UVa men's basketball prevails yet again in final seconds
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
March 3, 2004

It wasn’t the storybook ending.

The senior guard who had rescued his team on three previous occasions didn’t do it again on Senior Night. Instead, it was the junior with the bad back who can’t practice that did.

Devin Smith’s driving layup and subsequent free throw with 5.8 seconds left lifted Virginia to an 84-82 over No. 11 Wake Forest on Tuesday night at University Hall.

The win, Virginia’s third over a top 15 team in the last three weeks, improved the Cavaliers to 16-10, 6-9 in the ACC and not only kept their NCAA tournament hopes alive, but enhanced them.

“It was a great game and a great win. Our kids played with courage. … It was a great team victory. A lot of guys really stepped up,” said Virginia coach Pete Gillen, whose team has won four of its past five contests. “I think we played a great game tonight because Wake Forest played a heck of a game.”

Smith’s three-point play, however, far from ended the drama even in just those waning seconds. On the ensuing play with UVa up by three, Wake’s Chris Paul was strategically fouled by Virginia’s T.J. Bannister.

Paul made his first, intentionally missed his second and the rebound was grabbed by Elton Brown, who promptly traveled thinking he was fouled on the play. Wake then inbounded the ball from underneath the basket, but Jamaal Levy’s game-tying attempt missed the mark, igniting a celebration that has become familiar in the past few weeks here.

“There was a chance for overtime but thank God it didn’t go in. I couldn’t take another five minutes of that,” Gillen quipped.

Smith and Derrick Byars each had 15 points to pace the Cavaliers, who shot a sizzling 60.7 percent in the second half. For Byars, who at one point scored eight points in a minute and a half in the first half, it was the first time he reached double digits since scoring 10 against Maryland on Feb. 4.

Billet, honored in Senior Night ceremonies before the game, finished with 13 while Brown had 12. Bannister, the Cavs’ freshman point guard had nine points, 12 assists and just one turnover. The 12 assists were the most by a Virginia player since Harold Deane had 14 against Maryland on March 5, 1995.

Paul had 21 points and Justin Gray added 20 for Wake Forest (19-7, 9-6 ACC), which made 12 of its 25 3-point attempts in the game.

“The better team won tonight. If you allow a team to shoot 60 percent in the second half, you set yourself up for defeat. Give Virginia credit because they made the big plays when they needed to,” said Wake coach Skip Prosser, whose team entered the game having won six straight. “If you ask me, that’s a team one win away from the NCAA tournament.”

That one game would be Sunday at Maryland. Gillen, who joked that he nearly blacked-out on several occasions in the second half, wasn’t quite ready to think about that contest.

“I have no comment for that right now. I’m just worried about getting my car home and into the garage tonight. We’ll worry about that tomorrow,” Gillen said.

Virginia trailed 45-41 at the break but when Bannister connected on a 3-pointer with 13:55 left, it capped a 7-0 UVa run to give the Cavaliers a 61-57 advantage.

With how the game unfolded after that, no one can blame the worrisome Gillen from nearly blacking out before the final buzzer.

Virginia never completely surrendered the lead the rest of the way - despite several opportunities to - but the game was tied on three occasions. Virginia never led by any more than six as the tenacious Deacons hardly wilted. Still, the Cavaliers never lost the lead, which might have been a factor momentum-wise.

“It was big for us to keep the lead. Wake Forest plays with great poise and confidence. It was tied a couple of times but we were never down and our players didn’t start doubting themselves,” Gillen said.

Virginia still held the lead, 81-78, with 2:22 left but Gray tied it for the final time with a 3-pointer with 1:39 remaining.

On Virginia’s ensuing possession, Brown’s shot was blocked by Eric Williams and Wake came down with a chance to finally pull the lead away from the Cavaliers’ clutches.

Williams, however, missed a jumper and Smith snared the ball with 38 seconds to play.

Virginia, with no timeouts, went straight into the offensive end. Probably everyone in the building thought Billet would again hold the Cavaliers’ fate in his hands and he did have the ball in the closing seconds. But the senior guard was guarded tightly coming off a high screen so he passed to Gary Forbes, who then reversed the ball to Smith in the left corner.

