A Furman miracle delivers more NCAA tournament heartbreak to Virginia
Tony Bennett #TonyBennett
ORLANDO — Virginia’s Kihei Clark has been Coach Tony Bennett’s most trusted player for years. In the Cavaliers’ NCAA tournament opener against No. 13 seed Furman Thursday afternoon, the fifth-year guard made perhaps the worst decision of his basketball career.
With No. 4 seed Virginia protecting a two-point lead in the closing seconds, Clark was trapped near the baseline. Instead of calling timeout, he heaved the ball across midcourt. The Paladins’ Garrett Hien collected the errant toss and passed to JP Pegues, whose three-pointer with 2.2 seconds left dealt the Cavaliers another heartbreaking postseason loss, 68-67, at Amway Center.
Virginia’s season thus ended with another early exit in the NCAA tournament. The Cavaliers, who did not earn a berth last season, have not won an NCAA tournament game since 2019, when they captured the program’s first national championship.
Kadin Shedrick led the Cavaliers (25-8) with 15 points and 13 rebounds, and Reece Beekman, who missed a three-pointer at the buzzer, added 14.
Jalen Slawson scored a game-high 19 points for Furman, the Southern Conference tournament champion making its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1980.
Trailing by three with 2 minutes 33 seconds remaining, Virginia scored seven straight to take a four-point lead with 19 seconds left. Two free throws from Hien with 12 seconds left set up the thrilling end.
Virginia had appeared poised to pull away midway through the second half, before Furman reeled the deficit back in courtesy of consecutive three-pointers. Moments later, with 6:25 to go, Mike Bothwell, the Paladins’ leading scorer, picked up a fifth personal foul. Virginia led by six after the subsequent free throws, but the Paladins then mounted a furious rally, sparked by Slawson, a fifth-year senior, taking their first lead with just more than 5 minutes remaining. The Southern Conference player of the year scored nine points in a row, on a three-point play, a three-pointer and a second three-point play. Making matters worse for the Cavaliers was top reserve Ryan Dunn getting hit the face on a layup attempt and going to the bench for extensive treatment.
Virginia led by 10 midway through the first half, but Furman whittled the lead to five by halftime.
Another lineup tweak from Bennett helped provided Virginia a defensive spark in the early stages. Shedrick, a redshirt junior, started in place of Francisco Caffaro, giving the Cavaliers a true rim protector, and he made an early difference, blocking a shot in the painted area that triggered a fast break.
The lineup shuffle came after Caffaro started all three games in the ACC tournament, where Virginia lost to Duke, 59-49, in the championship game Saturday night in Greensboro, N.C. Shedrick, however, contributed valuable minutes in each of the Cavaliers’ first two games in that tournament.
The shorthanded Cavaliers also played a fourth consecutive game without starting forward Ben Vander Plas, a graduate transfer from Ohio who had a hand in dispatching Virginia from the NCAA tournament in its most recent appearance in 2021.
Vander Plas scored 17 points for the 13th-seeded Bobcats in that 62-58 upset of No. 4 Virginia. The Cavaliers received the same seed this season, and were looking to make another mark in the tournament after the 2019 title run, during which Clark played a key role. Instead, for the third time in their last four March Madness appearances, the Cavaliers tumbled out of the event in a first-round upset against a double-digit seed.