Cavaliers knock off Duke

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Know that ACC basketball showdown that ESPN has been promising its viewers all week?

It came two days early Thursday night at John Paul Jones Arena.

Third-ranked Duke, scheduled to entertain No. 5 Miami on Saturday, trailed from start to finish in a 73-68 loss to Virginia.

"I watch ESPN," UVa point guard Jontel Evans said. "They kept talking about revenge and rematch with Duke and Miami and I was like, 'Dang, do we even have a game tonight?' "

It will be hard to match the show put on by UVa junior Joe Harris, who scored a career-high 36 points in front of a raucous crowd that included his father, a high-school coach in Chelan, Wash., who made the 6,000-mile round trip for the second time all season.

Harris was happy to report that his dad was not trampled when fans rushed the floor - no more than 30 seconds after they had been advised by the public-address announcer to keep their distance.

"This was a pretty special night," said Harris, who eclipsed the previous ACC high this year, 35 points by Virginia Tech's Erick Green in a 74-58 home loss to UVa. "I never expected to see somebody storm the court here."

Virginia's victory came 11 years to the day since its last victory over a top-five team, an 87-84 victory over then-No. 3 Duke at University Hall.

The Cavaliers had lost 22 games in a row against top-five opposition and neither fourth-year head coach Tony Bennett nor any of his Virginia players had ever beaten the Blue Devils.

"You delivered," athletic director Craig Littlepage announced to the crowd after the game, "and your team delivered."

It was Virginia's 16^th consecutive victory at home, where the Cavaliers (20-8, 10-5 ACC) are 8-0 in conference play this year.

"I've been fortunate enough to be in a lot of pretty special settings," Bennett said, "and this one ranked up there with how loud it was. The guys fed off of it."

A sell-out crowd of 14,953 helped fuel a 9-0 UVa run to start the game and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was obliged to call an unscheduled timeout with 13:21 after a Harris basket stretched the Cavaliers' lead to 15-4.

UVa extended its lead to 18-6 before the Blue Devils (24-4, 11-4) rallied and cut the lead to 22-21 on a Seth Curry 3-pointer with 4:40 left in the half.

The Cavaliers upped their lead to 28-23 at the half, then saw Duke's Seth Curry hit a 3-pointer to start the second half. However, Virgi nia started to pull away when Harris and Akil Mitchell combined to go 8-for-8 from the free-throw line over a two-minute, 14-second span.

Harris was in the act of shooting when he was fouled by Duke freshman Rasheed Sulaimon with 15:10 left. Official Roger Ayers then slapped Sulaimon with a technical foul and Harris was awarded four free throws, all of which he converted.

"That was a first for me," said Harris, who was 10 of 12 from the line for the night. "I don't think I've ever shot four free throws at one time like that."

Harris, UVa's career leader in 3-point percentage, missed his first three shots from behind the arc but connected twice down the stretch to help blunt Duke's comeback attempts.

"Harris was fantastic," Kryzewski said. "We knew he would be. He's just one of the best players in the country and he had half their points.

"Their other kids played well, but when you've got a guy playing at that level, it brings everybody up. He was terrific."

Mitchell finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds and did more than neutralize Duke's Mason Plumlee, often mentioned as an ACC player-of-the-year candidate. Plumlee finished with 10 points and seven rebounds.

"It was a very, very physical game and we're not equipped for that," said Krzyzewski, whose team had zero offensive rebounds in the first half, three for the game and was outrebounded 36-25 overall. "We got knocked back. "

It wasn't Krzyzewski who had been talking up the meeting with ACC front-runner and fifth-ranked Miami (23-4, 14-1).

"Virginia had our full attention and our full preparation," Krzyzewski said. "They beat us when we were trying to be at our best. And, it was because of them that we were not.

"We were totally vested in this."

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