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14 CAVALIER CORNER After beating Monmouth at home by 20, the Hoos made their first trip to the Barclays Cen- ter in Brooklyn, N.Y., first beating Vanderbilt 68-42 and then getting by Rhode Island 70-55 the next day to win the NIT Season Tip-Off. From there, a 49-37 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and a 75-54 victory over Lehigh took UVA to Morgantown in De- cember. The seven-point loss to the Mountain- eers was fueled by a pair of 20-point scoring nights from Jevon Carter and Lamont West, while WVU hit 10 three-pointers and beat UVA 17-12 in points off turnovers. The Wahoos sure did respond, though. They rolled into ACC play three weeks later on a three-game winning streak. The first game of conference play was a tough one, and it took all Virginia could muster on both ends to get by Jerome Robinson and the Eagles of Boston College. The 59-58 home win, the team's last game on the 2017 calendar, came thanks to a career-high 31 points from Jerome. That one-point margin of victory was as close as anyone got to UVA for a while. The Cavaliers went to Blacksburg four nights later and blew out the Hokies 78-52 before returning home three days later to beat then- No. 12 North Carolina by 12. Early in ACC play was about the time when redshirt first-year De'Andre Hunter appeared to be catching on. After playing limited minutes earlier in the year, he had really only made a meaningful contribu- tion with his 23-point effort in the win over Monmouth. He played just six minutes and didn't score against BC before breaking out against the Hokies and Heels. Hunter scored in double figures in both games and wouldn't play less than 17 minutes in any contest the rest of the way. The play of the 6-7 rookie inside and out was a big reason why UVA went from being one of the nation's better teams to its best. And the wins kept piling up. After beating Carolina, the Hoos held on to get by Syracuse at home behind a 22-point night from Guy. They then handled upstart North Carolina State five days later, while Hall went for a career-high 25 points and Guy added 17. Two road games thereafter, a 64-48 win at Georgia Tech and a 59-49 win at Wake For- est, kept the train moving. By this point in the year, a Virginia team that had started the year outside the Associated Press top 25 was now up to No. 2. Returning home to host then- No. 18 Clemson seemed like a potential loss, but the Cavaliers were having none of that. They played historic levels of defense against the Tigers, holding them to just 13 points from the 6:23 mark of the first half on in a 61- 36 beatdown of the eventual Sweet 16 club. That win set up easily the season's biggest game, a No. 2 versus No. 4 showdown against Duke in Durham, N.C. While first-year phe- nom Marvin Bagley went for 30 points (on the way to ACC Player of the Year honors), UVA would limit pretty much everyone else to well below their averages. Meanwhile, the Wahoos put four in double figures that after- noon in Cameron Indoor, led by Guy's 17 and a key three-pointer from Jerome late to take home a 65-63 victory that had plenty around the country wondering aloud if the Cavaliers should be ranked atop the AP poll. That opportunity wouldn't come for sev- eral weeks, but in the meantime UVA faced some adversity. Flu-like symptoms spread throughout the team, and Johnson began a three-game suspension. First-year guard Marco Anthony came off the bench in his place to score 10 key points in a 74-64 win at home over Louisville. Hall then played 33 minutes with double pneumonia in a 59-44 win at Syracuse four days later to help the Hoos keep their win- ning streak alive. The road swing continued four days later in Tallahassee, Fla., where UVA faced its largest deficit to that point in the season but came back in the second half to beat Florida State 59-55 behind 17 from Hall and 15 from Jerome. And that's where things were going into the Feb. 10 showdown with Virginia Tech. With ESPN's College GameDay in town and with a path to No. 1 readily apparent, a win over the Hokies would seal the deal for UVA. But the Hoos struggled from the floor, going 11 of 38 from three-point territory and losing 61-60 in overtime in a game they had several opportunities to win. The next day, though, the NCAA Tour- nament selection committee announced its early projected top seeds and had UVA No. 1 overall, which likely played a role in the Cavaliers ascending to No. 1 in the AP poll the following morning. In doing so, the Wahoos became only the fourth team since 1990 to earn a No. 1 ranking after being unranked in the preseason (Kansas, 1990; Syracuse, 2010; and Baylor, 2017). On the court, Virginia bounced back from the Tech loss with a 59-50 win at Miami that was fueled largely by Hunter's ACC-high 22 points off the bench. He was 8 of 16 from the field in 30 minutes of action, making plays down low and on the wing (including a trio of threes) in the win. Victories over Georgia Tech (65-54) and Pittsburgh (66-37) set Virginia up for easily its toughest game before the ACC Tourna- ment started the following week. At Lou- isville March 1, the Cavaliers struggled to make shots and got down big, only to fight back and tie the game late. But a turnover Redshirt third-year center and team captain Jack Salt started all 34 games this year for the Cavaliers, and averaged 3.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per contest. PHOTO BY MATT RILEY/COURTESY UVA