Landers Nolley drives to the hole Wednesday evening against UVA in a critical ACC matchup. Nolley led a second-half Virginia Tech rally, but the Hokies couldn’t hold a late lead and lost 56-53 in the Commonwealth Clash. Nolley led Virginia Techwith 13 points..
Virginia guard Kihei Clark hit a 3-pointer with 3 seconds left to lift Virginia to a 56-53 victory over Virginia Tech in a Commonwealth Clash Wednesday night at Carilion Clinic Court.
With the loss, the Hokies fell to 15-13 overall, 6-11 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Cavaliers won their fifth straight game and moved to 20-7, 12-5 in league play.
The Hokies suffered an awful shooting first half, making just 5 of 24 shots and trailing by 15 at halftime, but they rallied in the second half, thanks largely to some timely 3-point shooting. Tech took its first lead of the game at 47-46 with 4:51 remaining when Hunter Cattoor buried a three.
The game came down to the final few possessions, and coming out of a timeout, Tech’s Tyrece Radford made a layup with 11.3 seconds left to tie the game at 53. The Cavaliers’ Clark kept the ball for several seconds before hitting his game-winning trey from the left wing with 3 seconds remaining.
The Hokies called a timeout and got the ball to Nolley, but his desperate halfcourt heave was off the mark, enabling the Cavaliers to come away with the win.
Nolley paced the Hokies with 13 points. Tech shot just 20.8% in the first half, but made 51.9% in the second half, including 8 of 14 from beyond the 3-point arc.
Mamadi Diakite led the Cavaliers with 19 points, hitting 8 of 12 from the floor. Clark finished with 10 points and six assists, and Braxton Key had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Photo cutline 1
Landers Nolley drives to the hole Wednesday evening against UVA in a critical ACC matchup. Nolley led a second-half Virginia Tech rally, but the Hokies couldn’t hold a late lead and lost 56-53 in the Commonwealth Clash. Nolley led Virginia Techwith 13 points..
Each year, Virginia Tech and Virginia engage in a year-long Commonwealth Clash, sponsored by Virginia529, the official college savings plan of both universities. This is a points-based competition that factors in the 22 varsity sports in which the two schools compete in annually. Virginia’s victory Wednesday night secured a half point in the Clash, and the Cavaliers lead the overall competition by a score of 6.5-3.5.
After the game, VT head coach Mike Young spoke of the difference in his team’s shooting between the first and the second half. “We were doing the exact same things in the second half that we were doing in the first half,” he said. “There were a couple of actions that we thought we could pick on and get some things freed up. I thought we screened a lot better in the second half. We did do that. That certainly helped our play. Jalen (Cone) got behind a couple and banged them.
“(Virginia’s Diakite is such a terrific defender,” Young said. “He did exactly what they wanted him to do. But P.J (Horne) found the range and looked like P.J. again, and that was a welcome sight. So no, there was nothing that we saw during the later stages of the first half that we turned our attention to. We did exactly the same things in the second half that we did in the first. We simply made shots.”
Asked about how his young guys are handling the pressure of this stretch of tough game, Young replied, “I don’t know. We’ve got Louisville next. I’m not getting into all that. We’ve got to find a way to win. We don’t get into feelings around here. We just played a good hard basketball game against a very good opponent, and we lost. We’ll take tomorrow off out of necessity, and we’ll load it up and we’ll find a way to go to Louisville and play a really good ballgame and give ourselves a chance to win.”
Asked about changing up his starting lineup against Virginia, Young said, “”I thought John [Ojiako] had been playing well, and I’m trying to get him 21, 22, 23 minutes because I just feel that good about his direction as a player, and I thought Isaiah Wilkins helped the team. He stuck it up in there and played a good basketball game against Duke. Nothing more than that. I’ve always been more concerned with who finishes than I am with who starts. Typically, the players who finish are those who are helping us win, and I thought the lineup we went with late in the second half did just that.”
In notes from the game:
• Nolley did not start for the second time this season but scored in double figures for the 24th time in 28 games.
• P.J. Horne hit three 3-pointers, and he has hit at least three 3’s in five games this season.
• John Ojiako earned his first start of his career, and Isaiah Wilkins started for just the fifth time in his career (fourth this season).
–VT Athletics
