CHARLOTTESVILLE - Ahead of arguably the toughest stretch of its season next week, No. 16 UVa was in something akin to a must-win situation on Saturday afternoon against Georgia Tech.
And despite missing 10-straight attempts from 3-point range to end the first half, the Cavaliers got a career-high 19 points from Marial Shayok and held Ben Lammers to 3-for-12 shooting from the field in a 62-49 victory at John Paul Jones Arena.
With the win, Virginia (15-3, 5-2 ACC) was able to keep pace ahead of Tuesday night's matchup in South Bend against Top-15 ranked Notre Dame before Sunday afternoon's tilt at No. 1-ranked Villanova.
In order to get there, of course, UVa had to deal with a scrappy Yellow Jackets team who even at 11-8 (3-4) has already had more success in league play than most everyone expected.
While the Wahoos have been winning with offense of late, it was their defense that carried the day against GT. Holding Lammers to a season-low seven points and also limiting leading scorer Josh Okogie (who finished with a team-high 14 points) without a field goal for the final 24:28 of the game was huge.
That Jack Salt was able to play a career-high 35 minutes, scoring five points and pulling in a team-high six rebounds, was crucial as to why Virginia won despite shooting 5-for-22 (22.7 percent) from long range, its worst showing in league play this year.
It helped that the Hoos led wire to wire, jumping out to a 6-2 lead and forcing first-year head coach Josh Pastner to call a timeout with 14:15 left and his team down 16-8. He didn't have the luxury of waiting for the under-16 media timeout considering UVa was shooting 75 percent from the field at that point.
The Jackets went with a variety of defensive looks, including a box-and-1 on London Perrantes for much of the first half. Of course, by that point he had hit a pair of 3-pointers (he finished with 11 points and a team-high six boards).
But when he made the second of those with 13:10 left, it seemed like UVa would coast on after going up 22-10. But an 8-2 Tech run, coupled with Virginia's woeful shooting from deep, kept things interesting.
At the under-8, UVa led just seven with 7:07 left to play in the half and a bucket inside by Kyle Guy just previously ended a tough stretch for the Hoos where they made just two attempts out of nine from the floor over about seven minutes of action. In the meantime, the Jackets made a trio of 3s, hit on six of nine attempts, and Okogie scored eight points.
But Georgia Tech didn't score for the final 4:28 of the half and UVa went on a 6-0 run, taking a 35-28 advantage into the half.
Shayok's scoring in the second half started quickly. He hit on 3-pointer with 19:16 left (UVa's first make in 11 attempts from distance) and then made a pair of free throws and later a jumper. He'd go on to score the first nine points of the half for the Cavaliers while the defense limited GT to just a single field goal and a free throw during that stretch.
Things got somewhat interesting with about seven minutes left as the Jackets went on a 6-0 run, capped by Lammers' and-1 with 6:43 to play. Having cut it to 54-45 and with possession following a jump ball, Georgia Tech turned it over, Shayok buried a mid-range J, the Jackets called a 30-second timeout with 5:48 left only to miss a 3-pointer that Devon Hall rebounded while picking up the foul call on Stephens. After he made one of two, Tech turned it over again and by the time Salt put one back inside, the lead was 59-47 with 3:16 left.
In fact, the Jackets didn't make a shot from the field for the final 3:45 as UVa cruised to the win, its fourth in a row. Also noteworthy for the Cavaliers was that Shayok scored in double figures for the fifth time in six games. Hall also added 10 points (his seventh double-figure scoring game in eight games) while pulling in four rebounds and dishing out a team-high four assists.
