Anthony Gill and London Perrantes each scored 16 points for Virginia.
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The Cavaliers (15-4, 4-3 ACC) left John Paul Jones Arena with a 73-65 win, stringing together its first win streak in ACC play this season.
Coach Tony Bennett said after the game.
But Brogdon, Gill and Perrantes have been the constants. Richardson added another trey on the next trip, this one from the right wing, to tie the game at 25 a side with just over five minutes on the clock. Virginia (14-4, 3-3) is also 11-1 when outrebounding its opponent. Brogdon also came up with a deflection that led to a turnover and a defensive rebound that led to a jumpball possession for UVA down the stretch.
“Certainly it will be very hard and I’m sure there’s no ideal schedule”, Boeheim said. Other guys were able to be aggressive.
Malcolm Brogdon paced the Cavaliers with 21 points.
Syracuse is coming off back-to-back road wins with an opportunity to win their third consecutive, something they haven’t done since 2000. Brice Johnson leads UNC averaging 16.7 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. North Carolina is averaging 86.2 points per game and they are shooting 48.8 percent from the floor while defensively they are allowing 70.7 points and their opponents are shooting 42 percent. Perrantes, who struggled at the line against Clemson on Tuesday, added a pair of important free throws in the final minute to reach 16 points. But Thompson has been slumping since conference play began and Sunday he finished 0 for 2 from the field with one assist. That helped him set a career high with 4 steals in the game; he tallied 7 assists too.
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim says, “Brogdon stepped up, he made two big three’s”. “He made two big threes. Gill is another senior and the 6’8” forward is posting 14.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per game while shooting 60 percent from the field. I thought we played much better defense in the second half. We can not play defense inside. We like having a playmaker up there whenever you can. But, I thought the difference was Brogdon made the two threes and [London] Perrantes made the three in the corner. They’ve got a couple good resume wins but what they need more than anything is wins of any kind. They last played more than eight ranked teams in a season in 2005-06. It included a spurt in the final five minutes where the visitors made 5 of 7 triples prevent a blowout at the end. Syracuse received a game-high 24 points from senior forward Michael Gbinije and 23 points from freshman forward Malachi Richardson, but had no other player scored more than eight points.
The Cavaliers, however, made five of six foul shots in the remaining time while the Orange offense finally gave out, missing all five of their shots before the final horn.
While Syracuse did find its touch from long range, it got walloped on the interior. The Orange shot just 38.9 percent from the field and were outrebounded by the Cavaliers 31-28.
Virginia finished the game with 30 points in the paint to Syracuse’s 12.
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Syracuse shot 45 percent in the first half and was led by Richardson, who poured in 11 points. “We had some inside presence and we were able to get inside the paint and [not] settle”. “We’re giving centers All-American years”.
