Huff’s career night, Hauser’s 3-point barrage catapult Cavaliers past ‘Cuse

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No. 8 Virginia 81, Syracuse 58

Syracuse traveled to Lob City — er, I mean, Charlottesville — on Monday night and found the forecast to be cloudy with a heavy chance of 3-point rain.

Jay Huff scored a career-high 21 points and recorded his second double-double of the season, Sam Hauser tied his single-game career high with seven 3-pointers, and No. 8 Virginia scorched the Orange’s ACC-leading 3-point defense with 14 triples as the Wahoos built a double-digit margin and then mostly cruised to their seventh straight win, and 15th consecutive W in conference play.

Syracuse (9-5, 3-4 ACC) made the first two buckets of the game, but then Hauser made his first 3, and the Cavaliers (11-2, 7-0) mostly controlled the action from that point forward. Kihei Clark was a menace in the middle of the Orange’s vaunted 2-3 zone, finding Huff for two alley-oops early and Trey Murphy for another highlight-reel slam along the baseline.

“It’s hard to stop Kihei when he gets going down the lane,” Huff said. “And if you stop him, then he’s really good at making that pass. So it’s a lot of fun when we can get a game going like that.”

In the second part of the first half, Hauser got hot. At the 7:37 mark, he made his second trey. With 48 seconds left, he hit his fifth. Murphy had a pair in the first 20 minutes, too, and Virginia led 35-26 at the break.

Before tip-off, Hauser’s back actually gave him issues, but it didn’t end up bothering him.

“It was weird, just in warmups it started spasming,” said Hauser, pictured shooting over Buddy Boeheim. “I don’t know why. I just said I was going to go out there and see how it felt. It felt good enough to play, so I figured I’d just play and obviously, I shot the ball pretty well so it wasn’t the worst thing.”

For the most part, it was more of the same in the second half. In the first 90 seconds, Hauser knocked down another 3, and Huff had one as well as Virginia built the margin to 41-26. Huff faked a pass to his left at the top of the 3-point line and let it fly. It reminded me of Ty Jerome’s cold-blooded fake and deep 3 against Duke in 2018, a play which just celebrated its third anniversary.

Huff, who had scored 18 points three times, set his career high on a dunk with 6:56 remaining. But he joked that late in the game, he was not going to let Francisco Caffaro come in for him until he scored 20. But with 1:43 left, Huff hit two free throws for his 20th and 21st points.

The Orange were able to fight back a bit, but they were never able to cut the lead back into single digits. Around the 10-minute mark, Syracuse applied its full-court press, causing the Cavaliers to commit some sloppy turnovers and causing unwanted images of that game to appear in Wahoo fans’ minds. UVa finished with 13 turnovers, its most since it had 15 against Gonzaga. The Orange tallied 12.

“Syracuse, as we experienced firsthand in a real hard way [in the 2016 Elite Eight], is so good in their zone at anticipating when they move it down the floor and press, they can kind of bluff, you think they’re trapped and they cover stuff, they’re long and they put pressure,” coach Tony Bennett said. “I didn’t think we got to spots quite quick enough, but then we picked it up.”

Ultimately, the Cavaliers’ offense was just too much for the Orange to overcome. Virginia scored 46 points in the second half, and the lead ballooned in the final five minutes from 65-54 to 81-58, a 16-4 run to close the contest.

Syracuse entered the game allowing ACC opponents to make only 25% of their 3s, but Virginia went 14 of 31 (45.2%). It wasn’t exactly the otherworldly 18-for-25 effort from two seasons ago, but still pretty dang good.

UVa is now sitting at 39.6% on the season. NCAA.com hasn’t updated its database yet, but that figure is in the top 20 nationally.

“I knew it’d be a little bit like a couple of years ago,” Bennett said of the Wahoos’ ability to shoot from beyond the arc. “We’re going to get our shooting a lot from Jay, Sam, and we didn’t know Trey was going to be eligible and thought he was going to redshirt. Then when [when he became eligible], I’m like, ‘OK, our 3-4-5 positions are where we can stretch the floor.’ So that’s a little different, we got playmaking, and not that Kihei won’t take 3s and knock them down or other guys, but I thought we’d be able to stretch the floor with those guys and wanted them to shoot.”

In addition to Hauser’s 7-for-13 performance, Murphy made 4 of 10, Huff and Reece Beekman sank their lone attempts, and Casey Morsell went 1 for 3. Like my Hoos Place colleague St. Lou Hoo cautioned in his preview, Virginia did not just shoot over the zone. It got quality looks with great ball movement and by disrupting the middle of the zone. Clark, Hauser, and Huff all spent time at the top of the key.

“Obviously I can’t complain, and I thought when you make shots that helps, but I liked our movement, how we shared the ball, took a lot of 3s, and made a lot [of 3s],” Bennett said. “We got a variation of some high-low pass seams, some back cuts, some decent dribble penetration so I think, I don’t have a stat sheet in front of me, but I think it was a 22-assist night.” Actually, Bennett was one off. Virginia recorded a season-high 23 assists.

