By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Since losing Feb. 11 at John Paul Jones Arena on a night when a controversial call went Virginia’s way at the end of regulation, the Duke Blue Devils have repeatedly cried foul about that result in public comments and on social media. That will add yet another storyline to the proceedings Saturday night at the Greensboro Coliseum.
At 8:30, second-seeded UVA (25-6) plays fourth-seeded Duke (25-8) in the ACC tournament’s championship game. In their lone regular-season meeting, the Cavaliers defeated the Blue Devils 69-62 in overtime at JPJ.
“They’re bringing it up a lot,” Virginia forward Jayden Gardner said late Friday night, “but in the end result, they had five minutes in overtime to win the game, and we ended up winning the game. You just gotta let that go, and we’ll figure out [Saturday night] where we stand.”
In the first semifinal Friday night, Duke won 85-78 over top-seeded Miami, which lost its star big man, Norchard Omier, to an injury in the game’s second minute. Virginia and third-seeded Clemson tipped off at 9:42 p.m., and the game was tight for a while. But the Cavaliers went ahead 11-10 on a reverse layup by point guard Kihei Clark at the 14:22 mark of the first half, and they never trailed again.
The Wahoos, who shared the ACC regular-season title with Miami, scored the last eight points of the first half and the first six of the second to blow the game open. The final score was 76-56, and the victory sent the Hoos to the ACC championship game for the fourth time in Tony Bennett’s 14 seasons as their head coach.
“Coming into the ACC, you dream about stuff like this,” junior guard Reece Beekman said.
Virginia has won the tournament three times: in 1976 (under the late Terry Holland), 2014 and 2018. To add another championship Saturday night, the Cavaliers will have to get past a Duke team that’s won eight straight since losing in Charlottesville. UVA is on a four-game winning streak.
“I feel like they’ve been trending in the right direction,” Gardner said of the Blue Devils, “and we’ve been trending in the right direction ever since we lost to Carolina [in Chapel Hill on Feb. 25]. I think you’re gonna see the best of the best play each other.”
Conventional wisdom held that Clemson (23-10) needed to win Friday night to stay in contention for an at-large…