Jaden Schutt and the Hokies made 11 of their 21 3-point attempts in Saturday's win at UVa. (Virginia Tech athletics)

CHARLOTTESVILLE — The Hokies played well but needed a little bit of luck at the end to fend off Virginia for a 75-74 victory on Saturday afternoon, their first win in John Paul Jones Arena since 2018.

Virginia Tech (10-12, 5-6 ACC) led for 35:44 and had a 13-point cushion with 6:32 remaining, but the Cavaliers (10-12, 3-8) made one final push. Tech missed five free throws in the final two minutes and let UVa hang around, yet Andrew Rohde’s would-be game-winning floater at the buzzer didn’t fall.

“Any win on the road is meaningful,” Tech head coach Mike Young said after his first win in Charlottesville. “They’re so hard to come by. … Proud of our team.”

The Hokies did nearly everything right except knock down foul shots in the clutch. It started with their aggressiveness out of the gate. They set the tone early by getting to the free throw line in the first half, where they were 9-of-10. For comparison, they had taken just nine combined foul shots in their last three trips to UVa. (They finished 14-of-23 from the foul line after missing eight of their 13 second-half attempts.)

“I thought we were driving well, getting to the hoop,” Hokies guard Jaden Schutt said. “Usually the team that draws more fouls is just a credit to being more aggressive. I thought guys were getting a great job of getting downhill, and I kept looking up at the scoreboard. Not gonna lie, I was surprised. We got them in foul trouble, got them going and shot well from the free throw line in the first half, could have done a little bit better in the second half, but just a credit to teammates being aggressive.”

That put the Cavaliers on their heels and forced them to collapse on the paint, opening things up on the outside for Tech, who had its best-ever 3-point shooting game in JPJ at 52 percent (11-of-21). Schutt, who had a career-high 18 points, was the driving force and made four of his eight looks.

The ball moved, too. Eight of the Hokies’ 11 3-point makes were assisted, a few of them skip passes to Ben Burnham in the corner. He knocked down two huge ones from that spot with a defender in his face.

Tech was efficient overall, though. It averaged 1.25 points per possession and shot 52 percent from the floor (25-of-48). It also took care of the ball, giving it away just seven times, and point guard Ben Hammond did not turn it over in 29 minutes of action.

Ben Burnham knocked down two corner threes off great ball movement from the Hokies. (Virginia Tech athletics)

“I think Coach [Christian] Webster had a great scout and we did a good job of following it,” Burnham said. “It started on defense with chasing all those actions, and I think we did a good job, and then on offense, we played well.”

“Knowing how they’re guarding ball screens, knowing the fill-behind guy is going to be open,” said Hammond, attributing the offensive success to the scout. “That’s [where] the cross-court passes that you saw [came from]. Just knowing how to read ball screens and I feel like me and [Brandon Rechsteiner] did a good job of that today.”

Everyone got in on the action. Tobi Lawal dropped 17 points, 12 of which came in the second half (including two huge buckets in the last three minutes). Burnham racked up eight, Jaydon Young and Mylyjael Poteat each chipped in seven, Hammond had six, Tyler Johnson added five, Patrick Wessler posted four and Rechsteiner rounded things out with three.

It was the first time Tech scored 70-plus in a victory in Charlottesville since Jan. 6, 1968.

Hammond, the Paul VI product and only Commonwealth native on the Virginia Tech roster, was huge on both ends. He played with a chip on his shoulder, too, considering he wasn’t recruited by the Cavaliers out of high school.

Leading up to Saturday, he was just 4-of-25 in the last four games since returning from a foot injury that forced him to miss two contests. However, he made two of his three looks against UVa, including a clutch floater over Dai Dai Ames at the end of a possession with 1:08 remaining.

“I knew the shot clock was going down, we needed a shot to go up,” Hammond said. “I felt like I could take my man one-on-one and get to that. I work on that floater a lot. That’s a big-time shot I feel like I hit and it helped us win the game.”

Defensively, he guarded the Cavaliers’ leading scorer, Isaac McKneely, a matchup that involved chasing through and around screen after screen. Yet, he and those that rotated onto McKneely fared well and limited him to just 2-of-7 from behind the arc. He finished with 19 points, but seven of those came from the foul line.

Ben Hammond made some important plays on both ends for the Hokies in their win at UVa. (Virginia Tech athletics)

“We spent an inordinate amount of time on matchups,” Young said. “Who can guard who, who cannot guard who. We don’t have a great matchup [for McKneely]. We don’t. And his cutting and the sides action that they’ve run forever, and Isaac has been in that stuff.

“I thought Ben Hammond did a remarkable job throughout. I thought Rechsteiner, all-in-all, did a good job. Just a smaller, quicker person that can run with him and get on that outside shoulder and not get hit with those pindowns. Ben Hammond did a masterful job.”

McKneely kept Virginia in the game early, but Rohde was a big reason why it hung around. He finished with 12 points, nine of which came in the final 6:12. After the team shot a 41 percent clip in the first half (12-of-29), Rohde helped the Cavaliers find their stride in the second (14-of-25, 56%).

At the same time, Tech endured its lone drought of the game. At the final media timeout with 3:02 left, it had missed seven of its last 10 shots. However, it dug deep and found a way to respond — through Lawal and Hammond — before getting a little lucky at the end after missing some foul shots.

It was the Hokies’ second road victory of the week after handling Florida State in Tallahassee on Wednesday. They’re now 3-3 in opposing venues this season — an improvement after last year’s squad was 2-10.

“We’re getting better now,” Young said. “We’re not as aesthetically pleasing as I would like us [to be], [how] we’ve been in the past, but we’re growing. I’m really enjoying coaching them. We’re a lot sharper and cleaner. And don’t ask me why it took until the first of February to finally get to that point.”

Tech is back at home on Wednesday vs. SMU (17-5, 8-3) before traveling to Notre Dame on Saturday.

Box Score: Virginia Tech 75, Virginia 74