Heads up in-bound play provides Virginia late opportunity to pad lead

With 19.4 seconds remaining Sunday evening, Virginia Tech junior forward Victor Davila scored a layup to cut Virginia's lead to two points. The Hokies called a 30-second timeout and implemented a full-court press on the ensuing Virginia in-bound play.

Sophomore guard Jontel Evans was the Cavalier player in charge of throwing the ball in, and as he surveyed the court, one of the more seldom-used options appealed to him. He saw Virginia Tech guard Malcolm Delaney, who was lined up near midcourt, start to come forward toward the ball. He saw senior forward Mike Scott break toward the opposite end of the floor. And he saw Virginia Tech forward Jeff Allen, who was supposed to be guarding Scott, trailing in his pursuit by several steps.

Evans launched the ball to Scott, who moved in for what would have been a transition basket. But Allen wrapped his arms around Scott in almost a bear hug, which prevented Scott from taking a shot and also drew an intentional foul. Scott would get two free throws, and the Cavaliers would get the ball back on top of that.

"We’ve been practicing that (long in-bound pass), and in practices we don’t really get it because the managers be cheating on it," Evans said with a grin afterward.

Scott made both of the free throws to put Virginia up by four with 18 seconds remaining. And after the Cavaliers in-bounded again, senior guard Mustapha Farrakhan was fouled. He made both of his free throws, as well, to extend Virginia's lead to six with 16 seconds to play. The Cavaliers held on for a 57-54 victory.

"That’s one of the options," Bennett said of Evans's long in-bound pass to Scott. "If they’re going to cheat and really make it hard to get it in, look long. I didn’t tell Jontel you’ve got to throw it. If it’s there, it’s one of the press attacks that we use. It was a heck of a pass, a heck of a catch. And it was big because we obviously got the intentional foul on that … I thought the guys handled the pressure pretty well, getting it in bounds when we needed to."