Smith drove to the basket and was fouled by Gray just as he put up a leaner that bounded around the back of the rim before dropping through.

“They came out a little on me thinking that maybe I was going to shoot the 3. I just went baseline and was fortunate to get the shot up and in,” said Smith, who received the ball in nearly the exact spot in which he made a pivotal trey minutes earlier. “I’m sure they might have been keying on Todd but we have a bunch of guys on this team capable of making big shots and we all believe in each other.”

Virginia was 12-9, 2-8 in the ACC just 20 days ago and even mentioning the NCAA tournament would have brought chuckles and jeers. Leave it to a presumably naïve freshman to put the best spin on Virginia’s last three weeks.

“We’re all doing what we are supposed to do and things are going our way. I’m sure the coaches are checking our RPI and where we stand with the NCAAs and all that. This is just great for us right now. It’s fun. We’re playing hard and good things are happening. Who knows what’s next,” Bannister said.

Notes. Majestic Mapp, who got the start on Senior Night, finished with three points in five minutes. … Virginia has won its last five Senior Night games, four of which came against ranked teams.
 

Cardiac Cavs gut it out for another win
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 3, 2004

It wasn’t that Todd Billet was tired of cheating the reaper. Rather it was Wake Forest’s determination not to let Virginia’s recent miracle man win with another buzzer-beater.

Deadlocked at 81-all in the waning seconds of another ACC thriller-diller, the Cavaliers chose an alternate hero this time out. Junior Devin Smith, the poster boy of back aches, drove left baseline and muscled his way past Wake’s beefiest defender to score and draw a foul to give Virginia the lead.

With the free throw, the Cardiac Cavs held an 84-81 lead with 5.8 seconds remaining and held on for their fourth win in the last five games. Their dramatic charge has included upsets of the No. 11, 12 and 15-ranked teams in the country, all in the span of 16 days that Coach Pete Gillen will never trade.

Best win yet

While Wake coach Skip Prosser, a former Gillen assistant, declared afterward that not only did the best team win, but that Virginia was now one win away from making the NCAA Tournament field, the embattled Cavaliers’ coach called it his team’s best win of the year.

He was right. Wake Forest, one of the most explosive scoring teams in the country, was seeking its seventh straight win and its fourth straight on the road. The Deacs came to University Hall as one of the hottest teams anywhere.

But Gillen’s team was maybe the most dangerous of late.

Billet, the never-say-die senior guard, had delivered the lethal blows against Georgia Tech, Clemson and North Carolina in succession, with gut-wrenching 3-pointers.

Virginia’s brainbox knew that if this one came down to white knuckles time that Wake would never allow Billet to get off another death blow. So, during practice leading up to the game, Gillen put in a wrinkle for the same high ballscreen play that torpedoed the Tar Heels a week ago.

Just as expected, Wake defended the play hard and attempted to trap Billet out at the top of the key. Billet’s job was to drag the two defenders with him toward the right and whip the ball back to the other side where Wake was weak.

Another option

Smith was waiting, all alone in the left corner. That’s one of his favorite spots on the floor for launching 3’s, but even though he thought about it, he quickly adjusted when he saw Jamaal Levy charging toward him.

Smith dodged Levy and drove the baseline. He was confronted by big Eric Willliams, a beast at 6-foot-9, 275 pounds, and Justin Gray.

“I knew Levy couldn’t stop me from driving, so once I got the shot off, I thought it was going in,” Smith said later. “Williams is big, but I’m a pretty good-sized guy myself [6-5, 239].”

Gillen made another smart

move, ordering T.J. Bannister to foul Wake’s Chris Paul with 2.9 seconds, choosing to take his chances with a one-and-one rather than allowing the Deacs to knot it with a three.

“I wouldn’t want to bet against Gray or Paul or Downey making a three there,” said Gillen.

Plus, he said he couldn’t have stood another five minutes had the game gone to overtime. Pete was already reaching for the Pepto as the game crept to yet another photo finish.

