Senior Day in college basketball is typically played on the final home game of the season. In a season that has been everything except typical, UVA Basketball held Senior Day on Saturday, hosting #13 Clemson.
The Cavaliers conclude their home season Tuesday evening with a 9 p.m. ET tip against Florida State, so that’s why we honored the seniors at the noon tip Saturday against the Tigers instead of a late-night snoozer against the Seminoles.
It looked like it would turn out well for UVA, for a while, anyway, as the Cavaliers forged to as much as a 10-point lead early in the second half before Clemson woke up (literally) and buried Virginia, 71-58.
In the end, as the crowd of more than 14,000 headed for the exits, it was a sobering reminder of why the ‘Hoos are 7-11 in ACC play and 14-15 overall and in the market for a new head coach in less than two weeks.
Under veteran coach Brad Brownell, Clemson uses the same playbook Virginia used during a remarkable 15-year run under Tony Bennett.
The Tigers, behind an experienced eight-man lineup — six of whom have been in the program for multiple years, and three quality transfers — just overwhelmed UVA in the second half.
I won’t go as far as to say it was men-against-boys, but I’m thisclose to writing it.
Bennett’s system worked because of his ability to recruit and develop players.
If you were at Saturday’s game, neither of those skills came to my mind as the team limped from the floor as the final buzzer sounded.
Former Clemson football coach Frank Howard routinely referred to the Cavaliers as white meat when the two teams met on the gridiron.
I thought of that often during the game.
I wasn’t the only one.
Virginia’s Isaac McKneely didn’t mince words in the postgame presser, saying:” We got outmuscled at every position.”
Clemson’s dominance over Virginia was all in the frontcourt, and to be honest, did anyone expect anything but dominance?
The Tigers start 6’11” Viktor Lakhi, a Cincinnati transfer, and 6’8” Ian Schieffelin, a four-year veteran for Brownell.
Lakhi and Schieffelin tip the scales at over 240 pounds and combined for 35 points and 21 assists.
For Virginia?
(Warning: This isn’t pretty)
Elijah Sanders, a 6’8” junior but a first-year player at UVA, and 6’11″ sophomore Blake Buchanan, sophomore combined for 13 points and eight rebounds.
I must be missing something here for Virginia, right?
Oh, fellow frontcourt player Jacob Cofie, a 6’9” freshman, managed five fouls in his time on the floor, scoring zero.
After grabbing five offensive rebounds early in the game, mainly from long misses, the Cavaliers had a total of zero in the final 26 minutes of action.
Full disclosure here: I’m not questioning the masculinity of the Cavaliers bigs, by any means.
Here’s why: I left the arena following both Lakhi and Schieffelin, and those men were scary.
Schieffelin, particularly.
He looks like he stepped out of a Tom Cruise “Jack Reicher” film.
Schieffelin had his way in the second half against the overmatched Virginia frontcourt.
Scoring a game-high 21 points and 13 rebounds, he handily flipped the switch for Clemson during the second-half tsunami the Tigers unleashed.
Trailing 37-27, Clemson went on a 20-2 onslaught, in which Schieffelin scored 10 points with four rebounds, as the Tigers scored on nine consecutive possessions.
Too easy.
Virginia interim coach Ron Sanchez offered little to explain Schieffelin’s dominance.
“He willed his way,” pleaded Sanchez.
Meanwhile, back to Clemson.
The Tigers play bruising man-to-man defense.
Sound familiar?
“Our defense was elite for 30 minutes,” Brownell said. “It was about as good as it could be.”
The Tigers’ defensive effort allowed them to overcome a horrendous long-range shooting performance.
Entering the contest, Clemson was 12th nationally in three-point shooting, but it finished just 1-of-10 from bonus-land on Saturday.
With the long-distance arsenal failing, the Tigers, as Sanchez said, “willed” their way to the rim.
Virginia offered little to no resistance.
Which leads me to this: why?
Virginia is not as inexperienced as Sanchez has pleaded all season.
Buchanan is now concluding his second year as a Cavalier, having played 62 games. While his scoring and rebounding show slight upticks from his freshman season, he often plays soft and is anything but aggressive on the boards.
In his third year overall, Saunders has been Jekyll-Hyde this season for UVA.
His rebounding and scoring averages are up only marginally from last season while playing at San Diego State.
And Cofie?
That’s over my pay grade.
He’s shown no progression this season, often playing like he’s going through the motions.
Clemson scored 48 points in the paint on Saturday. This was the second straight game in which the Cavaliers’ interior defense was exploited; somehow, Virginia survived surrendering 52 to Wake Forest on Wednesday.
After Bennett’s retirement in October, maybe the dip for the Virginia basketball program should have been predicted.
But to witness the defensive collapse is inexcusable.
The “inexperienced “excuse has a shelf life.
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