CHARLOTTESVILLE—Jasmine Thomas scored 22 points and No. 4 Duke used an 11-0 run to pull away in the second half tonight for a 81-67 victory against No. 17 Virginia. Karima Christmas added 18 points for Duke (19-2, 7-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), which used a 27-9 run to end the first half to take the lead and never let the Cavaliers get any closer than three again. When Virginia pulled to 50-47, the Blue Devils scored 11 straight.

Legislation to increase the number of in-state students at some top-tier Virginia colleges and universities was sent yesterday to the House of Delegates’ budget committee. The move complicates the fate of the bills, which now are before a panel trying to balance a state budget amid a $3.2 billion deficit. News of the legislation is spreading on campuses and sparked the College of William and Mary’s Student Senate to pass a resolution in opposition of the effort. Four related bills, now all in the House Appropriations Committee, seek to require public colleges and universities to admit at least 70 percent of their undergraduates from within Virginia.

CHARLOTTESVILLE—Tyrese Rice and Rakim Sanders scored 20 points each as the Boston College Eagles beat the Virginia Cavaliers 80-70 tonight. The Eagles (6-3 Atlantic Coast Conference, 18-6) led 42-22 at halftime, limiting the Cavaliers to six first-half field goals. Virginia (1-6, 7-11) lost its sixth straight despite a career-high 32 points by freshman Sylven Landesberg. Jeff Jones added 10 points, but on 2-for-11 shooting as the U.Va. guards besides Landesberg, were a combined 6-for-34 from the field. Virginia shot just 33.3 percent overall (23-for-69).

CHARLOTTESVILLE - To University of Virginia men’s basketball coach Dave Leitao, it’s one of 16 ACC games. Important, yes, but not necessarily more so than any other regular-season game. Leitao’s players see tonight’s test at John Paul Jones Arena differently. As point guard Sammy Zeglinski put it Sunday afternoon in Durham, N.C.: “I think it’s a must-win for this team . . . I feel like we gotta go back home and get this win.“

CHARLOTTESVILLE Virginia doesn’t have to fear the turtle any more. Respect? Yes. Fear? No. The 19th-ranked Cavaliers rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit to jolt the No. 8-ranked Maryland Terrapins 89-81 tonight in an emotion-charged ACC women’s basketball game in John Paul Jones Arena. The victory, constructed upon a 30-point explosion by senior guard/forward Lyndra Littles and a 28-point outburst by junior guard Monica Wright, erased two conspicuous blemishes from U.Va.‘s résumé. It snapped Virginia’s 17-game losing streak against members of the ACC’s Big Three: Maryland, Duke and North Carolina. And it gave the Cavaliers their first home-court conquest of a Top-10 opponent since 2003.

TAMPA, Fla. Elton Brown has been with Arizona only four years, but he has been a Cardinal long enough to know what a trip to the Super Bowl means. “It’s like the commercial—priceless,“ Brown said. “You can’t put into words what it feels like.“ A fourth-round pick in 2005 after a stellar career at Virginia, Brown has been a part of Cardinals history, being part of a team that went from successive 5-11 seasons his first two years to Super Bowl XLIII.

The University of Virginia’s endowment again ranks among the nation’s largest, despite the toll the economy has taken on its investments over the past six months. In its annual report on endowments, the National Association of College and University Business Officers ranked U.Va.‘s cache at 20th for the fifth consecutive year, at a value of roughly $4.6 billion as of June 30.

The Memphis Grizzlies have fired coach Marc Iavaroni after a lackluster 11-30 start. Team spokesman Dustin Krugel confirmed Iavaroni’s dismissal Thursday night but would not say who would coach the Grizzlies on Friday night against the Knicks. General manager Chris Wallace was traveling to New York. Iavaroni—who played at the University of Virginia 1975-78 and went on to an 11-year NBA playing career—coached the Grizzlies to a 22-60 record last season—his first as an NBA head coach.

On Jan. 20, 2005, George Bush was sworn in as president of the United States. On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. The University of Virginia decided to suspend classes on only one of these important days. Can you guess which one? Arthur Garson Jr., the executive vice president and provost of UVa, announced by e-mail that classes will be suspended on Jan. 20, 2009 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., in honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama. In 2005, while I was an undergraduate at UVa, classes carried on as usual for George Bush’s Inauguration Day.

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Officials at the University of Virginia are listing infrastructure projects to have ready should Congress choose to assign economic-stimulus money for higher education. Cheryl Gomez, U.Va.‘s director of energy and utilities, said the projects are those that could be started quickly. Dozens of college and university presidents recently called for federal stimulus money to be made available.

Red Bull, the industrial-strength caffeinator that’s a staple among college students, has a yet-to-be-published book charting its iconic rise—thanks to engineering students at the University of Virginia. Born of an idea to dissect the life of an everyday consumer product, professor Edmund Russell originally wanted the students in his Western Technology and Culture class to research Dinty Moore beef stew.

CHARLOTTESVILLE—University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III will not receive a pay raise this year. The decision was made during a meeting of the university’s board of visitors’ executive committee yesterday. It followed recent news that the school’s endowment took a nearly $1 billion hit since the country began its spiral into recession.

Virginians and most other Americans believe global warming is a real and serious problem, a poll says, and they want local, state and federal governments to do something about it. They’re split, however, on what should be done. Those results from national and state-level polls measuring public attitudes on climate change were released yesterday during the National Conference on Climate Governance at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

The University of Virginia will host an open house for U.Va. Graduate Engineering Programs on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Room 232, at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, Abingdon. Dr. James Groves, director of the U.Va. Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program, will present information about the engineering programs, answer questions and offer information regarding the application process.

CHARLOTTESVILLE Mike Zoghby liked working at Starbucks, but the mandatory hours were too much for the second-year student to handle this school year. Zoghby needed something flexible. A job where he could make friends, have a few laughs and occasionally break away from the University of Virginia’s architecture school that’s devouring a lot of his time.