Feb. 8, 2014
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THE FLATS – Sophomore guard Malcolm Brogdon scored 14 points and tied his career high with 11 rebounds as No. 20 Virginia broke open a tight game with a huge late run for a 64-45 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday.
The Cavaliers (19-5, 10-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) trailed 44-42 before closing their seventh straight victory with a 22-1 run.
Joe Harris and Anthony Gill added 11 points each for the Cavaliers.
Georgia Tech (12-12, 3-8) led 30-29 at halftime, but the injury-ravaged Yellow Jackets ran out of gas down the stretch.
They lost 45-41 at Clemson on Tuesday with just seven scholarship players available.
Two more returned to play against Virginia, but leading scorer Trae Golden, who didn’t have a point or an assist, and forward Robert Carter Jr., who had five points and two rebounds. did not start and were limited in minutes.
Sophomore guard Chris Bolden scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half to lead the Yellow Jackets. He was 1 for 8 from the field in the second half when Georgia Tech shot 6 for 23.
Georgia Tech center Daniel Miller had nine points, seven rebounds and six blocked shots.
Georgia Tech’s final lead came with 9:52 remaining, when Kammeon Holsey completed a three-point play to put the Yellow Jackets up 44-42.
They did not score another field goal and added just a free throw to the end as Virginia’s methodical offense began finding holes in the Yellow Jackets’ tiring defense.
Georgia Tech turned the ball over four times in the first half, but got sloppy in the second and the Cavaliers took the lead by scoring off consecutive miscues by the Yellow Jackets.
Carter fumbled away a ball in front of his team’s bench to lead to two free throws by Brogdon that tied the game at 44 with 7:06 remaining.
Moments later, Brogdon intercepted a pass by Miller and went the other way for an uncontested dunk. Tech called a timeout with 6:37 left, trailing 46-44, and would never tie nor lead again.
Virginia’s lead grew as big as 64-45 when Justin Anderson made a free throw with 1:59 to go.
Bolden helped stake Georgia Tech to a 30-29 halftime lead with help from the Yellow Jackets’ defense.
Virginia dominated on the boards over the first 17 minutes with a 21-10 rebounding edge, but Tech — the ACC’s ninth-ranked 3-point shooting team (32.7 percent) — shot 5 for 8 from beyond the arc, where Bolden was 3 for 4.
He scored 11 points in the first half on 4-for-5 shooting, a huge bonus for the Yellow Jackets given that the sophomore guard entered the game shooting 27.5 percent overall.
His third long ball of the first half, which came with the crowd counting aloud the final seconds of the waning shot clock, came from about 6 feet beyond the arc on the left wing, and pulled Tech within 29-28 with 3:33 left.
The Yellow Jackets took the lead when Miller spun on the right baseline and kissed the ball off the glass for the 30-29 lead at the 2:34 mark.
Virginia failed to score in the final 5:03 of the first half after Anderson’s 3-pointer gave the Cavs a 29-25 lead. Georgia Tech limited Virginia to 36.7 percent shooting in the first half, and blocked three shots.
