ACC Basketball: Virginia holds UNC to 43 points to avenge previous loss

By Carmine Carcieri | Feb 27, 2017

Feb 15, 2017; Charlottesville, VA, USA; Virginia Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett looks on from the bench against the Duke Blue Devils at John Paul Jones Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

Virginia locked up defensively to knock off the ACC basketball league’s top team, North Carolina.

It’s tough to beat a team twice in a matter of nine days. It’s even more difficult to do if that team is the Virginia Cavaliers.

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North Carolina found that out the hard way on Monday evening as the Tar Heels were bullied in Charlottesville, losing 53-43 to the No. 23 team in the country. Roy Williams’ unit had a shot to earn their second straight outright ACC regular-season title but were held to just 43 points (43 points!), which is the lowest total that the Tar Heels have ever scored under Williams.

UNC is one of the best offensive teams in the nation (they average 86.4 points per game) but on Monday, they turned the ball over 14 times, shot just 35 percent from the field and 25 percent from three, and had just one player (Joel Berry II — 12 points) who scored in double figures. London Perrantes is six inches shorter than Justin Jackson, however, he took the assignment upon himself to limit the junior’s air space and kept the ball out of his hands for the most part. Jackson, North Carolina’s leading scorer, finished with just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting.

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It wasn’t just Jackson, though. Virginia also flustered Kennedy Meeks, who was forcing shots before double teams came his way, and Isaiah Hicks. Berry didn’t start scoring some buckets until late in the game and Theo Pinson was a non-factor in terms of scoring.

In fact, North Carolina’s best player on Monday was Tony Bradley (eight points on 4-of-6 shooting).

Bradley is a talented freshman, but when he is the best player on the roster, they aren’t going to win many games.

While Virginia’s defense was the main reason they notched a victory, their toughness on the glass and their improved production offensively only helped their cause.

In the first meeting between the two teams in Chapel Hill, UNC out-rebounded Virginia by 18 and out-hustled them from the get-go. It was a completely different story in the second match-up. The Heels still won the battle on the glass by four but Virginia was much more physical and much more active on the interior despite starting a small ball lineup that consisted of four guards.

Offensively, Perrantes was hitting big shots (13 points and a huge three in the final four minutes) and Kyle Guy had one of the games of his young career (17 points on 6-of-11 shooting). The Wahoos hot three-point shooting carried over from their win over NC State as well as they hit 10 treys and shot 42 percent from beyond the arc.

In addition to their shooting, UVA only turned the ball over four total times and had 15 assists on 19 made field goals.

Virginia lost four games in a row and while they still have offensive issues in the big picture, these last two wins against NC State and NC State will ease Cavalier fans’ concerns. No one wants to prepare for that defense on short rest in the NCAA Tournament and no one wants to deal with Perrantes and his ability in the clutch. Virginia doesn’t have the personnel to match some of the other teams in the ACC, but they have Tony Bennett and an elite culture.

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On the flip side, North Carolina is still in first place in the ACC, however, they have little room for error if they want to earn a number one seed. Even though we will credit this loss to the fact that this was a road game in the ACC, Berry has to be more consistent and the bigs (in particular Meeks and Hicks) need to play a whole lot better than they played on Monday. The Heels have Final Four potential, but they surely didn’t show it in Charlottesville.

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