Virginia battled Louisville in ACC play for the first time Saturday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Cold shooting and junior guard Justin Anderson’s fractured finger aside, the No. 3 Cavaliers put on a show.
Former Cavalier sports stars Ryan Zimmerman, Sean Singletary and Chris Canty — as well as ESPN reporter Michael Wilbon — were in attendance.
Facing a top-15 opponent for the third consecutive game, Virginia held off the No. 9 Cardinals late for a 52-47 win. The Cavaliers’ Tony Bennett — already victorious against Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina’s Roy Williams and SMU’s Larry Brown — became the only active coach with wins against all five active Hall of Fame coaches.
“He’s a great coach,” junior guard Malcolm Brogdon said. “I think the success that coach Bennett’s had since he got to Virginia and the levels that his teams reach every year — improving on that — I think that all speaks to what a great coach he is and the kind of staff that he surrounds himself with.”
Anderson fractured a finger on his left hand in the first half and did not return in the second. He will have surgery Sunday and is expected to miss four to six weeks, Bennett announced late Saturday.
Brogdon — whose 15 points paced Virginia — iced the game at the foul line with 10 seconds to play after Louisville senior guard Chris Jones missed a free throw that would have cut the Cavalier lead to two. Jones scored 11 points for the Cardinals, with eight after the break when his team finally started to score.
Louisville (19-4, 7-3 ACC) put up just 13 points in the first half, entering halftime down by 11. The stats up to that point were ugly — the Cardinals had no second-chance points or any fast-break points and had forced only one turnover. Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino’s team made four shots in the first half before showing marked improvement thereafter.
“We worked very hard for three days oh how to beat their defense, and we ignored it in the first half by and large,” Pitino said. “The one thing you can’t do is break the offense and go run high pick-and-rolls against this team, and we did that.”
Pitino said Louisville executed better after halftime, when his team shot 52 percent from the field. Jones got into the lane for a short jump shot to open the second-half scoring, giving his team its first points since junior forward Montrezl Harrell’s alley-oop dunk 12 minutes and six seconds earlier.
But Virginia clipped the Cardinal rally with a couple of big shots in the final minutes, particularly with Brogdon’s free throws and senior forward Darion Atkins’ jump hook with 62 seconds to play.
The Cavaliers finished 2-14 on 3-pointers and missed two shots for every make. Still, Virginia took care of the basketball against Louisville’s ball-hawking backcourt of Jones and sophomore guard Terry Rozier, who are first and second in the ACC in steals per game. The Cavaliers committed just two turnovers against nine assists, six by sophomore point guard London Perrantes.
“It was just a hard, slugfest defensive game,” Bennett said. “I told our guys before, ‘You’re going to have to put your hardhat on and you’re going to have to work defensively…The home crowd was terrific. We needed every ounce of emotion and energy that they gave us, and then our guys dug deep and came up with a big one.”
Anderson retreated to the bench with 1:52 to play in the first half before reentering 33 seconds before the horn. He slammed home an alley-oop dunk off a long bullet pass from Perrantes for his only points.
Junior forward Evan Nolte stepped in for Virginia’s second-leading scorer, starting the second half and playing 24 minutes overall. He knocked down a 3-pointer to put Virginia up 32-19 with 13:19 remaining and — in a wise basketball move — passed up an open shot late in the game to take time off the clock.
Bennett said he opted for Nolte over freshman guard Marial Shayok because of a favorable matchup with Cardinals’ senior wing Wayne Blackshear, who helped keep Louisville close with 3-pointers at the 7:55 and 6:08 marks of the second half.
“I thought in this setting [and] in this game, experience and his smarts could come in big,” Bennett said. “[I just thought] he did a good job defensively, and I thought his smarts were there.”
While Pitino said he was “disappointed” in his team, he began his post-game remarks with compliments to Virginia and JPJ.
“A great venue to play college basketball,” Pitino said. “I think the crowd’s great — I think they’re on top of you. I think the environment’s awesome, and I think their team is awesome.”
The Cavaliers will play NC State Wednesday night at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m.
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