 42-30, including 11 more offensive rebounds, but all that mattered was the end result on the scoreboard.

“We just almost braced ourselves for the fact they’re going to get some [offensive rebounds], but don’t let them just pat it back in and get an easy one if we can make them reset, and then we’ll guard them again,” said Virginia coach Tony Bennett. “So that was the mindset with them, because that’s one of the better offensive-rebounding teams.”

Andrew Rohde led the Cavaliers in scoring with 13 points, while Reece Beekman, Ryan Dunn and Jacob Groves each dropped in a dozen apiece and Isaac McKneely added 10. Each chipped in with timely baskets on the offensive end throughout the night, while, as usual, Beekman and Dunn impressively led the charge on defense.

Dunn registered 5 blocks and 3 steals, as he continues his superb defensive play, while Beekman, the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year, put the clamps down on A&M’s leading scorer — and SEC Preseason Player of the Year — Wade Taylor IV.

Beekman drew the assignment on Taylor (20.0 ppg coming into the game) for the majority of the contest, helping to limit him to just 9 points on 2-for-10 shooting (1 of 6 from long range). Beekman came away with 3 steals and a pair of blocks of his own to add to his game-high 5 assists.

As a team, A&M shot 30 percent (17 for 56) from the field and just 17 percent (4 of 23) from long distance, while the Hoos cashed in on 22 of 53 overall (42 percent) and 9 of 25 (36 percent) from beyond the arc.

The Hoos were hot early on, building an 11-6 advantage on their third made 3-ball of the game at the 14:35 mark of the first half. McKneely got it started with back-to-back long balls before Dunn got in on the act.

Rohde knocked down his first 3 out of the under-12 timeout to push the lead to 18-11 before Henry Coleman and the Aggies started to fight back. Coleman scored three buckets as part of a 10-0 run that put A&M ahead, 24-22, late in the half.

Beekman knotted it up at 24-all on a backdoor-cut flush before Coleman answered on the other end, as the Aggies had misfired on eight of their previous 10 shot attempts. But Dunn had the last laugh, connecting on a 3-pointer to beat the shot clock with 16 ticks remaining in the half, giving his team a one-point cushion, 27-26, at the halftime break.

Virginia took control, scoring the first seven points out of the locker room and stretched the lead to 41-28 on a Rohde basket with 14:54 to play. UVA connected on 6 of their first 8 shots of the half, while A&M was 1 for 5 and turned it over 3 times during that span.

The Aggies weren’t finished, though, as they responded with an 8-0 spurt to get back within five as the clock went under 10 minutes. The Wahoos went scoreless for a stretch of over five minutes until Dunn electrified the JPJ crowd with a powerful, windmill jam.

After Eli Lawrence sank a triple to cut the UVA lead back down to six, Groves went on his own personal scoring spree with 7-straight points to push it back to double digits, and Rohde followed that up with his third trifecta, giving the Cavaliers their largest advantage of the night, 55-41, with just over five minutes on the clock.

Rohde led the Hoos in rebounding on the evening with 6 to go with his 3 assists, but it’s still quite clear that attacking the glass is a top priority moving forward, especially with only a few more non-conference tuneups left on the schedule. Texas A&M outscored the Hoos in second-chance points, 16-3, a familiar pattern across several of the team’s first seven contests — opposing teams have racked up 97 offensive rebounds to Virginia’s 56.

Groves said in his postgame comments that rebounding was a focal point all week in practice, and explained how he and his teammates did all they could to keep the ball out of the Aggies’ hands.

“I think a big emphasis this week obviously was just having to box out every possession, every player,” he explained. “A lot of times tonight, all five guys went [to the rim], and if not, four guys were going in, and so I think it’s important for our guards to rebound down, and a guy like myself who is far undersized playing the 5 against those guys — my job is just to maybe not get the rebound myself, but make sure they don’t get the rebound.

“And so I was just pushing and battling, shoving guys around and just trying to make sure they don’t get the ball, whatever that takes. And so it’s definitely something we work on in practice every single day, knowing that we’re kind of a smaller team, and rebounding has got to be a huge key for us going forward.”

Georgetown transfer guard Dante Harris turned his ankle in practice this week and was seen on crutches and wearing street clothes Wednesday night while cheering on his teammates from the sideline. As a result, UVA freshman guard Elijah Gertrude had his redshirt status removed and made his college debut Wednesday, playing 7 minutes and 37 seconds and finishing with a rebound and an impressive block at the rim on an A&M dunk attempt.

The Aggies were led by Coleman’s game highs of 16 points and 14 rebounds, as he was the only A&M player to reach double digits in either category.

Team Notes

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

• Virginia is 1-0 in the inaugural ACC-SEC Challenge
• Tony Bennett is 8-3 vs. Buzz Williams in head-to-head matchups (7-3 vs. Marquette and 1-0 vs. Texas A&M)
• UVA is 171-51 in non-conference action under Tony Bennett
• UVA had a 5:35 scoring drought in the second half
• UVA started the second half on a 7-0 run
• Ryan Dunn’s second 3-pointer sent UVA to a 27-26 halftime lead
• TAMU went on a 10-0 run to gain a 23-20 lead
• UVA is 111-2, including a 2-0 mark in 2023-24, when limiting foes to fewer then 50 points during the Tony Bennett era
• UVA is 1-0 vs. ranked opponents
• UVA had zero bench points for the first time since Dec. 22, 2021, at Clemson

Series Notes

• Virginia is 1-1 all-time vs. Texas A&M
• The Aggies defeated the Cavaliers in the first matchup in the 1962-63 season

Player Notes

• Double Figure Scorers: Andrew Rohde (13), Ryan Dunn (12), Jake Groves (12), Reece Beekman (12), Isaac McKneely (10)
• All of UVA’s points came from its starting five
• McKneely reached double figures for the 10th time
• McKneely (2 3-pointers) has made 2+ 3-pointers in five games
• Rohde reached double figures for the 29th time (1st at UVA)
• Beekman (3 steals) moved into fifth on UVA’s all-time list with 180
• Dunn reached double figures for the sixth time
• Dunn had eight stocks (three steals + five blocked shots) to increase his team lead to 40 stocks
• Dunn made a career-best two 3-pointers and matched a career high with five blocked shots
• Groves reached double figures for the 29th time (3rd at UVA)
• Beekman reached double figures for the 35th time
• Elijah Gertrude (1 rebound, 1 blocked shot) made his collegiate debut
• Dante Harris missed the game with an ankle injury

2023 ACC/SEC Challenge
Event ends in 7-7 tie
Tuesday’s Games
Georgia Tech 67, No. 21 Mississippi State 59
South Carolina 65, Notre Dame 53
Syracuse 80, LSU 57
No. 12 Kentucky 95, No. 8 Miami 73
Missouri 71, Pitt 64
Ole Miss 72, NC State 52
Clemson 84, No. 23 Alabama 77

Wednesday’s Games
Virginia 59, No. 14 Texas A&M 47
No. 17 North Carolina 100, No. 10 Tennessee 92
Wake Forest 82, Florida 71
Arkansas 80, No. 7 Duke 75
Boston College 80, Vanderbilt 62
Georgia 68, Florida State 66
Auburn 74, Virginia Tech 57
Not participating: Louisville

UP NEXT

ACC competition gets underway this weekend, when the Cavaliers welcome Syracuse and first-year head coach Adrian Autry to JPJ for a noon tipoff (ESPN2).