Wake Forest Wake Forest/Virginia Virginia Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

Donald Hand scored 21 points, Roger Mason Jr. added 19 and Virginia used a 15-6 run midway through the second half and tough defense to pull away for an 82-71 victory over Wake Forest (No. 12 ESPN/USA Today, No. 16 AP) on Saturday night.

Coach Pete Gillen called it the best victory of the year for Virginia (16-4, 5-4 ACC), and it was the third straight to come in impressive fashion.

"It was not any X's and O's," Gillen said. "Nothing fancy. They just dug down. I thought we did it with character, with defense."

Adam Hall, a 6-foot-5 swingman who tied the ACC high with 17 rebounds, called it sweet revenge for a 96-73 beating the Cavaliers absorbed at Wake Forest after having climbed to No. 8 in the Top 25.

"After what they did to us down there, it was revenge," Hall said. "This team is out to prove a point that we belong where we're ranked."

They picked a great time to show it, too, with a raucous, sellout crowd on hand mindful not only of the importance of the game, but also of the presence of several prize recruits in football and basketball.

In the final minutes, with the Cavaliers' lead safe, the crowd began chanting "We want Diop! We want Diop!" in the direction of 7-footer DeSagana Diop of Oak Hill Academy, one of the nation's most highly sought recruits, who had played at University Hall earlier Saturday.

Diop finally rose from his seat, getting a thunderous ovation.

The Cavaliers didn't need him this night as Travis Watson finished with 10 points, all in the second half, and 12 rebounds, and Chris Williams added 14, including two momentum-changing 3-pointers.

"The three studs, Watson, Hand and Williams, all came to life at the same time," Wake Forest coach Dave Odom said of the second half. "They put the ball in their hands, spread the court and drove it at us."

The loss was the sixth in nine games for the Demon Deacons (15-6, 4-5), who have struggled since starting with 12 straight wins.

"We want to be playing the kind of basketball I think Virginia is playing right now, and we want to be playing it before Tuesday night," Odom said, looking ahead to a home game against No. 4 North Carolina.

The game turned decidedly in the Cavaliers' favor in a rapid series of events that started about two minutes into the second half.

First, Watson emerged from the locker room, drawing a huge roar from a crowd silenced when he hit the court hard late in the first half, laying prone for about five minutes before being helped to the locker room.

With the crowd still roaring, Williams hit a 3-pointer from the left wing, Hand hit one from left of the key and Mason hit two penalty free throws after Darius Songaila drew a technical.

The foul, Songaila's fourth, sent him to the bench, and when Williams added a baby hook 13 seconds later, Virginia had a 10-0 run, a 44-36 lead and all signs pointing to a night of sweet revenge for the Cavaliers.

The Demon Deacons got within four twice, but each time Virginia answered, finally using the 15-6 run to take a comfortable 65-50 lead.

Craig Dawson and Josh Howard led the Demon Deacons with 14 points each. Songaila, who was 11-for-12 and had 27 points in the first meeting between the teams, finished 3-for-7 from the field with 12 points.

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Men's College Basketball Scoreboard

Wake Forest Clubhouse

Virginia Clubhouse