Virginia prevails
De’Andre Hunter (above) and Kyle Guy each scored 20 points to lead No. 4 Virginia over No. 8 North Carolina 69-61 on Monday.
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NO. 4 VIRGINIA 69, NO. 8 NORTH CAROLINA 61
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Virginia’s halftime lead was gone. North Carolina was pushing further ahead. And the Cavaliers were committing so many turnovers that Coach Tony Bennett’s frustration bubbled over in the huddle.
Yet Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome and the rest of the fourthranked Cavaliers handled everything — dwindling clock, angry coach, powerful opponent and hostile crowd — with veteran poise.
Guy’s back-to-back three-pointers in the final two minutes helped the Cavaliers beat the eighth-ranked Tar Heels 69-61 on Monday night, and Virginia remained near the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings after a weekend loss to No. 2 Duke.
Guy and De’Andre Hunter each scored 20 points for the Cavaliers (21-2, 9-2), who had less than 48 hours to regroup from the loss to the Blue Devils before visiting a UNC team that hadn’t lost in nearly a month.
“Our guys knew what they had to do,” Bennett said. “They responded. It wasn’t perfect. I told them, ‘This isn’t about winning or losing.’ I said, ‘This is an important game to get back to what we need to do.’”
The Cavs certainly looked like themselves: efficient on both ends of the floor. The offense hummed along by shooting 53 percent, including 11 of 20 on three-pointers, and Virginia didn’t turn it over in the final 12 minutes.
The defense, aside from surrendering one fearsome second-half flurry, made the Tar Heels (19-5, 9-2) work for just about everything while keeping them out of transition. After allowing Duke to shoot 58 percent and make 13 of 21 three-pointers Saturday, Virginia held UNC to 35-percent shooting and just 9 of 30 (30 percent) from three-point range.
It all helped Virginia rally from seven down in the final eight minutes and avoid its first losing streak of any kind in two years.
“There’s no excuses,” said Jerome, who had 15 points and 11 assists. “I told the team before the game, ‘I don’t care if we played Duke Saturday, I don’t care if we’re on the road today.’ Every game we come out and we expect to win, no matter where we are and who we’re playing against.”
Coby White scored 17 points to lead the Tar Heels, who were off to their best start in league play under 16th-year Coach Roy Williams. North Carolina managed a 17-3 second-half run to turn an eightpoint deficit into a 49-43 lead, which ultimately reached 5346 near the nine-minute mark.
But UNC, which has one of the nation’s best offenses, missed 16 of 20 shots to close the game as Virginia’s defense tightened.
NO. 14 KANSAS 82, TCU 77 OT
FORT WORTH — Devon Dotson scored 25 points, including six free throws in the final 40 seconds of overtime, and No. 14 Kansas beat TCU on Monday night for its second win in a row while starting four freshmen.
After blowing a 12-point lead in the second half, the Jayhawks (19-6, 8-4 Big 12) never trailed in overtime. They broke the final tie on K.J. Lawson’s jumper with 1:09 left before Dotson sealed it at the free-throw line.
Dotson also had 10 rebounds for one of the three double-doubles for Kansas. Ochai Agbaji had 20 points and 11 rebounds, while Dedric Lawson, a junior and the only non-freshman starter, had 14 points and 10 rebounds.
TCU (17-7, 5-6), trying to win consecutive games against Top 25 teams for the first time in school history, had a 13-0 run late in regulation and took a 69-65 lead on JD Miller’s two free throws with 2:07 left. The Frogs didn’t score again until overtime.