After snapping a seven-game losing streak in its win against Boston College Feb. 17, the Virginia men's basketball team collected its second straight win, and its first victory at home since Jan. 19, against North Carolina State Sunday, 78-60.
The Cavaliers' 18-point final margin came from a dominant first half at both ends of the floor. After four straight sluggish starts, the two teams battled to a 13-11 Virginia lead at the outset before the Cavaliers surged to a 38-18 halftime advantage on the strength of 17 first-half Wolfpack turnovers.
The Cavaliers held the Wolfpack to 18 first-half points on 27.3 percent shooting, which had Virginia coach Dave Leitao remarking that the defense in the first half was as suffocating and active as it had been all season, while committing just three fouls.
"Our hands were all over the place," Leitao said. "We did a really good job of being in the right position without getting caught and having to foul."
In particular, Virginia did an outstanding job on freshman J.J. Hickson, the Wolfpack's leading scorer and rebounder at 15.2 points and 8.7 rebounds per game coming into Sunday's contest. Hickson took five shots in the first half, missing all of them, and did not get to the free-throw line. He ended with 7 points and five rebounds.
"They trapped [Hickson], they came down on him, they were sinking in on him," N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe said. "We are not patient enough yet at the beginning of the game to understand that teams are doing that and just kick it out to give our perimeter shooters a chance to make some shots at the beginning of the ball game."
Virginia continued to blow up the lead at the start of the second half, as the margin expanded to as much as 27 with 14:41 remaining. The Wolfpack, however, clawed back, going on a 19-6 run in a 9:32 span to cut the lead to 14 with Wolfpack sophomore Trevor Ferguson at the free-throw line for a one-and-one.
Ferguson, however, would miss his first foul shot, and sophomore Jerome Meyinsse secured the rebound and threw the outlet to Singletary, who flew down court to find a wide-open Calvin Baker for a three. After N.C. State sophomore Brandon Costner made two free throws, Singletary came down and fed Baker once more for another three, pushing the lead to 18.
"That definitely was a point in time that may have set us back a little bit," Lowe said. "We missed the front end of the one-and-one, that's one thing, but then to come back and leave a shooter when we're not supposed to, that's another thing."
Baker's timely 3-point baskets came after Leitao confronted the sophomore in a timeout early in the half, telling him that he wasn't being aggressive enough.
"More than anything, Calvin had gotten tentative, and we had a pretty one-way conversation about it," Leitao said, adding that the first three "gave us a little bit of a cushion, and it made the game a little more manageable."
Singletary continued his stellar play of late, contributing 21 points, six assists and seven steals against a young Wolfpack backcourt.
"That first half, from a defensive standpoint, he took us out of a couple of plays we were trying to run, just by pressuring the guys and being up on them," Lowe said. "He can affect a game that way, from a defensive standpoint and an offensive standpoint."
Virginia has a five-day break before traveling to Miami March 1. This will be the first of three games in a five-day period for Virginia after last Thursday's game against Georgia Tech was postponed to March 3 because of a leak in the roof of Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
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