Good strategy. Wake had hit 12 of 26 attempts from behind the arch in the game.

Paul made the first, purposely missed the second with UVa’s Elton Brown rebounding. While he felt he was bumped, he was called for traveling, leaving Wake with yet another chance with just a tick-and-a-half remaining.

No way Wake could spoil this, right? It’s not in the script. Levy’s off-balanced shot banged off the rim and Wahoo fans practiced rushing the floor again, almost a lost art around Hooville this season.

Let me hear a hallelujah.

Explaining the remarkable run since Valentine’s Day, Gillen struggled for an answer.

“I really can’t explain it,” said the coach who has been on the hot seat for weeks now. “We just go day-by-day [or as Billet put it, even practice-by-practice]. We’ve been very fortunate. Devin Smith, Todd Billet, T.J. Bannister, they’re gutsy guys. We’re beating great teams.”

But then the coach put his finger on something.

“We have talent, but I think that heart and determination have been the deciding factors,” Gillen said of his team, which is now16-10 overall and 6-9 in the ACC (currently tied for sixth).

Should Prosser be right and the Cavs win at Maryland on Sunday to close out the regular season, perhaps Gillen has “Bowdened” himself into another life in Charlottesville. Perhaps his job was never really in great jeopardy, because the folks who control such matters have done more dancing than Astair on the topic.

For any Gillen shortcomings, his strategies, somewhat unique in the coaching world, paid huge dividends on this night. A decision to take advantage of Wake’s three-guard lineup, not exactly known as defensive stoppers, was a brilliant chess move on Pete’s part.

And enough of that garbage that Virginia players don’t get better under Gillen’s tutelage. What do you call what has transpired down the home stretch? Instead of limping home like the past two years, the Cavs have galloped with a rookie point guard, a senior who has rediscovered his offense and a guy with more back pain than most 90-year-olds.

“The pain ... it really never goes away. It’s always there,” Smith said with a temporary smile. “But I ain’t feeling nothin’ right now but happiness ... and a big, old ice bag.”
 

Cavaliers reeling a bit after Denver debacle
By John Galinsky / Daily Progress staff writer
March 3, 2004

Twenty-two years ago, the Virginia men’s basketball team traveled out west - way out west to Hawaii - with an undefeated record and a No. 1 national ranking, then suffered a stunning loss to tiny Chaminade. It remains one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history.

Last weekend the UVa men’s lacrosse team had a Chaminade moment of its own. Make that two of them.

Playing in the Pioneer Face-off Classic in Denver, the defending national champion Cavaliers - ranked No. 1 and coming off a season-opening rout of Drexel - fell to Air Force on Saturday and Denver on Sunday, a pair of results that rocked the lacrosse world.

After all, it is rare for one of the nation’s elite programs, such as Virginia or Syracuse or Johns Hopkins, to lose to anyone outside of the sport’s inner sanctum. And to lose to a team out west, where lacrosse remains relatively new, well, that’s unheard of.

And for it to happen twice in two days? Even UVa coach Dom Starsia, who was understandably anxious about making the longest road trip in team history, did not imagine that nightmarish scenario.

“I told everyone before the season that we’d be a work in progress. We have a lot of young guys in new positions playing key roles for us,” Starsia said. “Still, I hoped we could take care of business and iron out some of our kinks. To be honest, I’m surprised by the results. We did not expect to lose those games, but I’m not discouraged by it. We just have to work hard and play better. It wasn’t for lack of effort, but I know this team is capable of playing much better lacrosse.”

Virginia (1-2) dropped from No. 1 to No. 15 in the USILA coaches’ poll. Air Force is now No. 14, while Denver rose to No. 11 - the highest ranking for both programs. Air Force, which went 3-10 last season, had never been ranked, while Denver had never beaten a top 10 team in its six years as a varsity program.

“I think it was a great thing for western lacrosse,” said Denver coach Jamie Munro. “In five years of building a program, we’ve tried really hard to get good enough athletes to compete with teams like Virginia, and so has Air Force. I think it shows that college lacrosse is moving in the direction of having more parity. In the last few years there have been all kinds of games where you look at the result and say, ‘Jeepers, how did that happen?’”

