Clark scores 15 points on birthday and ‘Hoos whip Cardinals in complete performance

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Virginia 64, Louisville 52

In its most dominating ACC performance of the season, Virginia showed glimpses of its old self in leading wire to wire in a home win over Louisville on Monday night.

Before I could even get the WatchESPN feed of the game up, the Cavaliers (12-8, 6-4 ACC) had bolted out to a 7-3 lead on the Cardinals (11-9, 5-5) in the first two minutes, with Kihei Clark contributing 5 of those points, including a 3-pointer.
Clark had an excellent night on his 23rd birthday, leading the team with 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, including a 3-for-7 night on triples, and he also added five rebounds and five assists. He had two turnovers, and Virginia only totaled eight. After going cold from beyond the arc over a three-game span — Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and Pittsburgh — Clark went a combined 5 for 10 against N.C. State and Louisville.

“I think he felt a nice rhythm and was going with it,” coach Tony Bennett said. “He got good looks. But he needs to be assertive, find that sweet spot where he’s distributing, taking good shots, but looking for good shots and [being] aggressive. So that never changes, and I think that that just helped us a little bit.”

Kihei Clark set the tone early with 5 points in the first two minutes versus Louisville on Monday. (Virginia Athletics)

The early part of the game was vintage Virginia, and you could be forgiven for shedding happy tears and having flashbacks to days of yesteryear when UVa would routinely jump on teams and never look back. Everything seemed to be going right. Only a couple of times have bounces seemed to go Virginia’s way this season, but they all were in the first half Monday. Armaan Franklin stole the ball then nearly lost it himself before somehow passing it to Kadin Shedrick, who made a layup plus a foul. Kody Stattmann had a 3-pointer touch every part of the rim and fall through. Almost every Louisville 3-pointer rimmed out.

“We really got after them,” Jayden Gardner said. “They really couldn’t get a really good shot off. We scrambled. We just played Virginia basketball tonight, so that was really exciting to see.”

It was 27-8 UVa with 6:25 left after two Francisco Caffaro free throws before Louisville started to show a pulse.

The Cardinals closed to within 10 in the final minute before Reece Beekman’s layup and lone 2 points of the game at the 9-second mark made it 35-23 at the break.

For the first part of the second half, the game went back and forth, but Louisville slowly but surely chipped away at the lead. Malik Williams’ jumper with 11:56 remaining made it 45-41, and the Cardinals had a chance to cut the margin even more on their next possession, but Beekman intercepted Williams’ pass under the basket. On the other end, he found Kadin Shedrick wide open for a layup. Gardner hit a jumper on the next possession, and then, after a couple of scoreless minutes, Clark banged a deep 3 with the clock winding down to push Virginia back up to an 11-point lead.

Louisville made one more run with two straight 3s to cut it to 5, but Shedrick ran a perfect pick-and-roll with Beekman, who found him for a big dunk. On the next possession, Beekman passed to Gardner at the top of the key who quickly tapped the ball up to Shedrick for an alley-oop, and the game was effectively over with about three minutes left as Virginia concluded the game on a 12-5 run.
Virginia is 8-0 after losses this season, with no back-to-back setbacks, but that will get harder to do as the schedule becomes more difficult. But on this night, Virginia responded to Bennett’s challenge after the N.C. State loss and had some fun.

“We really locked in mentally, and we came and met [Bennett’s] challenge,” Gardner said. “He wanted us to play hard and play with intensity and play Virginia basketball, and I think we did that tonight for 40 minutes.”

Gardner had 14 points on 7-for-13 shooting to go along with five rebounds and an assist.

Shedrick had another great game off the bench with 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting, six rebounds, three blocks, and one assist in 25 minutes. He’s averaging 10.3 points over the past three games.

Armaan Franklin tallied 10 points but struggled shooting everywhere, going 3 for 10 from the floor and 1 for 6 beyond the arc. He added four rebounds, two assists, and two steals. His one 3 did come at a nice time as he hit it from the baseline when Louisville had first cut the Wahoos’ advantage to 8 early in the second half.

Caffaro battled through a stiff neck, according to Bennett, and had a solid game with 9 points and seven boards. Caffaro went 2 for 3 from the field and an impressive 5 for 6 from the free throw line. According to Jeff White of VirginiaSports.com, Caffaro has averaged seven rebounds over the past five games since picking up none at North Carolina.
Beekman only had 2 points, but he had a huge influence on the game with 11 assists, the most by an ACC player in a game this season. He also posted seven rebounds, two steals, and a block. Beekman leads the ACC in steals per game (2.25) and assist-to-turnover ratio (3.67) and is second in assists per game (4.95).

“Reece is a true point guard,” Gardner said. “He’s always looking for his teammates, and when he’s able to get the shots, he takes them. … So Reece affects the game many different ways, not just scoring the basketball.”

“When you look at Reece’s stat line, wow!” Bennett said. "… He’s continuing to improve, and [he is] only a year and a half in, which is good, so he’ll just keep getting better and better.”

Stattmann had his one 3, which followed a steal when he deflected a pass to Clark and then set up on the other end for a wide-open look.

Looking at my HoosPlace.com colleague St. Lou Hoo’s keys to getting a win, Virginia received passing grades for all three:
  • Keep Louisville off the foul line: The Cardinals went just 1 for 3 at the stripe, while UVa was 11 for 14.
  • Don’t let the Cardinals beat you from deep: Louisville hit nine 3s, but it took the Cards 28 attempts to reach that number. Overall, Louisville hit just 37.5% of its shots from the field. UVa had modest success from deep, making 5 of 16.
  • Finish better in the lane: Every starter plus Shedrick shot at least 50% on 2s.
Virginia also posted what had to be one of its better rebounding advantages of the year, grabbing 37 boards compared to Louisville’s 26. Louisville only had seven turnovers, but UVa did a great job capitalizing on those opportunities with 13 points off them.

Kadin Shedrick battles for possession with Sydney Curry. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)

“There was some good Virginia basketball, I thought,” Bennett said. “Hard offense, tough defense, didn’t give up easy looks, and for the most part, we were connected.”

It was such a quality performance that UVa might have cost Louisville coach Chris Mack his job. Several reports Tuesday night said that Mack and the school would part ways Wednesday. Mack is in his fourth year with the Cards. He is 1-5 against the ‘Hoos.

This was a nice palate-cleansing win after what can thus far only be described as a disappointing season. I think this team has good stretches of basketball in it that could rival those of the past decade, but so far, those stretches have barely lasted an entire game, and even Monday, UVa was close to letting Louisville come all the way back. Sustained success is absent.

That inconsistency game to game is what has Virginia on the outside looking in right now were the NCAA tournament to start today. It’s why St. Lou Hoo said in his preview he was going to stop predicting the winner of each game. Yes, UVa is 8-0 after losses this year, but it also has only two winning streaks: one that lasted four games in late November — with the only notable victory in that span being over Providence — and a two-game streak versus Syracuse and Clemson, both of which have losing ACC records.

The Wahoos get a bit of a break now before going back out on the road Saturday and trying again to stack two ACC wins in a row when they visit Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish, who host N.C. State on Wednesday, are undefeated at home.

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