Virginia Basketball: Cavs take down Cardinals on the road

An exciting match-up between two of the ACC’s premier teams took place on Wednesday night, with Virginia basketball taking down Louisville.

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The Virginia Cavaliers pulled off a road victory, 61-53, over the Louisville Cardinals on Wednesday evening at the KFC Yum! Center. It was both teams’ first ACC game of the 2016-17 season.

London Perrantes finished with nine points and seven assists for the Cavaliers, while Devon Hall chipped in 10 points to lead all scorers. Louisville was led by Deng Adel, Quentin Snider and Tony Hicks, who each finished with eight. The three combined to hit just 9-of-19 attempts from the floor though.

Virginia jumped out to a 12-2 lead in the opening minutes and would retain the lead with margin of 8-10 points throughout the majority of the half. Three Louisville turnovers within two minutes of halftime would allow the Cavaliers to extend their lead to 36-21 before the half.

Without recording a single block, Virginia’s stingy defense held the Cardinals to their lowest point total on the season. The effort is a true testament to the system head coach Tony Bennett has implemented on that side of the court.

The Cavaliers won’t dominate other teams physically, but their awareness and ability to play together on defense gives them a unique edge in the offensively-focused ACC. If they can hold top-10 teams to just over 50 points on the road consistently, they’ll have a tremendous chance to win the conference tournament and play deep into the NCAA Tournament in March.

With 11 minutes left in the game, Virginia had their largest lead of the game at 21 when Marial Shayok drained a 2-point jumper. Hicks would provide a late-game spark for the Cards however, and the lead was cut to just eight with a minute left. Virginia remained solid enough defensively though, and hit their free throws to put the game away without any drama.

The loss is huge for Louisville, who after taking down Kentucky, was considered one of the best teams in the nation. Their conference schedule won’t get much easier, as they will face Indiana, Notre Dame and Duke in the next two weeks. Should Louisville struggle to play their best basketball in those games, they could find themselves in an early hole compared to the rest of the ACC.

UVA will take on Florida State, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest and Clemson in their next ACC match-ups. They’ll be favored in likely all of those games.