Well before most of the fans had filed into John Paul Jones Arena on Saturday, with roughly an hour and a half left before the tip, Jay Huff was the lone player on the floor getting shots up.

I can’t tell you whether this is common or not. See, I typically don’t get out to the floor that early. But I can tell you that it’s the first time I can remember seeing it.

And what stood out wasn’t just that he was out there shooting but it was the depth from which he was taking some of the shots. He was maybe two or three dribbles past half court. So, to call some of these 3s “deep” is an understatement. And he was making way more than he missed.

And yet, it was the damage he would do in and around the rim—on both ends of the court—that proved to be the difference not only for the Durham native but for his team in a 52-50 upset of No. 7-ranked Duke.

“He got 10 blocks,” a bewildered Mamadi Diakite could be heard saying to Kihei Clark as they took their seats in the postgame media availability. “That’s crazy.”

Yes. Yes it was.

The redshirt junior had arguably the biggest game of his life against his hometown Blue Devils, scoring 15 points, blocking 10 shots, and pulling in nine rebounds to lead the Wahoos to a victory that put them a game back of first place in the league standings.

In mid-January, when UVa was coming off four losses in five games, this would have been inconceivable. At that point, the Cavaliers looked like they’d be hosting NIT games.

And now, they’re among college basketball’s hottest teams having won nine of their last 10.

With two games remaining (at Miami on Wednesday and at home against Louisville on Saturday afternoon), Virginia isn’t just padding its NCAA Tournament resume any longer.

The Hoos seem to be proving doubters—and that includes a number of their own fans—wrong.

“We were ecstatic,” Braxton Key said of the team’s mindset after its sixth-straight win. “We knew what this game meant….We have to control what we can control, and that’s just playing who we play.”

Diakite, who Tony Bennett said was “terrific” in the way he responded on both ends of the floor, went a step beyond that.

“Losing taught us a lot of things,” the senior forward explained. “It’s not necessarily bad. Now, look at us? We’re at this point, where we can finish first, second, or third. A month ago, we were supposed to be in relegation or not making it. I don’t know. That’s what people were saying, I heard. It’s whatever. We didn’t care about that. We just put our head down and focused on what we could control.”

It was one of the tightest games in this series, with UVa leading by as many as six and Duke by as many as seven in on a night when the advantage would change 14 times. Both teams had 8-0 runs. Both teams battled foul trouble. But UVa managed to shoot better from the floor (42 to 30.5 percent) and from deep (42 to 23.5) while overcoming 15 turnovers by only allowing the Blue Devils to score three points off them.

“We’ve been in those spots a lot,” Bennett said. “You have to make plays defensively as much as offensively and they were both made…We’ve been in so many close games. But I do think we’ve been getting a little more balanced scoring. Tomas (Woldetensae) hasn’t the last couple of games, but his ability to make some shots stretches the floor and provides some alternate scoring. [We still need to] tighten up a little bit defensively.

“We still have room to grow,” he added. “Just a little better in all areas. Guys are making big plays…down the stretch and that’s what it comes down to.”

The Cavaliers benefited, Bennett explained, from the fact that Diakite’s defense on Vernon Carey, a likely Top 10 pick in the next NBA Draft, allowed UVa to avoid the post-double. In turn, that meant less scrambling and a defense that was stingier.

“Mamadi guarded him one-on-one at times,” Bennett said. “He had that look in his eyes. When Mamadi is guarding like that and Jay is protecting the rim, that’s a formidable two-man back line. So, really good.”

Earlier in league play, UVa couldn’t make plays down the stretch even with leads. Now, the Hoos aren’t just making those plays and grabbing leads. They’re making them in a variety of ways and they’re being made by a variety of players.

Even in this game, with the way Duke pressured the ball and managed to force it out of Clark’s hand, the Hoos still found a way to respond.

“That was not a strategy,” Bennett interrupted as a reporter asked about taking the ball out of Clark’s hands. “That was Duke’s strategy. And they executed it very well.

“It rattled us a little bit,” he added. “And then we got a little better. We got into stuff and just tried to have Kihei kind of set a ball screen to relieve some pressure. They did a good job. That was smart on their part…It put pressure on us.”

Diakite and Key each finished with 14 points while Clark added seven as well as five assists, several of which came on dunks by Huff.

The 7-footer was seemingly all over the place, though he missed his lone attempt from long range. Otherwise, he was attacking the rim on one end and protecting it on the other, like what amounted to the game-winning play, sprinting down the lane to block Carey’s shot with 3.7 seconds left.

“I think Jay got a couple terrific dunks and plays that he made,” Bennett said. “The crowd was just so excited in here. You needed it all. He was certainly fired up and we’ve got to keep stepping in the right direction with that. His length is for real. It was a complete game for Jay.”

As the question has been for some time for this team, it remains the same: What next?

All the Hoos can do, of course, is play their last two games and see where things land. A regular-season crown or a share of one seems far fetched but then again, so did some of Huff’s pre-game shots, his in-game dunks, and the last month or so for UVa.

“Every game is so important for us,” Bennett said.

“Now,” Diakite said simply. “We’re here.”

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