A perfect night from the free-throw line helped Virginia overcome a very poor shooting performance in the first half and defeat Winthrop 69-48 Tuesday night at John Paul Jones Arena.

Mike Scott tallied 18 points and Jontel Evans 17 for the undefeated Cavaliers (2-0, 0-0 ACC), who made all 19 of their free throw attempts.

Virginia used a 24-0 second-half run against South Carolina State to win its season opener on Sunday. A similar onslaught paid dividends in this game against the Eagles. Virginia trailed Winthrop 44-41 with 10:30 to go in the game, but closed the game on a 28-4 run. The Cavs hit four 3-pointers and opened up a 61-46 lead by the final media timeout. A steal and layup by Evans with 1:37 left accounted for the final margin.

Scott grabbed eight rebounds to finish just shy of his 25th career double-double. Assane Sene contributed 10 points for Virginia, which won despite shooting 8 of 23 from the field in the first half and closing the opening stanza in a 1-for-13 slump.

Reggie Middleton, one of two Winthrop players suspended in October for disorderly conduct and fighting, led the Eagles (0-2, 0-0 Big South) with 16 points.

Winthrop did improve its long-range shooting greatly over the 21.1-percent effort in the season opening loss to Eastern Kentucky. This time around, the Eagles made 5 of 13 tries to shoot at a 38.5 percent clip.