Virginia Tech snaps No. 6 Virginia's winning streak with 74-68 win

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Sean Pedulla scored 22points and Virginia Tech beat No. 6 Virginia 74-68 on Saturday,snapping the Cavaliers’ seven-game winning streak.

Pedulla made 6 of 13 from the floor as the Hokies (14-10, 4-8Atlantic Coast Conference) posted their biggest win of the season.He added 8 of 9 from the free-throw line. Justin Mutts added 17points.

Virginia Tech never trailed and shot 50% from the floor for thefourth straight game.

“There was no pouting (after the Miami loss). Just back topractice the next day,” Virginia Tech coach Mike Young said of histeam, which lost 92-83 to No. 23 Miami on Tuesday. “Yeah, we’ve gotVirginia coming in. Yes, in-state and all of that stuff. We’ve gotanother opportunity to play another really good opponent. We’ve gota chance to play Virginia Tech basketball and fight and compete andadhere to the things that are important to us — and we did that byand large on both ends of the floor.”

Jayden Gardner’s 20 points led Virginia (17-4, 9-3), which sawits usually stingy defense struggle. Kihei Clark finished with 17points for the Cavaliers, while Reece Beekman had 15. ArmaanFranklin, who had scored in double figures in 10 straight games,had six.

The Cavaliers tied the game at 38 on Gardner’s basket with 15:09remaining, but the Hokies outscored Virginia 17-7 over the nextseven minutes and never looked back.

Mutts hit 7 of 11 from the floor and added eight assists andfour rebounds. Grant Basile had 14 points and Hunter Cattoor scoredall 10 of his points in the second half for the Hokies.

“The heart was there, but to win in this setting against a teamthat’s playing good basketball, and Tech is, and they’ve got theplayers, you’ve got to be hard and smart,” Virginia coach TonyBennett said. “You can’t just be all hard. We were (hard and smart)for stretches, and they made us make some adjustments that helped alittle bit, but they made the big shots.”

TIP-INS

Virginia: The Cavaliers suffered a rare poor outing on thedefensive end, and it cost them. They led the ACC in scoringdefense (60.2 ppg) going in, but allowed the Hokies to score 74points and shoot 50.9% (27 of 53) from the floor. The Hokies becamejust the third team this season to shoot better than 50% againstVirginia and scored 40 points in the paint.

“They run a lot of action, whether it’s dribble handoffs, fakes,they keep you on your toes, and it takes an incredible, and I thinkdisciplined (effort) to keep them in front and keep them out of thepaint,” Bennett said.

Virginia Tech: After losing eight of their previous 10 games,the Hokies needed a big win to help their thin NCAA Tournamentresumé. Registering 19 assists and turning the ball over just eighttimes were keys.

“Obviously, we keep up with stuff throughout the year, like ‘Oh,this would be a huge win on our resumé,’” Pedulla said. “We dothink about (the NCAA Tournament), and we obviously want to getthere again. We know our team’s capable of it. We’re focused on itand we’re just trying to stack those wins on top of each other. Ithink this win definitely helps us.”

POLL IMPLICATIONS

The Cavaliers were one-point underdogs going into the game, sothey shouldn’t drop more than a few spots in Monday’s poll.

UP NEXT

Virginia: Hosts N.C. State on Tuesday.

Virginia Tech: Takes on Boston College in Blacksburg onWednesday.