ORLANDO, Fla. — If Tony Bennett wasn’t aware of the numbers, the Virginia coach was reminded enough to learn them.
Entering Thursday’s NCAA Tournament opening-round games, a No. 12 seed has upset a No. 5 seed 48 times in 128 games since 1985.
Virginia was the No. 5 seed Thursday at the Amway Center taking on dangerously talented 12th-seeded UNC Wilmington, which had put the scare of death into Duke a year ago before succumbing in the end.
So when UNC Wilmington’s Denzel Ingram buried a 3-pointer to give the underdogs a 26-11 lead over Virginia with 7:20 remaining in the first half, it all made sense, those dubious 12-over-5 numbers.
Virginia, a plodding offensive team that relies on its No. 1 ranked defense, was in trouble. UNC Wilmington was dictating the tempo of the game, and Bennett had to adjust or accompany his team home.
He did, switching to a five-guard lineup — ironically something UNC Wilmington had hoped to force Virginia into — that sparked a wild 76-71 Virginia win in a game defined by several big runs.
“It was a great college basketball game,” UNC Wilmington coach Kevin Keatts said. “Virginia just made a few more plays than us.’’
Bennett said, “That’s March Madness. The way we were down and fought back … we kept steady.’’
Virginia, which plays the winner of Florida-East Tennessee State on Saturday, held steady because of London Perrantes, who scored a game-high 24 points, and Marial Shayok, who came off the bench and scored a career-high 23 points.
UNC Wilmington had a lot of answers, but it did not have an answer for Shayok, a junior from Canada.
“We went five guards and [UNC Wilmington] had a hard time guarding him,’’ Bennett said of Shayok. “He’s a crafty scorer. He can create. He can manufacture his own shot, and we needed it all.’’
Shayok was rather matter-of-fact after the game, saying, “I just wanted to provide energy off the slow start. Personally, I just didn’t want to go out like that, and I knew my teammates didn’t either. So I just wanted to come out and provide what I could on both ends and just bring a spark.’’
So he did.
UNC Wilmington was down 73-71 with 15.7 seconds remaining, when Ingram, who had been so good all game with 17 points, turned the ball over out of bounds trying to pass to a teammate.
“It was just miscommunication,’’ Ingram said.
Virginia closed the first half with a ferocious 19-3 run to take a 30-29 lead into the locker room after facing that 26-11 deficit.
Perrantes took over from there, scoring 19 of his 24 in the second half.
“A big-time performance on a big stage, something I’ve grown fond of watching him do over the years,’’ Bennett said.
Perrantes, the engine that runs Virginia, insisted there was no panic in the first half, despite a look by Virginia that suggested otherwise.
“I said before the game [UNC Wilmington is] going to have to make tough shots for 40 minutes, and basketball’s a game of runs,’’ he said. “They came out hot. They had their run. We had ours. And then it was just back and forth in the second half. We had the last run.
“We knew at the beginning that they were going to make some tough shots. The point guard [Ingram] made some big shots with a hand in his face. Everybody seemed to have made shots. So I kind of just knew that, hopefully, they were going to start missing and we were going to start making them, and it happened.’’