Virginia Takes Down Duke 69-62 in Overtime Thriller

The Cavaliers escaped with an exhilarating overtime victory over the Blue Devils on Saturday at John Paul Jones Arena

Had Virginia not struggled so much from the free throw line, the Cavaliers might have come away with a rather unexciting, but convincing victory over the visiting Blue Devils. But, for better or for worse, the packed crowd at John Paul Jones Arena was treated to a nerve-racking and exhilarating battle on Saturday as 40 minutes weren't enough to decide what ended up being another instant classic between UVA and Duke. 

Ultimately, though, the Cavaliers made a few key plays on both ends of the floor in overtime and No. 8 Virginia escaped with a thrilling 69-62 victory over Duke on Saturday in Charlottesville. 

In a game that had a little bit of everything, the first half was exactly the type of defensive stalemate that is to be expected when the ACC's top two defenses go head-to-head. Duke point guard Jeremy Roach was the difference for the Blue Devils in the first half, scoring 12 of Duke's first 14 points. Tyrese Proctor added a pair of three-pointers to give Duke a 20-13 lead midway through the half. 

Duke already had a significant size advantage, with three players 6'10" or taller playing regular minutes against a Virginia team that has started to rely heavily on small-ball lineups in which the tallest player on the floor is the 6'8" Ben Vander Plas. That size differential became more severe when the Cavaliers got into significant foul trouble, with Kadin Shedrick picking up three fouls and Vander Plas, Jayden Gardner, and Francisco Caffaro getting whistled for two fouls each in the first half. 

Although the foul trouble caused problems for Virginia, it's hard to argue with the results, as Duke's two star freshmen bigs were held entirely in check. Kyle Filipowski, the runaway favorite to win ACC Freshman of the Year and Duke's leading scorer at 15.5 points per game, was held scoreless for the first time in his career. Dereck Lively II knocked down two free throws on the first possession of the game, but he didn't score again after that. Virginia played effective defense against Duke's bigs by committee, often double-teaming Kyle Filipowski and Ryan Young in the post. Ryan Dunn and Ben Vander Plas did exceptionally well in one-on-one situations. 

With Duke's centers struggling to produce, it was the guards who gave the Blue Devils their early lead with Roach scoring 12 points in the first half and Proctor adding eight. Virginia was eventually able to slow down the Duke offense, holding the Blue Devils without a field goal for nearly five minutes, but the Cavaliers couldn't get anything going for themselves offensively either, especially from beyond the arc, where they were 0/5 in the first half. 

Duke had a 25-19 lead with two minutes left in the first half, but Virginia managed to close on a 6-2 run behind a jumper from Vander Plas, a driving layup from Isaac McKneely, and a dunk from Reece Beekman to make it 27-25 in favor of Duke at halftime. 

Points in the paint were 20-10 in favor of UVA in the first half, but Duke got ten second-chance points off of five offensive rebounds and the Blue Devils outrebounded the Cavaliers 18-9 in the first half. 

Virginia stormed out of the gates to start the second half, scoring two-straight layups from Armaan Franklin and Kihei Clark to put UVA in front, resulting in a quick timeout from Jon Scheyer. Franklin and Clark were Virginia's two main offensive weapons on Saturday, with Franklin finishing with 23 points on 9/13 shooting and Clark recording 16 points on 7/10 shooting and five assists. 

After Virginia hit zero three-pointers in the first half, Franklin and Clark hit threes on back-to-back possessions to give UVA a five-point lead.  Both teams starting clicking offensively after that, trading the lead back-and-forth. There were 11 lead changes in the game, many of them coming early in the second half.

Duke started to heat up from three just as UVA began to get into an offensive rhythm. This time, it was Dariq Whitehead hitting a couple of triples in his first game back in action after missing the last few games with an injury. Whitehead scored eight-straight points for the Blue Devils to give them a 47-42 advantage. 

Virginia's defense tightened up and held Duke to zero field goals over a six-minute stretch. That allowed Virginia to put together a 12-4 run sparked by Kihei Clark, who got to the rim for layups on three-straight possessions. The Cavaliers also frequently exploited the Duke defense with backdoor cuts and crisp passes for layups. 

The Hoos had several chances to put some distance between themselves and the Blue Devils on the scoreboard, but failed to capitalize at the free throw line. Almost unbelievably, Virginia went 0/5 from the free throw line in the second half, leaving five points on the table that could have sealed the game. UVA was 9/22 from the charity stripe in the game. 

"Yesterday was the first time all year every guy made every free throw," Tony Bennett said of his team's free throw shooting in practice the day before the Duke game. "I told them after the game, I said don't do that anymore. Just miss one or two."

A pair of layups by Armaan Franklin gave Virginia a 58-53 lead with less than two minutes to play, but then Duke roared back with a 5-0 run on a layup by Jeremy Roach and a clutch corner three-pointer by Jacob Grandison with 51 seconds remaining. 

Ben Vander Plas missed a three on Virginia's next possession, giving Duke a chance to win the game in regulation. On an inbounds play with 1.2 seconds left on the clock, Duke worked the ball to Kyle Filipowski on a backdoor cut. Although he had yet to score in the game, Filipowski had a direct line to the basket for a game-winning dunk. Reece Beekman rotated over and blocked Filipowski's shot in a bang-bang play right as time expired. The refs initially called a foul on Beekman on the play, but after an extensive review, determined that the foul occurred after time had expired, sending the game into overtime. 

With five extra minutes on the clock and everything on the line, Virginia's defense came to play in overtime. The Cavaliers held the Blue Devils to just four points in the five-minute extra period, facilitated by a couple of drawn charges, including one that resulted in the disqualification of Jeremy Roach for his fifth foul. 

A tough layup from Tyrese Proctor cut the Virginia lead to one at 63-62 with 1:11 remaining in overtime, but then Armaan Franklin hit the clutchest three-pointer of his career, burying a corner three late in the shot clock to put UVA up by four with 40 seconds left. 

Virginia got a stop on Duke's ensuing possession and the Cavaliers finally hit a few free throws in the final seconds to seal the 69-62 victory. 

Armaan Franklin led all scorers with 23 points and Kihei Clark was brilliant with 16 points, 14 of them coming in the second half and overtime. Reece Beekman had just four points, but chipped in six rebounds and seven assists. Ben Vander Plas had 13 points and four boards and was even more valuable on the defensive end, helping UVA keep Duke's big men in check. 

Jeremy Roach led Duke with 16 points on 7/11 shooting before fouling out and he was joined in double figures by Tyrese Proctor (14 points), Jacob Grandison (11 points), and Dariq Whitehead (10 points). Duke's three centers Kyle Filipowski, Dereck Lively II, and Ryan Young were held to a combined eight points, all from the free throw line, as the trio shot 0/8 from the floor. 

Duke outrebounded Virginia 39-24 in the game and scored 16 second-chance points on nine offensive rebounds, but UVA had an overwhelming 42-24 advantage in points in the paint and the Cavaliers scored 20 points off of 22 Duke turnovers. 

Now 19-4 and 11-3 in  ACC play, Virginia will play at Louisville on Wednesday at 7pm. 

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