The Virginia and Clemson men’s basketball teams both started ACC play in similarly rocky fashion as both owned 2-3 league records back on Jan. 13. Their divergent paths since continued on Saturday when UVA entered Littlejohn Coliseum and came out on top with a 66-65 win.
The victory pushed Virginia’s winning streak to six games and a record of 17-5 on the season. Now with an ACC record of 8-3, the Cavaliers currently sit in second place in the conference. The Tigers, meanwhile, continued to wander the wilderness as they fell to 4-6 in conference play and 14-7 overall.
For a team that sputtered to blowout road losses at Notre Dame, NC State, and Wake Forest, three straight Saturday road wins showed a lot of grit and resilience as the team secured its second Quad-1 win of the season.
“We weren’t good in the early part of the year,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said. “Yes I think we’ve matured. We still faltered and were wobbly down the stretch. I always say you gotta make free throws and come up with some plays, but you at least have to put yourself in that position and that’s where we’ve matured and handled some runs.”
Big performances from a couple veteran transfers displayed some of that maturity and proved huge for the Cavaliers in what was a physical matchup.
Graduate transfer Jordan Minor has played a big role in Virginia’s recent success. After not playing much at the start of the season, the forward has moved into the starting five and is proving to be a defensive force. All of this continued on Saturday when the Hoos traveled to Clemson. PJ Hall is the ACC’s second leading scorer. Minor held the big man to just 2 points in the first half on 1-6 shooting. Hall tends to try to use his strength to back down whoever is guarding him, but he struggled to do so in this matchup. The Merrimack transfer wouldn’t budge an inch on each of Hall’s post-ups, ultimately forcing him to kick it out or put up a contested shot.
In the first half, Minor played great, but didn’t actually register a single point. Coach Bennett looked to his veteran down low more in the second half, using pick-and-rolls to create room around the rim. Minor finished with 9 points on 4-7 shooting to go along with 9 rebounds (4 offensive) and 2 blocks. Still, his defense on Hall is what really stood out. While it did lead to him fouling out, Minor’s physical approach really slowed down Hall and the entire Clemson offense.
“That is exhausting doing that,” said Bennett on Minor’s defense against Hall. “Jordan was banging and gave us a lift on offense with a few plays, but that’s a load trying to always keep it out and wall up. That’s where you need your maturity and your strength, so it was good.”
After an 18-point night on Wednesday, fellow graduate student Jake Groves had another impressive game against the Tigers. There was a sequence in the first half where Groves played good defense on Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin, forcing a poor shot from the forward, and followed it up with an impressive layup on the other end that was pretty contested. Following a layup from Clemson, Groves hit a long 3 to push Virginia’s lead to 21-16 with 8:59 to play in the first half. These few possessions really show how much Groves has improved over the season. His confidence continues to grow on the offensive end, and he’s added a grittiness to his defense that makes him a great spark plug off the bench.
Groves finished with 17 points in that reserve role on 7-9 (77.8%) shooting at Clemson. That included 3-4 (75.0%) shooting from behind the arc, which pushed his three-game streak to 12-16 from downtown. He also had 4 rebounds and a key block with 4:04 left in the game to help maintain the Virginia lead.
During the Cavaliers’ six-game winning streak, the transfer is averaging 9.2 points per game, and is shooting 65.2% (15-23) from 3-point range. His impressive play off the bench is a big reason for Virginia winning games. He adds another element on offense that draws attention away from teammates, making it easier for guys like Reece Beekman and Isaac McKneely to get open looks.
Coach Bennett relies a lot on Minor and Groves and their veteran maturity seems to have changed the trajectory of this season.
“When Jake is stretching it from 3, hitting some pull-ups, he even had a kind-of post-up play when they switched [Joseph] Girard on him, that was huge,” Bennett said. “Our defense has to hold us in there, but I thought again some good stretches of offense. He had two back-to-back really good games.”
Even with those contributions, it was not easy for the Hoos. Clemson is an experienced team that came in desperate for a win. The Tigers didn’t have a great day shooting the ball, but they were able to hit some big shots in key moments to keep the game close. Joseph Girard III made a deep 3 to tie the game at 54 with 6:50 remaining. Two possessions later, Hall hit another triple for Clemson, this time giving the Tigers a 57-56 lead. After these two shots, it felt like Virginia might let this game slip away.
