Virginia Crushes Miami 60-38 for Seventh-Straight Victory

The Cavaliers stifled the Hurricanes on Monday night and cruised to their seventh-consecutive win

What was expected to be a hard-fought battle and closely-contested matchup between ACC foes on Big Monday turned out to be a blowout, as Virginia (18-5, 9-3 ACC) stifled Miami (15-8, 6-6 ACC) from start to finish and extended its winning streak to seven games with a dominant 60-38 victory on Monday night at John Paul Jones Arena. 

Miami endured multiple stretches of scoring droughts lasting several minutes and Virginia capitalized every time, stringing together scoring runs of 11 or more consecutive points on three separate occasions. A 23-4 run in the first half gave the Cavaliers a 29-17 lead at halftime and the second half was more of the same, as UVA led by as many as 26 points and cruised to the comfortable statement victory. Miami's 38 total points was the program's lowest scoring output since December 28th, 1948. 

Miami, which came into the game shooting 38.1% from three as a team, good for 23rd in the country, was held to 2/20 from beyond the arc and didn't make a single three in the second half. The Hurricanes shot 28.6% from the field, a full 20% under their season-long shooting average of 48.1%. 

Virginia, meanwhile, shot 48.1% from the floor and knocked down three more three-pointers (5) than Miami (2) on nine less attempts. Reece Beekman led the way with 16 points, seven assists, and four rebounds. Jake Groves was the only other Cavalier in double figures with 12 points, but nine different UVA players scored in the game and Virginia didn't need much more than that thanks to the way the Cavaliers played on the defensive end. 

"I thought it was a real complete performance," said Tony Bennett after the game. "It was good basketball. I thought we moved hard, got the ball to the right spots, had a variety of shots. Didn't shoot a ton of threes, but I thought we got into the lane and made the plays and had some good drives and pocket passes and the guys were sharing the ball. To me, that was good Virginia basketball on both ends."

Jordan Minor and Blake Buchanan combined to contain Norchad Omier, who averages 18.0 points per game but scored only 11, and Beekman smothered Nijel Pack to just two points on 0/8 shooting. Virginia registered eight blocks as a team, outscored Miami 32-18 in the paint and had 15 points off of 11 Miami turnovers, while committing only three turnovers. UVA had 20 assists on 26 made shots. 

Read Val's Plus/Minus breakdown of the game here.

Up next, Virginia heads out for yet another Saturday road game, taking on Florida State on Saturday at 8pm in Tallahassee.

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