The Virginia men’s basketball team welcomes Clemson to John Paul Jones Arena Tuesday night for a conference game slated to begin at 8 p.m.
Ranked No. 2 in both the AP Top 25 Poll and the USA Today Coaches Poll, the Cavaliers (15-0, 3-0 ACC) appear to be heavy favorites against the unranked Tigers (9-6, 1-2 ACC). But with his team now in the thick of conference play, coach Tony Bennett said Virginia cannot afford to look past its next opponent — or any future ones.
“Every game out, you’ve gotta be laced up tight, or you’re in for wars,” Bennett said. “You can’t assume anything — and we know this.”
Clemson comes to Charlottesville playing tough basketball in the viciously competitive ACC, currently home to five of the AP poll’s top-15 teams. The Tigers — featuring a balanced offensive attack led by sophomore forward Jaron Blossomgame, who averages team highs of 14 points and 8.1 rebounds — dealt Pittsburgh its first home loss of the season Saturday, prevailing 71-62 after hanging tough with No. 6 Louisville in a 58-52 loss Jan. 7.
Clemson led the up-tempo Cardinals by four at halftime before losing ground in the first five minutes of the second half. In the topsy-turvy, heavy-on-parity collegiate basketball landscape — Texas A&M pushed No. 1 Kentucky to double overtime Saturday, and NC State upset No. 4 Duke a day later — close games are simply bound to happen, Bennett said.
“The days of just pure domination — forget record — are pretty much gone,” Bennett said. “It’s really a fine line that separates teams. … There’s such good coaches, such talented players, and everything is so well-scouted that there’s just going to be tight games.”
Last year, Virginia — paced by then-senior guard Joe Harris — escaped Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, South Carolina with a 63-58 win. The Tigers trailed by a single point after then-junior forward K.J. McDaniels’ 3-pointer with 20.7 seconds to go.
Now, Harris suits up for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and McDaniels — the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and Clemson’s leading scorer and rebounder in 2013-14 — for the Philadelphia 76ers. Tuesday’s game will be decided by those who remain — Blossomgame and Virginia junior guard Justin Anderson, for instance.
The latter player currently leads Virginia in scoring at 14.8 points per game and — with 36 makes on 64 attempts — has been the ACC’s most accurate 3-point shooter to date. Per columnist Matt Comey’s tabulations, Anderson has been the Cavaliers’ most valuable player so far this season.
Anderson hasn’t always been such a threat from beyond the arc, and Clemson coach Brad Brownell said he is now “a whole different weapon” for Virginia.
“His improved ability to shoot the ball makes him extremely dangerous,” Brownell said. “He’s certainly as athletic as probably anybody in the ACC, but now when he’s able to rise up at 22 feet and shoot it in, it extends your defense, it opens things up in the interior for some other players and it just creates spacing problems for you defensively.”
Anderson’s closest Clemson counterpart in terms of long-range marksmanship might be senior guard Damarcus Harrison, the Tigers second-leading scorer at 10.7 points per game and a 40 percent 3-point shooter. His backcourt running mate, fellow senior guard Rod Hall, distributes the ball for the team — he leads Clemson with 51 assists against a team-high 38 turnovers — while also putting up 9.3 points per game.
Junior center Landry Nnoko and freshman forward Donte Grantham round out the starting five. Nnoko is a presence inside with 30 blocks in 15 games, while Grantham scores 10 points per contest.
Brownell said his Tigers do not favor a run-and-gun style of play while noting that Virginia — the nation’s stingiest scoring defense, at 51.1 points allowed per game — makes it hard to push the tempo, anyway. He credited Bennett for molding Virginia into a team with a coherent identity.
“Their defense and their offense match,” Brownell said. “Defensively, they grind you, so they’re used to long possessions. Offensively, they can be methodical when they need to be to just wear you down for a mistake or for the best shot. You know, it’s not just a good shot — they want the best shot each possession.”
The Cavaliers now sit behind only Kentucky in the national rankings, and there is buzz around the team. Asked about all the “talk,” Bennett said Virginia must stay the course mentally.
“It’s, again, how you process it — [how] your young men do — and what you do with it, and again staying true to what you know is the truth about your team [and] your players,” Bennett said.
Additionally, the Cavaliers will likely look for continued strong play from senior forward Darion Atkins, who led Virginia with 14 points and eight rebounds in a 62-56 win against No. 12 Notre Dame. Atkins scored two points in five minutes against Clemson last year, when he played 10.4 minutes per game as part of a deep frontcourt headlined by forward Akil Mitchell. This year, that figure is up to 20.1, just more than half the game.
"I was confident — the pace of the game was steady,” Atkins said after the Notre Dame game. “Maybe it was the atmosphere, but I was on tonight."
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