When the Virginia basketball team finds a groove on both ends of the floor in the same game, it can quickly become a long night for the opponent. That’s exactly what happened to Clemson on Friday in the ACC Tournament Semifinals. The Hoos won nearly every statistical category and cruised to a dominant 76-56 win.
UVA took the lead for good a little less than six minutes in and led by double digits for the final 21 minutes. The dismantling of the Tigers was so thorough that it prompted ESPN’s Dan Shulman to say that “impressive doesn’t do it justice” in the closing moments. The Wahoos have won 14 of the last 15 meetings in this series.
Clemson coach Brad Brownell credited the Cavaliers on a strong performance Friday.
“Congratulations to Virginia. They played really well tonight. They obviously were clearly better than we were,” Brownell said. “We thought at times we were a little step slow, and some of it is stylistically playing them. They’re probably the hardest team in the league to play against in terms of what it takes, consistency of effort and discipline. … But they were just better, a little bit quicker to the ball, and they just played much better than we did tonight.”
Virginia first started to pull away late in the first half as a four-point game with 4 minutes to go suddenly became a 12-point lead at halftime. The Hoos capped the first half on an 8-0 run fueled by Armaan Franklin and Jayden Gardner, who each had an offensive rebound and putback in addition to another bucket in the closing moments.
UVA stacked a strong start to the second half behind that finish to fully squeeze the comeback hopes out of Clemson. The opening outburst took the form of a 15-4 run that essentially served as a knockcourt punch with nearly 14 minutes remaining. Franklin and Gardner had their fingerprints on the surge this time too with the first 6 points of the half, but Kihei Clark, Reece Beekman, and Kadin Shedrick contributed as well with a 3-pointer, layup, and dunk respectively. Shedrick’s dunk at the 13:45 mark gave the Hoos their largest lead at 23 points and it never dipped below a 14-point advantage the rest of the way.
Three of the Cavaliers’ flashiest plays in the game came during that second half start. Franklin dropped a bounce pass to Gardner rolling to the rim at the 17:54 mark that turned into a nifty reverse layup. About 30 seconds later, Clark caught Clemson napping on defense as the defenders lost sight of the ball and he lofted a pass over everyone to Gardner for another layup at the rim. Finally, the aforementioned dunk came when Beekman drove to the baseline and sent a pocket pass up the lane line that Shedrick turned it into a slam between a pair of Tigers.
“I think the guys are taking care of the ball, they’re cutting hard, our screening has improved,” Bennett said. “They’re doing some things we don’t work on in practice. Kihei’s played so much. He and Jayden had a beautiful slip at the rim. They’re just seeing things as the game presents them and that’s the best, to me, kind of basketball when you give them a structure and then they play the game out of it. You’ve got a few actions and sets, but you want them to use their instincts and do some things well and that’s what I’m seeing happening.”
The boxscore reflected those descriptors well. Virginia shot 50.0% overall (30-60) and 35.3% from 3-point range (6-17) in the win. The Hoos had 40 points in the paint and 14 second chance points while scoring on 60.0% of their possessions (36 scores on 60 possessions) to land at 1.267 points per possession. They made 18 of 25 layups or dunks and produced 18 assists with only 6 turnovers.
Individually, Gardner, Franklin, and Clark had superb outings. Gardner led all scorers with 23 points on 10-15 shooting. He also had 12 rebounds for a double-double plus 2 assists and 1 steal. Franklin tallied 16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals, while Clark added 13 points (3 3-pointers included), 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal.
Virginia got good contributions from other players too. Beekman had 4 points and 7 more assists, giving him 37 helpers over the last 5 games. Shedrick finished with 8 points, 7 rebounds, 1 blocked shot, and 1 steal. Francisco Caffaro chipped in 4 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists, while Taine Murray had 5 points as well.
“For the most part, I think our offense, our ‘sides’ really just wears people down,” Clark said. “When you turn [the cuts] over a couple of times, I think we get the looks that we want and I think that’s how we’re able to be efficient and just try to wear them down from that.”
Defensively, Clemson struggled to find a similar rhythm to try to keep up on the scoreboard. The Tigers shot 35.9% overall (19-53) and 30.4% from 3-point range (7-23). They were just 7-18 on layups or dunks and scored just 0.933 points per possession. They committed 12 turnovers, which stood at a 20% turnover rate on 60 possessions.
Three players scored in double figures, but Hunter Tyson was the only player with a good shooting night (5-9 overall and 4-8 from 3-point range). He recorded 15 points, 6 rebounds, 1 blocked shot, and 1 steal. PJ Hall added 13 points on 4-12 shooting to go with 10 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Brevin Galloway had 12 points on 4-14 shooting with 2 assists.
That simply wasn’t enough with Virginia clicking on the other end. As a result, the Hoos advanced to the ACC Tournament Championship Game for the fourth time in the Bennett era. They have won two titles, the first coming in 2014 in Greensboro against Duke. The Blue Devils will be the opponent again in 2023 after defeating Miami 85-78 in the other semi. Duke and UVA faced off once in the regular season with the Hoos winning in overtime at the John Paul Jones Arena.
“I think we’re at our best when we just sort of focus on quality,” Bennett said. “Having a good practice, a good possession, and just all of that stuff will take care of itself. We know Duke’s playing very good basketball and I think our guys are too so it’ll be for a conference tournament championship. We’re thankful that we got obviously a share of the regular season so it’s a great opportunity to just keep trying to play that quality.”
That defense is a thing of beauty.