Cavs hope to stand alone atop ACC mountain
Mar 2, 2015 - 3:32 PM Syracuse, NY (SportsNetwork.com) - With their sights set on their second consecutive ACC regular-season title, the Virginia Cavaliers have made the trek north to tangle with the Syracuse Orange on Monday night.Virginia is a stellar 27-1 overall, marking the best start in school history, and its 15-1 league ledger has it two games up on second-place Duke with only two to play. The Cavaliers, who have already earned at least a share of the ACC crown and close out the regular season on Saturday at Louisville, played their final home game of the campaign this past Saturday, and used the opportunity to take down in-state rival Virginia Tech in a 69-57 final. UVa has won eight straight since suffering its lone defeat of the season at home to Duke on Jan. 31.
Syracuse is 18-11 on the season, and its 9-7 mark against ACC foes has it in sixth place in the standings entering the final week of play. The Orange lost at Duke over the weekend, 73-54, and they've now dropped two of their last three and three of their last five games overall. Syracuse hasn't one more than one game at a time since running off seven in a row from Dec. 22 to Jan. 13. The Orange will bring the curtain down on the regular season this Saturday at NC State.
Virginia trails in the all-time series with Syracuse by a 3-2 margin, but the Cavs knocked off the then-fourth-ranked Orange almost a year ago to the day, 75-56, to secure their first ACC regular-season title since 1980-81. UVa is 0-1 all-time in Syracuse, losing a 73-70 decision to the Orange on Nov. 28, 2008 at the Carrier Dome.
Malcolm Brogdon scored 19 points, Anthony Gill and Darion Atkins added 16 apiece, and London Perrantes returned from injury to net 11 points and hand out six assists as Virginia posted a comfortable win over Virginia Tech on Saturday. The Cavaliers knocked down 51.1 percent of their field goal attempts, which included a 6-of-13 showing from 3-point range, while at the same time limiting the Hokies to 38.3 percent shooting efficiency, despite the fact that they drained 9-of-19 long-range launches. UVa committed only six turnovers while Tech had only eight, and the Cavs used a 61.5 percent shooting effort in the final stanza to break open what had been a close game at intermission.
While it wasn't the case against Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers have held several opponents below 50 points this season, in fact five of the last seven have failed to reach the half-century mark as the cream of the ACC crop has put forth one stifling defensive effort after another. With an average yield of only 50.1 ppg, UVa leads the nation in scoring defense. Its opponents are converting only 35.2 percent of their field goal tries, 30.3 percent from beyond the arc, all while coming up well short in the rebounding battle (-8.2). From an offensive standpoint, the Cavs generate 66.1 ppg in hitting 46.3 percent of their total shots, which encompasses a 36 percent performance out on the perimeter, and they are 72.1 percent accurate at the foul line. The team is guilty of only 8.7 turnovers per outing, and is led by Brogdon (13.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg), the injured Justin Anderson (13.4 ppg, 4.3 rpg) and Anthony Gill (11.5 ppg, 6.8 rpg).
Tyler Roberson nearly logged a double-double by tallying 16 points and nine rebounds, and three others scored in double figures as well, but those efforts weren't enough as Syracuse failed to pull off the upset of the Duke Blue Devils in Durham over the weekend. The Orange scored only 54 points in the game, 52 of which were generated by the starting five, and the team shot just 30.6 percent from the floor, which included a dreadful 3-of-20 effort from 3- point range. A 42-36 deficit on the glass, along with 15 turnovers and the fact that Duke drained eight treys as part of a 48.3 percent overall shooting effort played a significant role in the disappointing outcome for Syracuse as well.
For the season, the Orange are putting up 68.7 ppg, but are connecting on only 30.6 percent of their long-range shots. The opposition hasn't done much better from distance, hitting 31.2 percent in netting 63.3 ppg. Rakeem Christmas has been the team's top performer in 2014-15, as he averages 17.8 points and 9.2 rebounds per game to rank among the conference leaders in both categories. Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije account for 13.5 and 13.0 ppg, respectively to round out the double-digit scorers for the Orange, who goad the enemy into more than 14 turnovers per outing. They are also on the plus-side of the ledger with regard to rebounding differential (+2.4).
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