Clemson Tigers – ACCT Semi-Finals

Virginia advances to the ACC Tournament Semis for the fourth time in the last 5 years (let that sink in), facing a scrappy, hard-nosed, defense-oriented Clemson squad. On a mere 29 hour turnaround, will the Hoos have the energy to punch their ticket to the Finals?

Game Details:

Date/Time: Friday, March 9th, 7:00 PM Eastern
Location: Barclay’s Center, Brooklyn, NY
TV: ESPN / ESPN2

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of CU:

A) Elijah Thomas is a future star. The RS Sophomore Texas A&M transfer is killing it in his first full season at Clemson. He’s an incredibly sturdy 6-9 and 237, durable (24 minutes a night in ACC play), hits the boards at both ends of the floor (Top 10 in the ACC in both OR% – 11.3% – and DR% – 24.4%), blocks a ton of shots (block rate of 10.2%, best in the ACC), and gets to the FT line consistently (3rd in the ACC in fouls drawn). He’s every bit the handful that Ray Spalding was, both on offense and on defense. Once he goes to the bench, however, there’s a major dropoff with grad transfer Mark Donnal providing very little production.

B) They’ve ridden their defense into the Top 25. Clemson put up the ACC’s 3rd most efficient defense this year (100.4 in ACC play). They’re doing this with tenacious paint defense, allowing only 44% on 2’s, blocking almost 13% of opponents’ shots (3rd in the ACC) while limiting fouls. They don’t generate a ton of turnovers; only PG Reed is a consistent threat to steal the ball. Instead they simply try to physically disrupt offensive motion, forcing teams to score in iso situations, rather than using ball movement to create shots (3rd in limiting assists). Their guards are smaller, so they can be at a disadvantage guarding bigger wings.

C) Their offense struggles in the paint. Their starting backcourt is small (Mitchell, DeVoe, and Reed are all 6’3″) and has trouble scoring around rim protection. While they’re a respectable 3-point shooting team (37%, 6th in the ACC), they’re shooting only 46% on 2’s (10th in the conference), with only Thomas and Simms over 50%, but none of the guards are reliable threats going downhill. They’re second to last in the ACC in getting their shots blocked, and are prone to giving up turnovers, many live ball, trying to get their offense moving.

Their season to date:

Clemson is 23-8 on the year, and went 11-7 in ACC play. Since losing star forward Donte Grantham against ND on 1/20, they’re only 7-5, though that includes wins over UNC and FSU at home. They most recently beat BC 90-82 in the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Keep them off the FT line. The Tigers are not a good 2-point shooting team, but that won’t stop them from attacking the lane anyways. They were 6th in the ACC at generating trips to the line, and have ridden big nights at the line to wins when opponents let them. In beating BC yesterday, they went 20/22. In wins over FSU and GT last week, they went 20/26 and 24/30 respectively. A few weeks prior they went 19/27 in upsetting UNC. Conversely, quiet nights at the line often equate to losses, such as a 3/10 night losing in Blacksburg, or 10/12 hosting Duke. Reed and Thomas are both elite at drawing fouls, though Mitchell and DeVoe can do damage as well.

2) Win the turnover battle. We collected an astounding 14 steals in our blowout win over Clemson in January. I’m not expecting the same. But it’s been a few weeks since we last were able to use turnovers as a catalyst to a win over a solid team (we haven’t generated more than 11 TOs since beating Duke, before which we had a string of 12 games with at least 11 TOs). I suspect a lot of this has been teams scheming to limit risky ball movement, though we also may be taking focus off attacking passing lanes. Honestly, looking at the numbers, there’s no reason for me to expect TO’s to play much of a role for either team, but in 1-day turnaround tourneys like this, guards playing marathon minutes may be prone to looser handles. Clemson’s starting backcourt played 39, 38, and 38 minutes today. Ours played 39, 38, 36. It’s imperative that if one backcourt starts getting loose due to fatigue, it’s theirs. This is doubly important in a game featuring two great half-court defenses… any team that can steal a few easy buckets in transition, before the opponent sets up their D, is going to have a distinct advantage.

3) Don’t be afraid to go to the rim. I know the numbers say Clemson is a very good team defending the paint, but Virginia can’t be hesitant to attack it anyways. It can be exploited with good ball movement and creative motions. BC had a lot of success playing downhill, going 12/26 in the paint and drawing 30 FTAs, getting most of CU’s big men in foul trouble (Thomas and Simms each had 4 fouls, Skara had 5). We’ve found ways to score over and around rim protection in the past, to include Ben Lammers, Anas Mahmoud, and Pascal Chukwu, by being deliberate in getting the ball to the middle of the floor and orchestrating offensive motion from there, be they kick-outs, mid-range floaters, or attacking the blocks. Jerome and Hall will both have size advantages with the ball in their hands, and shouldn’t be afraid to explot it.

Predictions:

Make no mistake, Virginia should absolutely win this game. This isn’t taking anything away from what is Clemson’s best season in ages; I almost feel bad that Tony’s historic season prevented Brownell from winning ACC Coach of the Year. And this is absolutely a very good Clemson team. Reminds me a lot of the blue collar teams we were putting out in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, who will out-tough or out-execute more talented but less disciplined teams. But Virginia is not a less-disciplined team. They key will be not feeling too confident from the January beat-down. Just as Virginia Tech quietly stewed in the wake of their early blowout loss to Virginia, and beat us at our own game a month later, I’m sure Clemson will be similarly focused to show the country that blowout was a fluke. They’ve now learned to play without Grantham (our first matchup was CU’s first game without the star forward), and are trying to regain momentum going into the Big Dance.

But we’ve been here before, and as I’ve been saying over the last week, we’re not #1 for nothing. Clemson won a track meet against an exhausted BC squad, and the defenses got abandoned in a 47-46 second half. If Virginia keeps its legs under them (not a given, I’ll admit), then it has good matchups around the floor, with Clemson’s only real advantage coming with Thomas paired against Salt. At every other position on the floor, the bench, and the clipboard, give me the Hoos.

Hoos Win – 69-55