Hokies Run out of Gas in Final Minutes, Fail to Complete UVA Upset

The Hokies' basketball team has had its fair share of close losses this year.

Sure, it hurts to lose at the last second to a team as bad as Radford, or as good as Syracuse, but few three-point losses will likely hurt as badly as the Hokies' 50-47 defeat at the hands of the rival UVA Cavaliers, who happen to be the second ranked team in the country.

Leading scorer Justin Bibbs wasn't even in the building as he recovers from a concussion, yet this Hokies team led the Hoos for roughly 14 minutes in the second half.

But it wasn't enough. Tony Bennett's team had more, and took over down the stretch.

"That's what really good teams do. I think that they're undefeated for a reason and I think that we're winless in conference play for a reason," said head coach Buzz Williams. "And over that last seven minutes, they did what winning teams do."

There's an undeniable temptation to call this an emotional victory, much like the team's close home loss to the Orange. Cassell Coliseum was packed and raucous for the first time in months, and just savoring the feeling of grabbing a 10 point lead against the hated Hoos would likely be enough for some people.

Don't count Williams among them. After the game, he once more refused to adopt the old cliche that there's a lesson to be learned from a painfully close loss.

"I'm not trying to be sarcastic, and I'm not trying to be arrogant at all, and I'm not trying to be Herm Edwards, but you don't play for all that. That's the truth," Williams said. "If we're supposed to be applauded for playing hard. I think you can do that over at the Blacksburg rec. So it has to be more than that."

The Hokies could've bought themselves a little more time to see if they could pull out the win. Guard Adam Smith's three-pointer at the top of the key just rolled out of the rim as time expired on a shot that would've tied the game at 50.

Both Williams and Smith agree that it was the shot they wanted, even if the result was less than optimal.

"That was supposed to be a fade, but we tried to run it when they fouled the previous possession and they were on it," Smith said. "I knew I wasn't going to be open, so I told Devin (Wilson) I was coming to get it. I did, I got a clean look, it was kind of deep, but it felt perfect, it felt like it was going in."

The Hokies could've tied just one possession earlier, but Malik Mueller's three-point try wasn't nearly as close to finding the bottom of the net. UVA's Darion Atkins got a piece of the shot after Mueller hesitated and tried to find an open crease.

What was notable about the play was that Tech's Will Johnston, the guy shooting 42 percent from deep this season, passed up a wide open triple.

Williams wasn't thrilled with that decision.

"Nobody's within 10 feet of you, and there's less than 30 seconds in the game, and the coach just subbed you in for that purpose, yes, I think you should shoot," Williams said. "But I trust him, he's a walk on that I gave a scholarship to. He's the toughest guy I may have ever coached."

Even still, the Hokies wouldn't have needed to make a last second shot had they held on to their lead a bit better.

At half, the team was only down 30-27, but undoubtedly could've played more cleanly.

The Hokies had 10 turnovers to Virginia's five, blowing several chances to seize the lead. They got close at several points, drawing within 24-23 with five minutes left to go in the half and 26-25 soon after, but never could get over the hump.

But even if it wasn't spectacular, it kept the Hokies in the game.

Then the Hokies turned into defensive monsters coming out of halftime, holding UVA's incredibly efficient offense without a single point for nearly 10 minutes.

Williams encouraged the team to change up their defensive styles frequently, tossing in both man and zone looks to confuse the Cavs.

"We switched up defenses a lot, we kind of kept them on their toes," Smith said. "We just played hard in those first nine or 10 minutes of the half."

The players think that helps them compensate for their obvious lack of size.

"We like to switch it up," said guard Devin Wilson. "We're a smaller team so we've got to be able to switch up defenses and change up what we do, so any time we can go zone it really helps on the defensive end."

Despite the final result, it certainly worked. The Hoos shot just 34.7 percent from the field for the game, and an astounding 27.3 percent in the second half. For the season, they're averaging a 48 percent mark (the 27th best figure nationwide) so it's clear that what the Hokies did is still impressive.

Tech peaked with about 10 minutes to go in the second, grabbing a 10 point lead at 43-33, thanks to some timely three-pointers and that suffocating defense.

Williams took a timeout, and the Cassell crowd bellowed its approval, but it wasn't to last.

UVA stepped on the gas, using a 10-2 run over the next seven minutes to draw within 45-43 with a little under four minutes to go.

The Hokies seemed visibly spent, failing to keep up the intensity on defense and getting sloppy on offense.

"It wasn't just shooting. It was lapses on defense, open threes for them, offensive rebounds and turnovers," Smith said. "Sometimes we didn't even get a shot to miss."

Then Justin Anderson showed why he's popping up on so many award watch lists.

Bennett called the perfect backdoor cut for Anderson, and he outleapt the entire Hokies squad to slam down a thunderous alley-oop to tie the game.

From there, the rest seemed inevitable. Anderson splashed a three on the next possession, and suddenly that hard-won Hokie lead was gone, with the Hoos now lead 48-45.

An Anthony Gill layup staked UVA to a five point lead, but a beautiful interior pass from forward Satchel Pierce to guard Ahmed Hill produced a lay-in and a chance for a free throw.

But Hill's attempt missed, leading to the need for the pair of desperate three point attempts.

"We need to play 40 minutes, there's nothing else to it. We played hard, we fought, there's no question in that," Smith said. "You could say were outmatched on paper or whatever but we played the scouting report to a tee, we've just got to win the game."

Williams understands that frustration, and even for all his appreciation of the full-throated fan support at Cassell, he sees that fans will soon be similarly unforgiving of close losses like these.

"We're really thankful for the people that came today, we really appreciate it. Hopefully we can get it so it's that way in early November and late December and that way whether it's a rivalry game or not," Williams said. "But at some point the fans are just like everybody else, they want to see their team win."

Now the team has the benefit of facing a decidedly less imposing series of matchups, with Pitt coming to Blacksburg Tuesday and a trip to Wake Forest slated for next Saturday, but Williams still could be forgiven for feeling a little hopeless.

As he freely admits, the Hokies have yet to win since the calendar's flipped to 2015, but he is clearly a man that enjoys a challenge.

"I like, in a demented way, that we have seven guys and Vegas said we weren't gonna win, and you thought we weren't going to win, and let's see if we can scrape it together and try. I like that," Williams said.