Virginia’s Win Over North Carolina Was A Historic One

The Cavaliers beat North Carolina State after that, and Perrantes vowed a new beginning for his previously struggling Virginia teammates – a bold statement, considering that up next was No. 5 North Carolina, the team that handed the Cavaliers their worst loss since 2013 just nine days before Monday night’s rematch.

Miami (20-9, 10-7), which moved into The Associated Press top-25 for the first time this season earlier in the day, led 50-48 with just under seven minutes to go.

Paris Kea led North Carolina with 19 points, Jamie Cherry added 16 and Olivia Smith 15.

“I think everyone really thought Virginia was gonna be a good team [coming into the season]”, Williams said.

Guy started for just the third time this season, along with freshman Ty Jerome.

In fact, North Carolina’s best player on Monday was Tony Bradley (eight points on 4-of-6 shooting). But against a Virginia team that limits possessions, no UNC got enough chances to carry the offensive burden. UNC cut the UVa. lead to one point midway through the second half, but a stretch of three and a half scoreless minutes soon after left the team playing catch-up until the final buzzer sounded. North Carolina is the 14th seed has a first-round game against 11th-seeded Pitt on Wednesday. They finished the night with almost as many turnovers (14) as field goals (17) while scoring only three more points total than they did in the first half of their win at Pittsburgh on Saturday. Guy made six field goals and five were 3-pointers. Guy buried three 3-pointers, including one fadeaway banked off the glass, to lead all scorers with nine at the half. “That’s something we can say: we’ve been here before, we’ve been through the grind”.

He added a steal moments later to set up Lagerald Vick’s 3-pointer, and Jackson scored before Graham hit back-to-back shots from beyond the arc.

The Tar Heels committed 14 of them, but 12 of those came in the first half, when Virginia built a 27-23 halftime lead. The 43 points scored by North Carolina were the fewest in the Roy Williams era.

The white-knuckle grip North Carolina had on one of the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 seeds no longer is as tight.

“He did a nice job”, Williams said of Perrantes.

Turnovers: The Pack-Line defense isn’t created to force turnovers, but rather bad shots, and defensive rebounds.

“The most aggressive team won tonight”.

North Carolina trailed only by one with 9:26 to play, but the Tar Heels missed 11 of their next 12 shots the rest of the way.

No, on this Monday night Jack Salt’s shot tumbled into the basket late in the second half as teammate Kyle Guy raised both arms in triumph and broke into the widest smile we’ve seen from a Cavalier in weeks. The crowd in JPJ got louder as time expired on Virginia’s 53-43 upset of North Carolina.

“It was time”, said Bennett. “That’s one of the better ones we’ve had, and they saw us lay it on the line. Some people may not like how it was because it’s low scoring, but that’s the only way we’re going to beat a team like [North] Carolina”.

Roy Williams found reason to fear this, the second of consecutive road games in three days, and one at Virginia, no less – one of the more hard places to play in the ACC. Williams, the North Carolina basketball coach, was concerned with his team’s fatigue and concerned, more, with all the challenges that come with playing against the Cavaliers. With only Saturday’s regular-season finale against Pittsburgh remaining, the Cavaliers are assured of their sixth straight winning conference record.