No. 21 Virginia bounced back from its only home loss of the season by pulling away from visiting Boston College for a 66-49 Atlantic Coast Conference victory Thursday night.

Boston College (7-13, 2-3 ACC) tied the game at 44-44 with 10:29 left, but the conference’s worst offensive team was overmatched by the ACC’s best defense and made just one two field goals the rest of the way.

It was a convincing win for Virginia (16-3, 3-2 ACC), which showed it could dominate defensively even without 7-foot center Assane Sene, who was injured last weekend and will be out until March. The win proved a solid confidence builder for Virginia heading into Saturday’s matchup with a much more powerful N.C. State team, which is third in the ACC in scoring and is tied with Virginia with two losses in conference play.

The Cavaliers still relied on the interior Thursday, though, as versatile forward Mike Scott scored a game-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Virginia also employed a four-guard set down the stretch that pushed the tempo and the lead.

The Cavaliers limited the Eagles to just eight assists and forced 15 turnovers, including back-to-back takeaways after Boston College clawed back from an eight-point deficit at the break to tie the game midway through the second half. The Eagles were led by 12 points from Ryan Anderson, who also had a game-high 10 rebounds.