Virginia Cavaliers hold off NC State Wolfpack for 64-57 ACC road victory
N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts kept his players in the locker room Wednesday night long after the Wolfpack’s 64-57 loss to No. 14 Virginia at PNC Arena.
Keatts presumably said many of the same things to his team he would repeat on his media call.
“I’m proud of these guys for their fight,” Keatts said.
Keatts used stronger language in a postgame radio interview but the message was the same: the fight, the willingness to compete, the want-to-win mentality was there. The Wolfpack players gave him that for 40 minutes against a well-coached, highly disciplined team that knows how to win and leads the ACC with an 8-1 record.
“You’ve got the No. 1 team in the conference and No. 14 in the country who is in your building and I thought we did some good stuff,” Keatts said.
Jericole Hellems did good stuff. The junior, who is willing to try and carry the offensive load with senior Devon Daniels out for the season with a knee injury, followed up a career-high 24-point game at Syracuse with 23 points against the Cavaliers.
“It don’t surprise me at all,” senior guard Braxton Beverly said. “I’ve seen Cole work his butt off since he’s been here. He’s getting what he’s earned. I couldn’t be more proud of him for what he’s doing, the way he’s stepping up. He’s been a huge lift for us.”
But Hellems was the only double-figure scorer for the Pack (7-7, 3-6 ACC) this night. There was little help elsewhere, especially at the guard position as Dereon Seabron, who started, Cam Hayes and Shakeel Moore struggled, making freshman mistakes.
Then there was D.J. Funderburk. The senior did not play in the 76-73 loss at Syracuse because of “university policies” but was back in the lineup Wednesday.
Funderburk had an awful first half, missing shots and defensive assignments. But he was more assertive and effective in the second half on both ends of the court, and his steal and fast-break dunk gave the Pack a 44-43 lead with 6:53 remaining in regulation.
And then he was gone. Keatts pulled Funderburk, who had scored nine second-half points, with 6:37 left and did not reinsert the 6-10 forward until there were 28 seconds remaining as Manny Bates played.
Why Funderburk on the bench for so long?
“They hired me, I’m the coach,” Keatts said. “I felt like Manny was going to be the guy who was going to play. Obviously we wanted Manny in there. Obviously D.J. had scored but I also wanted a guy that could be able to stop them from scoring, get stops and get the ball back.
“I don’t feel like I answer questions where so-and-so plays or not. Manny Bates has been playing tremendous for us. That was my decision and my decision only.”
Cavaliers make winning plays
The Cavaliers had a 52-48 lead with five minutes to play when the Pack showed some late-game nerves and its inexperience, with turnovers -- Moore and Hayes each had turnovers at that point -- and bad shots costly. A 3-point play by Virginia’s Jay Huff -- Keatts thought the big man walked on the play -- and then an easy backdoor dunk by Trey Murphy III hurt the Pack’s hopes as Hellems lost his man on defense.
While Beverly said the Pack at times pulled the Cavaliers out of their comfort zone and forced a team that makes few turnovers into turnovers, the Cavs made the winning plays at the end. Missed some open shots but made some big ones. Deadly at the foul line this season, Virginia also hit 20 of 22 free throws while the Pack was 7 of 12.
“We hung tough and came away with a good road victory,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said on his postgame media call.
Murphy and Sam Hauser, two transfers into the Virginia program, each had 18 points for the Cavaliers (12-3 overall), who were coming off a listless 65-51 loss to Virginia Tech.
“We played a really good game, played a hard-fought game” Beverly said. “There’s just a couple of mistakes we’ve got to fix and it’s something that’s fixable. The good news is we can learn from this and fix what we need to fix to get us over that hump.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 7:59 PM.
