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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- J.C. Mathis made the most of his
chances Sunday night, helping No. 5 Virginia stay unbeaten.
Mathis scored a career-high 16 points, including two key late
baskets, and Travis Watson had 18 as the Cavaliers rallied to beat
Rutgers 76-68.
Mathis "never gets the ball, so he doesn't get a lot of
shots," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "Today, he got the ball
and he did a lot of good things with it."
Rutgers, which had won eight straight games, used a 12-0 run
bridging halftime to take a 45-36 lead with 19:04 remaining in the
game. That prompted Gillen to call a time out.
Coming out of the huddle, the Cavaliers (8-0) scored seven
straight points to get within 45-43. Virginia tied it 48-48 on Adam
Hall's jumper with 13:51 left.
"I thought we had control of the game for a large portion of
the game," Rutgers coach Gary Waters said. "I'm going to say for
a good 30 minutes, we had control."
Virginia eventually edged ahead 61-57. But the Scarlet Knights
pulled to within a point, at 66-65, heading into the final three
minutes, before the Cavaliers scored eight points in a row to
secure the victory.
Jerome Coleman scored 16 points, and Herve Lamizana had 15 for
Rutgers (8-3). The Scarlet Knights made 15 of 28 shots in the first
half, but just 12 of 32 in the second.
The lead seesawed over the final minutes of the first half.
Virginia trailed by as many as six points before an 11-0 run gave
the Cavaliers a 29-24 lead with 6:46, capped by Hall's alley-oop
dunk on a pass from Roger Mason Jr.
But after Virginia built its biggest lead of the half at 33-27,
the Scarlet Knights used a 13-3 run for a 40-36 halftime lead.
Both teams were plagued by foul trouble.
Rutgers played much of the game without forward Rashod Kent, its
leading rebounder and second-leading scorer. He picked up his third
foul four minutes into the game, sat out the rest of the half, and
fouled out with 6:30 left for an illegal screen.
Kent, who averages 11.6 points and 11.8 rebounds, finished with
just two points and two rebounds.
"They're a different team without Rashod Kent. It's a credit to
them that they were up four without him," Gillen said.
Virginia missed forward Chris Williams, who picked up his fourth
foul with 14:17 remaining and sat for the next eight minutes,
finishing with five points.
Mathis' reverse layup and Watson's putback gave the Cavaliers a
70-65 lead with two minutes remaining.
After misses by Mike Sherrod on consecutive possessions, Mathis
went inside for another score and Mason sank two free throws to
extend the lead to 74-65.
Virginia, in the midst of a school-record 25-game nonconference
winning streak, was coming off a 61-55 victory over No. 16
Georgetown on Thursday night.
Rutgers' winning streak started after the team opened the season
by losing to East Carolina and Virginia Commonwealth.
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