Cavaliers clinch title after FSU stumbles

Hitting the mental rewind button Saturday to go back 707 days, Virginia coach Tony Bennett recalled the last time his team won on Louisville’s home court — an electrifying overtime victory against Purdue to get to the Final Four on the way to winning the 2019 national championship.

Now, Bennett has another sweet memory to store away from Louisville.

Thanks to Florida State botching its own opportunity earlier in the day to capture the ACC regular-season crown, U.Va. took advantage and came away with its fifth conference regular-season title in the past eight years with a 68-58 win against Louisville. With the victory, U.Va. (17-6, 13-4 ACC) will be the No. 1 seed in next week’s ACC tournament.

“I told them before the game, ‘I took this job at Virginia to hopefully have chances at title fights,’” said Bennett, whose team will play in Thursday’s tournament quarterfinals against the winner of the No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed game.

“It’s not lost on me I’m sitting (Saturday night) in the locker room where we had one of the biggest celebrations when we beat Purdue to go to the Final Four, and right across the hallway was our other one (for Saturday’s game at Louisville). We were throwing water and just so excited. ... We talked about what a title fight meant, and being able to live with the

results win or lose, but lay it on the line and don’t yield.”

Coming into the day a half-game behind FSU for first place in the ACC standings, U.Va. only had the chance to win the title after FSU stubbed its toe in an 83-73 loss at Notre Dame. Playing with motivation, U.Va. got 24 points from ACC Player of the Year candidate Sam Hauser, and held Louisville to 37% shooting. David Johnson’s 14 points led Louisville.

What we saw

With U.Va. leading 51-47, Hauser and Jay Huff, who had 10 points, six rebounds and four blocks, went to the bench with 9:39 remaining. U.Va. proceeded to go on an 11-2 run in a little more than four minutes while Hauser and Huff were out of the game.

Hauser only played 64 seconds the rest of the way, while Huff didn’t return. Despite minimal participation from arguably U.Va.’s two best players, Louisville (13-6, 8-5) was unable to cut U.Va.’s lead under eight points in the final 7 minutes, 15 seconds.

Bennett said he took Hauser and Huff out to counter Louisville going with a smaller lineup late in the game.

Louisville’s Carlik Jones came into the afternoon averaging a team-high 17.6 points per game and requiring a big effort to bolster his own ACC Player of the Year hopes.

He didn’t have the sort of day he needed. While guarded primarily by freshman Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark, Jones had just six points on 2-of-15 shooting from the floor.

U.Va., which also got 17 points from Trey Murphy, shot 52% from the floor and outscored Louisville 32-22 in the paint — an important statistic considering the Cavaliers were colder than they’ve been all season from the perimeter. They made just 3 of 15 shots from 3-point range (a season-low 20%).

A long-awaited career first

Despite his impressive college résumé with Marquette and U.Va., Sam Hauser pulled off something he’d never enjoyed with Saturday’s win.

“I’ve never been part of a championship team until now,” said Hauser, who made 9 of 14 shots from the floor. “For me, this is a first in college, so I’m just excited that we got it done. It didn’t matter if it was during the pandemic or not. I’m just happy that we were able to come out on top of this conference.”