The Tigers are off to their best start in nine seasons heading into Tuesday night's game against the Cavaliers.
There are multiple factors that play into Virginia’s yearly defensive mastery since coach Tony Bennett took over the program, but it’s not as complicated as one might think.
“Tony is of the philosophy of simplicity in execution,” said Clemson coach Brad Brownell, whose team travels to face the Cavaliers on Tuesday night. “They don’t do a lot of different things on either end of the floor, but what they do, they do about as well as you can. Their kids buy into it and play extremely hard.”
Clemson is off to its best start in nine seasons and Monday moved up two spots to No. 18 in the AP Poll, its highest slot since January of 2010. The Tigers are 16-3 and tied for third with Duke and North Carolina at 5-2 in the ACC with UNC playing at Virginia Tech on Monday night.
Virginia sits atop the standings at 7-0 and at 18-1 overall is ranked second in the nation to Villanova. The Cavaliers have won 10 consecutive games since taking their lone loss at West Virginia in early December. In six of those wins, they’ve held six opponents to 52 points or fewer.
“I think they fit together as well as any team in the country,” Brownell said. “Their offensive and defensive styles are conducive to winning for the way they play. They don’t push the ball often so they stay out of transition offensively and that obviously helps keep you out of transition and you’re constantly having to try and beat them in a half-court game and they don’t make many mistakes.”
Virginia tops the nation in scoring defense in allowing only 52.4 points per game, five points clear of second-place Cincinnati and one of only three teams allowing less than 61.6. The Cavaliers are second in field-goal percentage defense at 36.6 percent and have committed the third-lowest turnovers per game at 9.37.
Of course, playing Bennett’s grinding, slow-paced style doesn’t help point production and the Cavs are just 283rd in the nation in scoring at 69.6 points per outing.
Brownell credited Bennett’s ability to recruit players to nicely fit his approach, in addition to his schemes, while also giving a nod to Virginia’s strength and conditioning program for allowing the team to play with a constant ferocity on the defensive end.
“They don’t play very fast so because of that they’re in half-court possession games and just out-execute you,” Brownell said. “Because they don’t run as much, they don’t turn it over, and don’t take very many quick shots so that doesn’t help you increase your tempo or get very many easy shots or create opportunities to push it as much as normal teams.”
Of course, Brownell made his mark as a defensive guy and the Tigers aren’t too shabby on that end, either. Clemson ranks sixth in the ACC and is tied for 32nd nationally in points allowed per game at 65.2. One of the Tigers' strengths this year has been the ability win games at all sorts of tempo and whether the winning number has been in the 80’s or in the 60’s.
“We’re not going to run into Charlottesville and score 80 points, I wouldn’t be betting on that,” Brownell said. “You don’t get to 50 against those guys and us going in there minus one of our best players, we’re going to have try and figure out a way to compete in a defensive way. I can’t exactly tell you what that’s going to look like, but pretty sure it’s going to be a low-scoring game.”
Clemson will be without senior forward Donte Grantham after his career came to end with a torn ACL in Saturday’s win over Notre Dame. He was second on the team in scoring and rebounding and third in assists.
Freshman Aamir Simms (averaging 9.8 minutes per game) and redshirt junior transfer David Skara (15.1 minutes) will pick up Grantham’s minutes.
“Both guys are certainly more than capable of playing good basketball and doing some of the things we need to do to win games,” Brownell said. “I told our team we’re still more than capable of having a great year and doing great things. We’ve just got to readjust a few things and mentally can’t let this become a problem.”