Cavaliers Wake up, roll to win

Wake Forest had its triangle-and-two defensive scheme. Virginia had its sixth man.
The latter was more valuable Sunday.
With a spirited crowd all but willing Virginia to a win, the Cavaliers shook off a sluggish start and closed out a 77-59 home victory over Wake Forest with one of the most
dominating scoring runs in the past decade.
Trailing 58-52 with 9:35 left, the 15th-ranked Cavaliers (14-2, 1-0 ACC) ended the contest with a 25-1 spurt that was fueled by eight points from Lyndra Littles and seven from Monica Wright.
Wake Forest, which entered the game ranked No. 25 in one poll, managed its lone point in the final nine minutes on a free throw by Corrine Groves with 2:20 remaining. As the Demon Deacons unraveled offensively, missing their final 12 shots from the field, the 3,737 faithful in John Paul Jones came to life.
“It was exciting,” Littles said. “Did you hear the crowd? They were like ‘Wahoos. Wahoos.’ That was great.”
Wright added: “I thought the crowd was the most into it today. Our defensive energy was really amazing and it is exciting playing in a game like that because you can see how the crowd is so supportive. They might not know it, but that really
fuels us. It really helps us. It gives us energy.”
The loudest burst from the crowd, of course, came after the Cavaliers finally took their first lead in the
second half.
Trailing 58-56, Virginia point guard Ariana Moorer sliced through the lane and kissed a layup off the backboard as she drew contact from Camille Collier.
Showcasing emotion for perhaps the first time during her rookie season, Moorer pumped her fist twice and connected on the ensuing free throw to give the Cavaliers the lead for good.
“It was really exciting and I was just into it,” said Moorer, who finished with six points and five assists. “I just showed my emotions and I never do it.”
Virginia needed the late-game heroics after Wake Forest attempted to deliver the knockout punch in the opening half. In fact, Wake Forest built a 16-point lead, at 36-20, on a layup by Courteney Morris.
“I was ready to kill them in the first half because they weren’t doing anything I was telling them to do,” Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said.
There were two good reasons: Wake Forest employed a face-guarding tactic on Littles and Wright with its triangle-and-two and Collier was almost unstoppable for the Demon Deacons.
Collier, a guard who entered averaging seven points, hit five 3-pointers in the opening half and scored 21 of her team-best 25 points in the first half.
“I was like ‘Oh, my God. We did not scout this,’” Wright said of Collier. “Wake Forest definitely came out in the first half ready to play. They came at us … and they didn’t give us anything easy.”
Virginia chipped into the deficit late in the first half as on-the-fly changes offensively eventually made it easier to free up Littles and Wright, who missed 16 of their 20 shots from the field in the opening half.
“We had no idea [about the triangle-and-two]. We hadn’t even planned for it,” Wright said. “I felt like making the last-minute decisions, the last-minute changes we did a great job with not knowing what they were throwing at us. We knew it was coming with ACC play … just not this soon.”
Virginia also used its dominance in the paint to create a lopsided margin in rebounding, a battle that it won 30-16 in the second half.
“The gut of this game, the two things that decided the game were offensive rebounding and us missing open shots,” Wake Forest coach Mike Peterson said.
It was a collective effort as Virginia had five players grab at least four rebounds in the second half. Wright, who scored a team-best 20 points, paced the attack with six offensive rebounds.
“Once we rebound and go it is tough to stop us,” Ryan said.
Virginia plays its first road game in the ACC on Friday as it travels to face No. 2 North Carolina. The televised contest starts at 8:30 p.m.