Second-Half Collapse, Late Turnover Dooms Virginia in Upset Loss to Furman

UVA squandered a 12-point second-half lead and a late turnover by Kihei Clark led to the game-winning three-pointer from JP Pegues

Matt Pendleton-USA TODAY Sports

Kihei Clark's career began with what is widely considered to be the greatest play in the history of the Virginia men's basketball program, a pass that saved UVA's season and without which there would be no national championship in 2019. Five years later, Clark's UVA career came to an end with a complete blunder of a turnover that directly led to yet another first-round exit for the Cavaliers at the NCAA Tournament. 

The responsibility for the loss does not rest on the shoulders of Clark alone, as there were team-wide mistakes and errors and a simple lack of a will to win as Virginia squandered what was a 12-point lead midway through the second half. Puzzlingly, UVA couldn't solve a simple 1-3-1 zone defense and decided not to guard Furman's Jalen Slawson for three possessions in a row, allowing the Paladins to mount a 19-4 run that turned the game on its head. 

Still, Virginia came up with a few clutch plays to regain the lead and appeared to be in good position to win, leading 67-63 with 19 seconds left. Furman's Garrett Hien made a couple of free throws and then came the sequence that cost UVA the game and the season. Reece Beekman passed the ball to Kihei Clark, who was immediately trapped by a Furman double-team in the corner. Instead of calling timeout or passing back to Beekman, Clark tried to throw a one-armed pass the length of the court to Kadin Shedrick down the floor. The pass barely made it to half-court, where it was intercepted by Hien, who quickly passed ahead to JP Pegues for a wide-open three-pointer. 

On the five-year anniversary of Virginia's historic loss to UMBC, of course Pegues drilled the game-winning shot with just 2.2 seconds left on the clock. 

Beekman attempted a desperation heave from well beyond the arc at the buzzer and the shot hit the backboard and went off the front of the rim, sealing UVA's latest first-round March Madness flameout, as No. 13 seed Furman pulled the 68-67 upset over No. 4 Virginia on Thursday afternoon in Orlando. 

Jalen Slawson was phenomenal for the Paladins, who earned their first NCAA Tournament victory since 1974. The Southern Conference Player of the Year had a 19-point, 10-rebound double-double and single-handedly willed Furman back into the game with a personal 9-0 run on three three-point plays on consecutive possessions with five minutes left. 

That erased Virginia's 50-38 advantage, a lead which had been provided by the big-time shot-making of true freshman Isaac McKneely, who hit back-to-back threes to put UVA up 12 a few minutes earlier. McKneely finished with 12 points as one of the bright spots for Virginia. Reece Beekman was another bright spot, recording 14 points, five assists, five rebounds, two blocks, and two steals. Had UVA finished the job, the story of the game would have been Kadin Shedrick, who, in his first start since January 10th, delivered one of the finest games of his career, recording a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds to go along with four blocks. Shedrick had a clutch steal in the final minutes and hit a pair of free throws that gave Virginia a three-point lead with 81 seconds left. 

Furman came up empty on its next two trips down the floor and that should have been enough for Virginia to seal the win and escape into the second round. Instead, UVA's nagging bad habit of missed free throws reared its ugly head once again. McKneely missed the front end of a one-and-one and Clark made just 1/2 free throws the next time down. That 1/4 stretch from the charity stripe left the door slightly open, Clark's mind-boggling turnover a few seconds later kicked the door wide open, and Furman went right on through on the clutch three-pointer from JP Pegues as Virginia found another uniquely painful way of losing a March Madness game. 

The final sequence will be overanalyzed and overweighted for its role in the outcome of the game. Sure, UVA probably wins the game had it not been for the ill-advised long pass attempt from Clark, but the Cavaliers wouldn't have even been in that position had they taken care of business earlier in the second half. The inability to execute consistently on the offensive end has been the Achilles heel of what was otherwise a very strong Virginia team all season long. In the most important game of the year, it was an unsophisticated 1-3-1 zone defensive look that threw the Cavaliers out of sync and unable to recover until their 12-point lead had turned into a three-point deficit. More than any single player or play in the final sequence of the game, Virginia's penchant for lengthy and costly scoring droughts, often at the worst possible moments, was the No. 1 reason for this unsatisfactory outcome to the 2022-2023 season of Virginia men's basketball. 

With the loss, Virginia has still not won an NCAA Tournament game since cutting down the nets in Minneapolis for the 2019 National Championship and UVA ends the season with a 25-8 overall record. 

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