5 takeaways from Virginia's national championship win over Texas Tech

The 2018-19 college basketball season needed five extra minutes.

And after Texas Tech took an early three-point lead in overtime, Virginia used an 11-0 run to win 85-77 and secure its first national championship. The win comes a year after the Cavaliers became the first top seed to lose to a No. 16.

This year, Tony Bennett's team lost just three games - two in the regular season to Duke and one in the ACC Tournament to Florida State.

Here are five takeaways from a fantastic finish to the NCAA Tournament:

Better than advertised

The narrative that went around much of social media Sunday and Monday was that this year's championship game would be a dud. When the Red Raiders led 3-2 at the first media timeout, those opinions looked prophetic.

But it was easy to forget that two of the top defensive teams in the country also boast pretty good offenses.

Virginia scored 85 points on 70 possessions, the most efficient performance against Texas Tech all season, and the second half evolved into a back-and-forth battle.

De'Andre Hunter took over the game for the Cavaliers, with Virginia scoring at will against a defense that had smothered Michigan State, Gonzaga, and Michigan.

For Texas Tech, it was a team effort, with mega contributions from the bench and renewed aggressiveness from star Jarrett Culver.

When Braxton Key swatted Culver's shot at the regulation buzzer, sending the game to overtime tied at 68 points apiece, it marked the first overtime national championship game since Kansas beat Memphis in 2008.

It was a classic game to end a classic tournament. From the Elite Eight on, three of the final seven games went to overtime, and two others were decided by one point.

Big game Hunter

The world was waiting for Hunter, a future top-10 pick, to arrive.

He scored only five points in the first half on 1-of-8 shooting. No one will remember that.

But everyone will remember his 3-pointer from the right corner to tie the game in the final seconds of regulation, and his three from the same spot that pushed Virginia ahead for good, 75-73.

The sophomore, who didn't play in Virginia's loss to UMBC a year ago, scored 27 points and pulled down nine rebounds. If one game could help assuage concerns about a prospect's draft stock - especially after a lackluster tourney - this was it.

Tech's heroic bench effort

Texas Tech sticking around until overtime was remarkable considering how the stars of this game performed.

Virginia's "big three" - Hunter, Kyle Guy, and Ty Jerome - scored 67 points. And Texas Tech's three double-digit scorers - Culver, Davide Moretti, and Matt Mooney - scored 40 points, but on 41 shots.

Culver (5-of-22) was especially inefficient in what was likely his final collegiate game. But the Red Raiders stayed in the contest because of Brandone Francis and Kyler Edwards.

The bench duo combined to average 11.5 points per game this season. They each exceeded that Monday, scoring 17 and 12 points, respectively. Francis, a senior, matched his career high on the biggest stage.

An ode to free throws

So often in college basketball, missed free throws come back to haunt a team. But in this game, every clutch-moment free throw went down.

For instance: With Texas Tech trailing by three late, senior Norense Odiase made a layup and-1 to tie the game.

With 22 seconds left, Odiase coolly sank two more free throws to extend Texas Tech's lead to 68-65 (before Hunter tied it with a 3-pointer). Odiase entered the game as a 61.9 percent free-throw shooter.

Then Virginia made all 12 of its free-throw attempts in overtime, accounting for all but five of its points in the five-minute period. The teams shot a combined 33-of-38 at the line in a high-pressure setting.

The Virginia machine

Redemption.

That will be the word used most to describe this run for Virginia a year after the unthinkable. The Cavaliers won this championship with two overtime victories (against Purdue and Texas Tech) and a one-point victory over Auburn.

But the championship is also simply the crowning achievement after a remarkable six-year run for Virginia.

The Cavaliers are 178-36 over the last six seasons, winning more than 83 percent of their games. They've also been a No. 1 seed four times during that stretch.

Depending on who returns, Bennett's team could be worthy of No. 1 next preseason, too. The machine will keep rolling.