Good question. How did that happen to Virginia, which had won 11 straight games before last weekend?

The long trip may have had something to do with it. The Cavaliers got up early Friday, bused to Washington D.C., and flew to Denver, then got up early again Saturday for the 11 a.m. game. Several players also told Starsia they were affected by the high altitude.

But Starsia says his team played with enough energy to win both games. The bigger problems, he said, were the ones he anticipated before the season - a lack of production from the midfield and a general lack of cohesion on offense.

The Cavaliers, who lost their top three middies from last year’s team, got no goals from the midfield in the 7-6 loss to Air Force and three in the 9-7 setback to Denver. The attack didn’t pick up enough slack as Joe Yevoli, a preseason second-team All-American, had just one goal in the two games.

Virginia also picked up 18 fewer ground balls than its opponents in the two games and had trouble on clears and faceoffs.

“We haven’t been able to establish any rhythm on offense. We’re not a smooth operation on that end of the field,” Starsia said. “You can say we did all right defensively, but we obviously gave up too many goals in key situations. …

“We just seemed so tight. I think the young middies felt some pressure. Even the attack, reading that they had to carry the offense, may have taken on too much of a burden. A lot of things went into it. But I told the guys afterward that I am absolutely confident in the development of this team.”

The Cavaliers must progress quickly with games coming up against No. 3 Syracuse, No. 5 Princeton and No. 1 Johns Hopkins this month.

The good news is that all of those contests will be played in the friendly confines of Klockner Stadium. Don’t expect the Cavaliers to trek out west again for a while.

“I was talking to [Princeton coach Bill] Tierney,” Starsia said. “He said there’s no way anyone’s going to go near that trip now.”

Note. All-American defensemen Brett Hughes, who was taken off the field on a stretcher Sunday, returned to Charlottesville with the team Monday and may be able to play in Saturday’s game against Syracuse, Starsia said.

Hughes was injured in a facemask-to-facemask collision in the fourth quarter against Denver and play was stopped for more than 20 minutes as Hughes lay on the field.

Starsia said he could not talk about the nature of the injury, citing NCAA guidelines, but he said Hughes was “much better” and his status was questionable for this weekend.

 

Smith the new hero
Devin Smith takes a pass from Todd Billet and scores a conventional three-point play to win it.
By Doug Doughty
doug.doughty@roanoke.com
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Todd Billet couldn't have done it any better.

After winning three games on 3-point Billet field goals, Virginia won the old-fashioned way Tuesday night, upsetting 11th-ranked Wake Forest 84-82 on a three-point play by Devin Smith with 5.8 seconds left.

Smith had put UVa in position to hold for a final shot by grabbing the rebound following an Eric Williams miss with 40 seconds on the clock and the score 81-81.

Billet had the ball as the clock wound down, but with Wake braced to stop him he whipped the ball to Smith on the left wing. Smith, who had made a 3-pointer from the same spot moments earlier, drove the lane and was met by three Deacons.

"I don't think he was open," said Skip Prosser, who has won everywhere in the ACC except Duke and Virginia in his three seasons as Wake coach. "We guarded him. He just made a great play."

Smith got the roll on the shot, was fouled by Justin Gray and converted the free throw to make it 84-81. Wake actually had two possessions after that, with Virginia (16-10, 6-9) prevailing only when Jamaal Levy missed an 18-foot jump shot at the buzzer.

"Thank goodness it didn't go to overtime," said UVa coach Pete Gillen. "I don't think I could have taken another five minutes."

It was the fourth win in the past five games for Virginia. The Deacons (19-7, 9-6) had won six games in a row, three on the road, and were 5 1/2 -point favorites.

"Our kids felt we could win, even though they beat us badly down in Winston-Salem," said Gillen, whose team trailed 37-10 before losing to the Deacons 91-78 on Jan.31.

Virginia moved into a tie for sixth place in the ACC with Florida State, one game ahead of Maryland, which will host the Cavaliers in the regular-season finale Sunday.