It ended up being the last time Clemson had a lead, though. Virginia did a great job of not getting rattled and staying composed. Guys like Ryan Dunn and McKneely, who didn’t have their best games, really stepped up in the final minutes to help close out the win, showing just how much they have matured this season too.
Dunn only had 5 points on 2-5 (40.0%) shooting, but he grabbed 2 massive rebounds in the game’s final few minutes. After a McKneely missed jumper with a little more than three minutes remaining, the sophomore went flying out of bounds to secure an offensive rebound and get his team another possession. A couple passes later, Groves hit a jumper to push UVA’s lead to 60-57. With 37 seconds left, he attacked a rebound off a miss from Minor and tapped it right back in to make it a 66-62 lead. His ability to stay involved in this game without scoring a lot of points was big for Virginia, and really showed his resilience.
“Those are the winning plays. Those are the X factor plays,” said Bennett. “That play he made to keep it in, to save it and go flying into the bench, and then that tip-in, I’ll remember those for a long time. That’s the stuff that’s gotta be in here [points at heart] to do that. He used his grit, his athleticism, and those plays won us the game as much as the four-point play and some of those other things.”
The same type of grit was shown by McKneely. The sophomore guard shot just 6-15 (40.0%) and was 1-5 (20.0%) from behind the arc. Despite not shooting the ball great, McKneely wasn’t deterred from searching for his shot each possession.
After Hall made the 3-pointer to push the Tigers ahead, it was McKneely who drove the baseline and hit a tough jumper to retake the lead. Just a couple minutes later, he hit his only 3 of the night while being fouled by a Clemson defender and completed the 4-point play. For a team that relies so heavily on Beekman, it is great to see McKneely hitting big shots in late moments of games. If he can continue to progress and become a strong option for the Hoos offensively, it’ll make this team a much stronger threat in the ACC Tournament, and hopefully beyond. He finished with 14 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists.
Overall, it was an okay shooting night from Virginia. As a team, the Cavaliers were 26-59 (44.1%) from the field, 5-15 (33.3%) from 3-point range, and 9-13 (69.2%) from the free throw line. While he didn’t shoot the ball particularly well in the second half, Beekman had another great game to record 14 points, 4 assists, and 3 steals. The senior has 21 steals during the Cavaliers’ winning streak. He leads the ACC with an average of 2.5 per game and he now sits at 215 in his career, just 8 shy of overtaking Othell Wilson for the top spot in program history. After two made free throws with 12:59 left in the game, Beekman reached 1,000 career points.
“I thought we got off to a good start defensively in the first half,” said Bennett. “We ran good offense. Obviously Jake Groves got us going and Reece was good, everybody was solid. We were really back and set against them, maybe because we made more shots, and guarded them in the halfcourt well. When they got going in transition and we had some breakdowns on the ball screens, then they started having their way. PJ, we did the job in the first half and then he started, with his physicality and experience, to take over in some ways. But we played well enough. Guys gave us lifts like Jordan and Jake. And then you need to make plays down the stretch.”
Virginia will be back on the court in just two days when it takes on Miami at home. Coach Bennett has this team trending in the right direction and the Cavaliers want that to continue. Before Saturday’s game, many experts had Clemson as a 7 seed and Virginia as one of the first five teams out of the NCAA Tournament. This road win could prove to be big for the Hoos come Selection Sunday, but they’ll need to keep stacking victories for that to remain in play.
Will pollsters ever forget UVA’s early road woes in ACC? Not only was an overrated Duke team in top 10 or top 15, ESPN had Clemson-with a 4-5 ACC record-as a 7 seed and UVA not in the bracket(s). I guess like Rodney Dangerfield: no respect. They may have to win the regular season title again, and maybe the ACC tournament too, to be finally recognized as a legitimate NCAA contender!
Minor has made a huge difference. But this group has started to come together as a team. What I really liked was their look when the game got close. It wasn’t the “deer in the headlights” from earlier in the year bur “we have this game” look.
This is a great comment. Very true.