Cavaliers Battle but Fall Short

The Virginia Cavaliers, a 9 seed in the ACC tournament, charged into the Blue Devil's, but ended up suffering a defeat at the end of the game. 

The Cavaliers, entered today with a win over the 8th seeded Boston College Eagles yesterday.  The Cavaliers came alive yesterday without their star player Sylven Landesberg who is on academic probabtion and out for the rest of the season.  Sammy Zeglinski, stepped up for Virginia yesterday by scoring 21 points and going 5 for 10 from the 3-point line. 

Unfortunately, Zeglinski's performance was horrendous today against Duke.  He went 0 for 8 shooting the ball and had a few trunovers in the process. 

Duke, the favorite to win the ACC tournament, started the game struggling to score a field goal.  It took Duke 4 minutes into the first half to score their first points of the game.  Virginia wasn't any better, it took them five minutes into the first half to score their first points of the game. 

Both teams continued to play horrendously throughout the first half, which resulted in a tie of 27 points a piece at the end of the first half.  Nolan Smith lead the Blue Devil's in scoring in the first half with 11 points. 

The second half turned out to be a tad better than the first half, but both teams still had their problems shooting from the field. 

When it was all said and done, Duke scored 57 points, while Virginia came up short with 46 points.  Kyle Singler lead Duke in scoring with 18 points, 14 of the 18 points coming in the second half.  Jeff Jones lead the Cavaliers in scoring with 15 points and Mike Scott scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the loss. 

Virginia will be hanging up their jersey's for this season and the Blue Devil's will be marching on in the ACC tournament.  Duke will play the winner of the Virginia Tech v. Miami (FL) game today and will be heading to the NCAA tournament as a possible #1 seed.