"To my way of thinking, Virginia is one win away from an NCAA tournament bid," Prosser said. "To go 7-9 in this league and beat three ranked teams, I don't think there's any question about that."

Smith, prevented from starting because of a herniated disk, had 15 points in 19 minutes and shared team scoring honors with another reserve, sophomore forward Derrick Byars. Byars was 6-of-7 from the field in a 21-minute stint.

The Cavaliers, down 45-41 at the half, shot 60.7 percent in the second half and 51.6 for the game.

"It doesn't help when the other team shoots better from the field than you do from the line," said Prosser, whose team was 12-for-24 on free throws.

Wake was 12-for-26 on 3-pointers, shooting better from outside the arc than it did closer to the basket. Guards Chris Paul and Justin Gray had 21 and 20 points, respectively.

For much of the game, Paul was neutralized by fellow freshman T.J. Bannister, who had nine points and a season-high 12 assists.

"Chris Paul may be the best freshman in the country," Gillen said. "He's got my vote. To have 12 assists and one turnover against Chris Paul ... that's a great performance for a young point guard."

 

Cavs shock Deacs
UVa's 3-point play costly to Wake
By HANK KURZ JR, The Associated Press

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Devin Smith's teammates call him "Superman" because he has rarely let his aching back keep him out of the lineup for Virginia, especially when the game is on the line.

Smith lived up to his moniker Tuesday night, converting a three-point play against two defenders with 5.8 seconds remaining to lift surging Virginia to an 84-82 victory against No. 11 Wake Forest.

Smith said a half-second may have been the difference on the play since by the time the defender knew Smith had the ball in the left corner, the 3-point specialist was on the baseline moving toward the basket.

"One of the guys was trying to take a charge," Smith said of the Demon Deacons' Eric Williams and Justin Gray, who tied the shot up for a second before Smith prevailed. "I was fortunate to get the shot off."

The Cavaliers (16-10, 6-9 ACC) won for the fourth time in five games and beat their third ranked team in that stretch, possibly avoiding a spot in the ACC Tournament play-in game.

They started the night tied with Maryland for eighth in the league, and finish against the Terps on Saturday night in College Park, Md. Maryland plays at No. 16 N.C. State tonight.

"We're just coming together as a team and our confidence is growing with each win." Smith said of the Cavaliers, whose last three victories -- at Clemson, and at home against No. 19 Georgia Tech and No. 14 North Carolina -- all came on closing 3-pointers by senior guard Todd Billet.

This time, with the Demon Deacons determined not to let Billet do it again, Smith took a pass in the left corner and lifted Virginia himself.

"That dude, we call him 'Superman,' " said freshman point guard T.J. Bannister, who had 12 assists and one turnover. "That's crazy with a herniated disk in his back. He doesn't even practice, but he gets in the game, scores when he has to and hit big shots for us."

Smith and Derrick Byars led Virginia with 15 points each, Billet had 13 and Elton Brown 12. Virginia shot nearly 61 percent after halftime.

Wake Forest (19-7, 9-6), which arrived as the league's hottest team with six straight victories, had a chance to tie or win it when Brown was called for traveling after rebounding a missed free throw with 1.5 seconds left, but Jamaal Levy's off-balance shot from the right side missed.

Coach Skip Prosser said his team did itself in.

"We have to learn to guard if we're going to continue to play," he said. "We were horrific. ... It doesn't help that they shot better from the field than we did from the free-throw line."

Chris Paul led the Deacons with 21 points and Gray had 20.


 

Cavs turn up heat
Smith supplies the heroics; U.Va. pulls out another late win
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 3, 2004

CHARLOTTESVILLE - No. 11-ranked Wake Forest wasn't about to let Todd Billet beat it in the final seconds last night, not after watching countless replays of the senior guard's game-winning 3-pointers against Georgia Tech, Clemson and North Carolina.

So junior forward Devin Smith - whose Virginia teammates call him "Superman" - donned the hero's cape and made the game's biggest play.

"What a great shot he hit," Billet said of Smith's sixth and final field goal.

