WASHINGTON – Shots that Virginia guard and Greater Atlanta Christian grad Malcolm Brogdon normally makes didn't fall. Jumpers ricocheted off the back of the rim. Drives to the basket hopped out of the cylinder. With his team experiencing similar difficulties, the ACC championship went to seventh-ranked North Carolina for the 18th time in its 61-57 win over the fourth-ranked Cavaliers Saturday night at the Verizon Center.
Brogdon, the league’s player of the year and defensive player of the year, came close to his scoring average with 15 points (3.4 points under his average). However, they were collected inefficiently, as he was 6-for-22 from the field and 2-for-9 from 3-point range. He hit career highs both for field-goal attempts and missed field-goal attempts.
“I just missed a lot of open shots,” Brogdon said. “But my hat does go off to them. I thought they played a really good defensive game all around, flooding the lane when I drove. But I think on my part, I missed a lot of shots.”
In Virginia’s first two games of the ACC tournament, Brogdon scored 26 points on 10-for-15 shooting against Georgia Tech in the quarterfinals and then 24 on 6-for-15 shooting in the semifinal win over Miami. North Carolina, which played exceptional defense in its three-game run to the championship, was ready.
“I just tried to make everything tough on him and tried to pressure him,” said North Carolina guard Marcus Paige, who was assigned to defend Brogdon much of the night. “I know I’m not very big, so I just tried to use my quickness to bother him. He still got his, but I think we did a pretty good job on him.”
As a team, No. 2 seed Virginia (26-7) was able to play at its preferred slower pace – the turbo-charged Tar Heels played 59 possessions, 10 fewer than in their back-and-forth semifinal win over Notre Dame Friday night. The Cavaliers also achieved their objective of keeping No. 1 seed North Carolina (28-6) off the offensive glass, limiting the Tar Heels to five offensive rebounds out of 25 available rebounds. But the Cavaliers’ atypically errant shooting (23-for-63 from the field for 36.5 percent, well below their season rate of 49.2 percent) and North Carolina’s shot-making was the difference.
North Carolina’s 51.1 percent shooting from the field was almost 10 percentage points higher than the Cavaliers’ season rate. The Tar Heels won despite attempting 16 fewer field goals (47 to 63) than Virginia, aided by 10 more free throws (13 to 3).
“We were a little stagnant at times,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “That’s partly on us and partly to how hard they played and got after us.”
A week after earning the regular-season title, North Carolina celebrated its first ACC championship since 2008, a lifetime for the trophy-gorged Tar Heels. Before Sunday, they had lost in the finals four of the past five seasons.
Both teams stand to receive No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament when the bracket is revealed Sunday.
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