The Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C. served as the host site for the 2026 T. Rowe Price ACC Tournament. Saturday, it might as well have served as Cameron Indoor Stadium, as supporters of No. 1 Duke created as hostile an environment as No. 10 Virginia has encountered all season. The intensity of the arena carried into the championship game between the ACC’s No. 1 and No. 2-seeds as the two exchanged blows, traded leads and took turns recording signature moments.
Ultimately, it was the perennial powerhouse that finished the job — even without two major pieces of their rotation, the Blue Devils (32-2, 17-1 ACC) made the critical plays in the final minutes to repeat as ACC champions. The Cavaliers (29-5, 15-3 ACC), seeking vengeance for a 26-point loss in late February, made late mistakes that pushed the game out of reach.
For Virginia, the 74-70 defeat may sting more than February’s loss — going up against the nation’s premier program, the Cavaliers gave Duke all it could handle. The Blue Devils got it done anyway.
For much of the game, Virginia held the explosive Duke offense in check. Freshman forward Cameron Boozer, the future first-round NBA Draft pick, took nearly 14 minutes to record his first points of the game — largely thanks to the dominant defensive efforts of senior center Ugonna Onyenso, who continued his reign of terror near the rim with nine blocks.
Onyenso stifled the star forward, forcing Duke to shift its focus to the perimeter, where the Blue Devils went cold. Sophomore wing Isaiah Evans, Duke’s most reliable shooter, hit just one three-pointer in the first half. Freshman wing Dame Sarr attempted five three-pointers in the first half but made just one.
Freshman guard Cayden Boozer, taking advantage of Virginia’s overwhelming focus on his twin brother, posted 14 points in the half. As Duke struggled to assert itself in the paint amidst Onyenso’s continuing dominance, the loss of the injured sophomore center Patrick Ngongba II grew more and more glaring.
Duke plays premier basketball on both sides of the court, though, and Virginia was forced to reckon with the stifling Blue Devil defense early and often. Six first-half turnovers — including two each for graduate guard Dallin Hall and freshman forward Thijs De Ridder — killed the Cavaliers’ offensive momentum as Duke utilized blitzes on Virginia ballhandlers coming off of screens, neutralizing the Cavaliers’ high-screen offense.
“I think they did a lot of switching early on, and then we found some matchups we really liked, so they went to that show,” Hall said postgame. “They’re a tremendous defensive team … We wish we would have countered that a little better as guards, faster.”
Each time Duke broke through and found some offensive momentum, Virginia punched back. With just under three minutes remaining in the first half, Duke went on a mini-run — Evans hit his first three of the night, and after junior guard Sam Lewis missed the response, Cayden Boozer picked up the rebound and went coast-to-coast for an emphatic slam. The five-point swing put the Cavaliers down 36-29 just before the half.
A turnover by Hall threatened to make matters worse. However, a Duke offensive foul put Hall right back at the free-throw line, where the veteran knocked down two free throws. Moments later, a Hall three-pointer put Virginia back down by just two points — after the teams exchanged buckets, the two-point deficit remained entering halftime.
This was a theme that permeated the game until the final minutes — Duke threatened to pull away as Evans and the Boozer twins displayed flashes of brilliance, but Virginia found points when it mattered. In the second half, the Cavaliers never fell behind by more than five — a testament to the growth of this Virginia team, which so quickly lost control of its last matchup with the Blue Devils.
“I think we did a better job of matching their physicality this time around,” Hall said. “I thought we just executed the game plan a lot better. There [were] things on the offensive and defensive end that we really wanted to hone in on, and we did a good job of doing that throughout the game.”
The second half saw Cameron Boozer continue to struggle. Onyenso demonstrated excellent patience all night, refusing to bite on Boozer’s pump fakes and swatting away shot after shot as the freshman struggled to score. Despite the struggles, though, Boozer never appeared to lose his composure.
“He didn't show [frustration] from what I saw,” Onyenso said. “He had good composure. Most players would have been mad and showed it, but he did a really good job composing himself and stayed locked into the game.”
For his part, Onyenso set a new ACC Tournament blocks record with 21 in just three games. Despite the center’s masterclass underneath the basket, Boozer’s impact was eventually felt, as he notched 11 second-half points and found his way to the free-throw line late.
Where one star stepped up, another emerged for Virginia. In the wake of late-season struggles, Lewis caught fire in the second half, knocking down three three-pointers. He traded three-pointers with Evans, who also picked up the pace in the second half — as the two fired back and forth, minutes ticked away, Duke threatening to build a lead and Virginia quickly drawing even.
If anything separated the two teams, it was foul trouble and rebounding. Despite missing Ngongba II, the Blue Devils cleaned the glass effectively, outrebounding the Cavaliers 41-31. Senior forward Maliq Brown notched five rebounds and served as a strong paint presence for Duke.
Late fouls put Virginia in difficult positions. Down 68-66, De Ridder committed a foul with just under two minutes remaining, sending Evans to the line for a one-and-one — the makes gave Duke a four-point lead late in the game, putting Virginia on the razor’s edge.
Missed opportunities in the final two minutes slammed the door on the Cavaliers’ title hopes. Graduate guard Malik Thomas, at the free-throw line with a chance to tie the game with under a minute remaining, missed the front end of a one-and-one to give the Blue Devils the ball with a lead. Lewis was forced to foul after an Onyenso block reset the shot clock, but Duke retained possession. The junior did not foul until the clock showed just 12 seconds remaining — the foul was his fifth, disqualifying him from the final moments of the game.
Two makes by Evans returned the lead to four points, but Thomas responded with a layup at six seconds. De Ridder fouled Cameron Boozer upon the inbound, sending him to the line. Boozer missed two free throws minutes earlier — he would not do so again. His shots put Duke up 74-70 with three seconds on the clock, and after Cayden Boozer intercepted a football pass by graduate forward Devin Tillis, the Blue Devils began their celebration under the light reflected by swirling silver confetti.
“Duke made the plays that they needed to make down the stretch to finish it out,” Odom said. “I thought we had a good opportunity there when it was tied, but it just didn't go our way today.”
Thomas powered the Virginia offense, making tough interior shots when the Cavaliers desperately needed them — he finished with 18 points to lead the team. Lewis knocked down seven shots, including three three-pointers, and finished with 17 on the day.
For the rest of the Virginia lineup, points came disparately. Besides Lewis and Thomas, six Cavaliers scored four or more, including Hall and freshman guard Chance Mallory with seven apiece. The team went 14-16 at the free-throw line, but even those two misses proved costly.
The agony of defeat will not fade quite yet. Still, Virginia proved Saturday that it could hang with the best of the best. Selection Sunday beckons, and an NCAA Tournament berth awaits the Cavaliers — their greatest opportunity to ring in the return of Virginia basketball after a series of disappointing seasons.
“At the end of the day, it's just basketball,” Hall said. “It's the physicality we saw, the intensity we saw today reminds me heavily [of] what it's going to be like in that tournament.”
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