CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – For a second game in a row, Virginia punished a West Coast opponent in the second half.

Thijs DeRidder scored 22, Chance Mallory added 13 and the No. 23 Cavaliers pulled away from Stanford after the break for a 70-55 win, their third straight victory.

Malik Thomas scored 11 points to go with six rebounds and three assists for the Cavaliers (14-2, 3-1 ACC).

“Out of halftime our guys did a nice job in the second defensively,” UVA coach Ryan Odom said.

Virginia held Stanford freshman star Ebuka Okorie to just 14 points, all in the first half. UVA forced six shot clock violations.

“He’s tough to guard,” Odom said. “We talked all week about guarding him with five guys and not one, trying to keep him off balance.”

UVA led by as many as nine in the first half, but Stanford pulled within a single point, down 31-30, after a Dallin Hall turnover led to a corner 3 by Gealer with 3:30 left in the half.

Okorie, who came in averaging over 22 points per game and who just torched Virginia Tech for 31 on Wednesday in a 69-68 comeback win, didn’t score his first point of the game until hitting a free throw with 10:18 left in the first half.

But Okorie got rolling after that, scoring 13 points over the final 10 minutes of the half.

“It was a tight game until about two minutes to go in that first half,” Stanford coach Kyle Smith said. “Knew we had to come out and play well to start the second half. Their defense took us out of some stuff.”

Still, behind 12 first-half points from DeRidder, UVA went to the locker room ahead 41-34.

UVA dismantled Stanford’s West Coast comrade, Cal, on Wednesday night, and it used a similar second-half surge to put away Stanford on Saturday.

A 9-0 run put it ahead 51-37 with 14:49 left, then back-to-back 3-pointers from Sam Lewis stretched the margin to 57-39 with 12:21 remaining.

Virginia plays at No. 20 Louisville on Tuesday, its first matchup with a ranked opponent this season.