Cavaliers win eighth in a row
NO. 3 VIRGINIA 68 N.C. STATE 51
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Devon Hall scored a career-best 25 points and No. 3 Virginia pushed its winning streak to eight games with a 68-51 victory over North Carolina State on Sunday night.
Kyle Guy scored 17 points for the Cavaliers (16-1, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference). Virginia has won 11 consecutive regular-season meetings with the Wolfpack.
Torin Dorn scored 16 points to lead the Wolfpack (12-6, 2-3), who arrived with a 3-0 record against ranked teams.
The Wolfpack have beaten the No. 2 team twice — Arizona on Nov. 22 and Duke on Jan. 6 — and were coming off a 78-77 victory against No. 19 Clemson.
North Carolina State scoring leader Allerik Freeman (15.2 points per game) did not score in 29 minutes, missing all five of his shots from the field.
Virginia led 30-20 at the break and quickly built its margin to 37-20 in the opening minutes of the second half.
The Cavaliers still led by 11 points with eight minutes to play but the Wolfpack were on an 11-2 run.
Hall got the ball on the right baseline, drove hard and laid it in.
Thirty seconds later, after a turnover, Hall scored on another drive, was fouled and converted the threepoint play, allowing the Cavaliers to feel a little better with a 52-36 advantage.
“I’ve been here for five years and so that’s the time where a leader steps up,” Hall said.