Smith, who's hampered by a herniated disk that prevents him from practicing, took a pass from freshman swingman Gary Forbes and drove from the left corner. Justin Gray fouled him on the play, but Smith's shot fell through with 5.8 seconds left.

His free throw gave the Cavaliers a three-point lead. After Wake guard Chris Paul made 1 of 2 from the line, U.Va. survived a last-second field-goal attempt by Jamaal Levy to claim an 84-82 victory before a sellout crowd at University Hall.

"Thank God it didn't go to overtime," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "I couldn't have taken another five minutes."

Smith's last game-winning shot?

"Can't remember," the former junior-college All-American said with a tired smile.

The win was the fourth in five games for U.Va. and its third over a ranked opponent during that span. By beating Wake at U-Hall for the fourth straight season, the Cavaliers (6-9, 16-10) climbed into a tie for sixth place in the ACC and bolstered their hopes of reaching the NCAA tournament.

Four players scored in double figures for U.Va., which closes the regular season Sunday night at Maryland (5-9, 14-11). The Terrapins visit second-place N.C. State (10-4, 18-7) tonight.

"By my way of thinking, Virginia's one win away from the NCAA tournament," Demon Deacons coach Skip Prosser said.

Against Wake (9-6, 19-7), one of the ACC's weakest defensive teams, the Cavaliers shot 60.7 percent from the floor in the second half and 51.6 percent overall.

"We have to learn to guard if we're going to continue to play," said Prosser, who spent eight seasons as an assistant under Gillen at Xavier.

On a night when U.Va. recognized its seniors - Gillen started two of them, Billet (13 points) and Majestic Mapp - the home team got huge off-the-bench contributions from Smith, sophomore forward Derrick Byars and freshman point guard T.J. Bannister.

Smith scored 15 points, pulled down six boards and blocked two shots in only 19 minutes. Byars, playing with an air of supreme confidence, buried 6 of 7 shots from the floor, including both 3-point attempts. He scored 15 points and grabbed five rebounds, his best outing in more than a month.

Bannister, who replaced Mapp at the 14:38 mark of the opening half, scored nine points and finished with a career-best 12 assists, the most by a Cavalier since Harold Deane Jr. had 14 in 1995.

The crowd of 8,392 - and, of course, the perpetually drenched Gillen - sweated out the final minute. With the score 81-81, Wake center Eric Williams missed inside, and Smith grabbed the rebound in traffic with 37 seconds left.

After Smith's three-point play, Virginia didn't want to give up a game-tying 3-pointer. The Deacons had already bombed in 12 treys, with Gray hitting four and Paul three. So Bannister fouled Paul near midcourt with 2.9 seconds left, sending the Deacons' freshman phenom to the line for two shots.

Paul made the first, his 21st point. He missed the second on purpose. Virginia center Elton Brown grabbed the rebound but was called for traveling with 1.5 seconds left. Brown and his coaches argued that he'd been fouled, but the officials disagreed, and Wake had a chance to force overtime or win on a 3-pointer.

The Cavaliers blanketed Gray (20 points), forcing Paul to inbound the ball to Levy. Virginia forward Jason Clark leaped high to contest Levy's off-balance jumper from inside the 3-point line. The shot fell short, and U.Va. students stormed the court for the second straight game.

"This might have been our best effort," Gillen said.

Wake led 45-41 at the break, but Virginia rallied to go ahead 58-57 on Byars' fast-break layup with 14:31 remaining. Four times the Deacons pulled even with U.Va., but they never could regain the lead. Wake didn't help its cause by missing 12 of 24 free throws.

"The better team won tonight," Prosser said.
 

Cavs trip Deacons
Shoddy defense, poor free-throw shooting help end WFU's six-game winning streak
By Dan Collins
JOURNAL REPORTER
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.

Wake Forest presented no compelling defense either during or after last night's streak-snapping 84-82 loss to Virginia at University Hall.

"When you allow a team to shoot (52) percent - and 61 percent in the second half - you set yourself up for a defeat," Coach Skip Prosser of the Deacons said. "We have to learn to guard if we're going to continue to play. Tonight it was just horrific.

"Give Virginia credit though. They played really well."

