No. 23 Virginia beats Notre Dame 66-57 in ACC opener

Kehei Clark scored 19 points for the second consecutive game (ACC)

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Kihei Clark had 19 points and five assists, and No. 23 Virginia continued its dominance over Notre Dame with a 66-57 victory Wednesday night. The Cavaliers improved to 12-0 in Atlantic Coast Conference openers under coach Tony Bennett and 10-0 in ACC regular-season matchups against the Fighting Irish.

Jay Huff scored 15 points for Virginia, and Sam Hauser added 13 points and 10 rebounds. Notre Dame fell despite a career-high 28 points from Nate Laszewski. The junior forward hit 8 of 11 shots from the field with four 3-pointers to go with 8 of 10 at the line.

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“In the postgame I talked about weeble’s wobble, but they don’t fall down. Our young guys, they don’t know what a weeble wobble is but all of us do. I think we got wobbling a few times, you got to right the ship and get back up. I think there’s just some good offensive plays,” said Virginia head coach Tony Bennett.

“[Justin] McKoy gave us some plays, we kept some offensive rebounds alive. Actually Reece [Beekman] got his hands on a couple balls that were huge to save some easy buckets. And then, just key baskets from Kihei and Sam [Hauser], and just other ones, McKoy, so I really agree. I thought we made enough good offensive plays, took advantage and then enough key stops. It was hard at times [Nate] Laszewski was really good. He went, actually it was his dad went to SPASH where Sam Hauser’s from. his dad was there when my sister was there, actually was a very good player.

Laszewski has really improved, and he was a load and Durham the Laszewski hurt us. We’ve had some trouble, we got to kind of sure up guarding some of these guys that are the good fours and fives and do the job. But enough good plays defensively and offensively. Still some breakdowns but hopefully we’ll, we’ll keep getting better. It was kind of everyone chipping in and that’s how it’ll have to be with this team and then we got to chip in and help each other defensively and offensively.”