There have been games when Hauser did not shoot well from deep, and UVa still made 50%. On Monday, everyone other than Hauser was pretty good, but not on fire, going 7 for 18 (38.9%). Can you imagine a game with Hauser and everyone else banging shots from long distance? My goodness.

Hauser tied Huff for the team lead with 21 points and also grabbed seven rebounds, one steal, and one block. Huff recorded 12 boards while adding two assists, two blocks, and a steal. He went 8 for 11 from the field, which is easy to do when you jam home six dunks.

Murphy posted 16 points on 6-of-14 shooting and added seven rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and a steal.

Beekman was the Cavaliers’ final double-digit scorer with 10 points on 2-for-3 shooting and a great 5-for-6 showing at the free throw line. He added five assists and two steals, and committed just two turnovers. The true freshman again showed excellent burst to the rim, when Clark knocked the ball away from a Syracuse player and it ended up in Beekman’s hands more than a half court away from the basket. Despite the distance, he drove all the way in against two defenders and laid the ball in with his left hand.

Clark, after hitting the winning shot Saturday versus Georgia Tech for his only points of that contest, actually scored Virginia’s first 2 points Monday, but finished with just 4. However, he dazzled with his passing, slicing and dicing the Syracuse zone up for nine assists while recording only two turnovers. He also notched four boards and two steals.

Morsell had an efficient 7 points in seven minutes — including a nice flush off of a fast-break pass from Clark, which followed a Huff block and Hauser poke — and also tallied two boards. And don’t look now, but his one made triple with about a minute left means he’s had at least one in each of the past five games. He’s shooting 34.8% from deep.

Caffaro grabbed a tough offensive board and made the putback plus a foul, but missed the free throw. Tomas Woldetensae played nine minutes but did not score, missing one 3. He did have two assists, but he also had two bad turnovers with about nine minutes left, and Bennett yanked him until the final minutes.

Kody Stattmann and Kadin Shedrick remained sidelined, but both were on the bench. Stattmann indicated on Instagram recently that he would be back soon, though no definitive word has been given. Stattmann has not played since Dec. 1, and Shedrick last played Jan. 6.

Overall, Virginia shot 49.2% from the floor, while Syracuse was at 37.3%. The Orange made only 5 of 24 from beyond the arc. Quincy Guerrier led the team with 15 points, but he went 6 of 16 from the field, and Alan Griffin scored 13, but he, too, was subpar shooting the ball at 4 for 11.

During Virginia’s seven-game winning streak, it is giving up just 57.9 points per game. Bennett said the team’s better defense recently has been spurred by guarding the ball more closely.

“I think we’re guarding the ball better. I think Reece Beekman has done a really good job. He’s really guarded some terrific offensive players,” Bennett said. “We say shooting can cover over a lot of mistakes; well, on-ball defense [and] shot-blockers can erase a lot of stuff [too], which Jay has done at times of course.

“When Reece is right, and Kihei, then Trey’s getting better, Casey Morsell last game,” Bennett continued. “When those guys are sliding well and making it hard to get into the lane, boy that helps. I thought Jay did a good job last game and again today. Sam is a position-smart, tough defender, so I think that [his] improvement … and comfort with the system has helped our defense not yield as many easy shots.”

Neither squad made a free throw in the first half, with one miss each. UVa usually plays a clean game, though it has fouled a little more often this year than in seasons past. And Syracuse didn’t seem interested in defending anyone closely. Finally, with 12:21 remaining, Beekman split a pair at the stripe, but both teams ended up converting at quality rates, with the Cavaliers going 9 for 11 and Syracuse hitting 9 of 10.

Virginia crushed Syracuse on the glass, outrebounding the Orange 41-24.

Next up for the Cavaliers is a trip down interstates 64 and 81 to Blacksburg to face No. 20 Virginia Tech on Saturday. Tech lost to Syracuse by 18 last weekend, but rebounded to defeat Notre Dame by 11 on Wednesday on the road.

Note: UVa basketball gave us a nice treat Thursday on Twitter, throwing it back to one of the program’s biggest wins, which also came against the Orange.

Last Saturday's game: Almost a week ago, Virginia defeated Georgia Tech, 64-62. The Cavaliers overcame the hot-shooting Yellow Jackets (9 of 15 from beyond the arc) and an 11-point second-half deficit for their sixth straight victory. Hauser went 4 for 5 from downtown and scored 22 points, and Clark hit the winning shot -- the only points he scored -- with 1:09 remaining on a little jumper in the lane.

Perhaps you are wondering where my recap of that game is.

I found out last Friday I was getting laid off from my job as a content manager at Transport Topics/TTNews.com. I started at the publication in April 2019. But it's OK, I'll bounce back. Many good people, some from TT, are helping me out as I look to make my next career move.

But with the news still pretty fresh, I wanted to take off from writing about the team last Saturday and just enjoy the game. And that's what I did. Check out Seattle Hoo's recap over at Hoos Place.

Photo credit: Andrew Shurtleff/The Daily Progress

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