Devin Smith of the Cavaliers converted a three-point play with 5.8 seconds left and the 11th-ranked Deacons failed to answer when Jamaal Levy's last-second shot bounced off the front rim, sealing their first defeat since a home loss to North Carolina - seven games ago. The setback dropped Wake Forest to 19-7 and 9-6 in the ACC, putting N.C. State in position to clinch the second seed of the ACC Tournament with a victory tonight at home against Maryland.

Virginia, which got 15 points from both Smith and Derrick Byars and a career-high 12 assists from freshman T.J. Bannister, improved to 16-10 and 6-9 with its fourth victory in the past five games.

"It was a terrific game, and we're fortunate the last shot did not go in," Coach Pete Gillen of Virginia said.

Chris Paul scored 21 points and Justin Gray had 20 for Wake Forest, but the Deacons couldn't overcome their porous defense or poor free-throw shooting. Wake Forest made only 12 of 24 foul shots, extending a slump from the line that, inexplicably, began four games ago at Georgia Tech.

Over their past four games, the Deacons are 68 of 114 (60 percent) from the line.

"It doesn't help either when they shoot better from the field than you shoot from the free-throw line," Prosser said.

The Cavaliers plundered a Wake Forest team ranked last in the ACC in field-goal defense by scoring on 22 of 33 second-half possessions. And two of Virginia's unsuccessful possessions came on late-game walking violations by center Elton Brown, which gave the Deacons a chance to pull out their first victory since the 2000 season at University Hall.

Brown's first walking call came after a missed foul shot by Levy with 2:02 remaining, when he apparently thought the officials had awarded Levy two free throws. Wake Forest capitalized, tying the game at 81 on a driving basket by Gray.

The Deacons had a chance to take the lead when Eric Williams missed a shot in traffic with 38 seconds remaining. Virginia, out of timeouts, ran the clock down before passing to Smith in the left corner.

Though Todd Billet has hit the game-winning shot in the previous three Cavalier victories, this time it was Smith who drove baseline on Levy and made a contested layup as he was fouled by Gray underneath. Smith then swished the free throw for an 84-81 lead with 5.8 seconds left.

"He had to decide to protect the three or let me drive to the basket," Smith said of Levy. "He really didn't know where I was at. He was kind of turned around and running at me, so I just went baseline."

Gray attempted to provide the help-side defense, but arrived a moment too late.

"He made a tough shot," Gray said. "He got the body contact and they called the foul. That's a big-time shot to win the game.

"You need to step up and take a charge in that situation. Or if you're going to foul him, don't let him get the ball to the rim."

Paul, rushing the ball upcourt, actually made 3-point shot that would have tied the game, if he hadn't been fouled by Bannister just before the shot. The foul sent Paul to the line with 2.9 seconds left, where he made the first and missed the second.

Although Brown pulled down the rebound, he committed his second walking call of the final moments. The violation gave Wake Forest one last chance, but the Deacons, too, were out of timeouts.

With seconds ticking off, Paul threw the ball inbounds to Levy, who took a high arching shot over Jason Clark as time expired. The ball caromed off the rim and students rushed the court to celebrate the victory.

"The play was designed for Justin to take the last shot," Levy said. "But they did a pretty good job on defense of covering him, and we had no timeouts. So I just ran to the ball because I didn't want us to get the five-second count.

"I knew we only had one second left, so I just turned around and took the shot. It was pretty good when I took it. Clark did a good job of contesting the shot. But it did not go in."

Levy lost his balance on the shot and topped to the court, just in front of the Wake Forest bench. Prosser pointed to Levy, suggesting a foul should have been called.

"When games come down to a last play, it's tough for the refs to call those kind of plays," Levy said. "I think it was pretty clean. I don't think I got hit or anything."

The Deacons made 14 of their first 25 shots on the way to a 40-29 lead, and remained ahead until the Cavaliers staged a torrid rally in the opening minutes of the second half. Virginia, scoring of six of seven possessions took their first lead of the second half at 58-57 on Byars driving basket with 141/2 minutes left and extended the lead to 61-57 on Bannister's 3-pointer from the right wing.