1/9/02 - Overrated

By ANDREW JOYNER
Daily Progress staff writer

CLEMSON, S.C. — Nationally, the Virginia men’s basketball team is ranked No. 7. Of course, it is now tied for dead last in its own conference.
The Cavaliers dropped to 0-2 in the ACC after Clemson, a team that had previously lost to both Yale and Winthrop on its homecourt, dispatched them emphatically 68-52 on Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum.

The Cavaliers (9-2, 0-2 ACC), who are now 6-19 in ACC road games during Pete Gillen’s tenure, were looking to rebound from Saturday’s home loss and win in the ACC arena where they have had the most recent success. Virginia entered the game having won its last two contests here.

Instead, the Cavaliers, now tied with 0-2 Georgia Tech for last in the ACC, played their worst game in recent memory.

“Tonight, a lot of everything went wrong for this team,” said UVa senior forward Chris Williams, who was held scoreless for the first time in his career, in perhaps a perfect summation of the evening.

Virginia shot just 36.4 percent and made just two of its 25 attempts from beyond the arc after entering the game as the ACC’s best 3-point shooting team (38.8 percent). And the 52 points the Cavaliers scored were their third lowest total under Gillen.

The Tigers (11-5, 2-1 ACC) caused such a shooting performance by playing predominately a 2-3 matchup-like zone defense most of the game. The defense, as those shooting numbers indicate, became a riddle the Cavaliers never solved.
“Offensively, we just couldn’t make shots against the zone. Chris Williams is a good player and he finished with zero points. That’s a credit to Clemson’s defense,” Gillen said. “The crowd got behind them and it was like a tidal wave.”
That tsunami hit early in the second half.
The Tigers, who led 27-25 at the half, held a 38-36 advantage with 14:01 left when they reeled off a 20-5 run that was capped by a 3-pointer by Jamar McKnight that pushed the lead to 58-41 with 6:38 remaining.
“We separated ourselves by making our shots,” sad Clemson coach Larry Shyatt.
Even with that stretch essentially deciding the game’s outcome, Virginia’s shooting touch still never returned in the meaningless final minutes.
With 43 seconds remaining freshman Jermaine Harper hit on a trey that ended a streak of 21 straight missed 3-point attempts after Roger Mason Jr. made the first of the game with 15:58 remaining in the first half. For good measure, the Cavaliers missed their final three attempts to avoid any resemblance of a possible trend.
“I know we didn’t shoot it well but I didn’t know it was 2 for 25,” said Mason, who led Virginia with 19 points. “They were active in that zone and we just couldn’t make shots.”
Added Williams: “We figured that somebody was going to make a shot but it just didn’t work out like that.”
McKnight led Clemson with 25 points while Edward Scott netted 17, making three of his four 3-point attempts including one 24-footer during that game-turning run.
Williams, who sat the last 7:28 on the bench, was certainly not the only of UVa’s normal starters to have a poor evening. Adam Hall scored four points on 2 for 11 (0-4 from 3-point) shooting and normal starter Travis Watson scored just six points and grabbed six rebounds in his first reserve role in nearly a year. Watson, who had started 68 of 70 games in his UVa career and had started 23 straight since UVa’s contest against Missouri last Jan. 20, did not enter the game until the 15:03 mark. Gillen later said that was because he had not practiced the last two days as he has been hampered by leg cramps suffered against N.C. State.
Freshman Keith Jenifer might have been Virginia’s lone bright spot as he scored a career-high nine points.
If Williams’ comment about his team’s overall play was succinct, then Mason’s own on the performance was only slightly more verbose.
“When you don’t play defense and you don’t make shots, then you’ll go on the road in the ACC and lose. Period,” Mason said.

Virginia may have been 9-0 against the rest of the country but the Cavaliers are Oh-and-two where it matters most, in their own backyard, after a stunning 68-52 implosion against Clemson on Tuesday night.
Yes, Oh-for-two in the ACC, where the Wahoos were predicted to join the elite of the basketball-rich conference after a meteoric rise in the early season polls to No. 4 in the nation. But UVa learned an age-old axiom in the new year: there are no free lunches in the ACC.
If losing at home to North Carolina State last Saturday wasn’t enough (the defeat snapped a 14-game home winning streak), certainly the Cavaliers were knocked off their pedestal in Tiger Town, a location not exactly known for its basketball prowess. This was the same Clemson team that lost to Yale — no, that’s not a typo — Yale, six days ago. The same team that lost to Winthrop.
Who?
Not exactly the sorts of things the highly-touted Cavaliers were concerned with. Not until they found themselves down 27-25 and in the midst of a firestorm that was gaining confidence and momentum with every passing minute as Littlejohn Coliseum became a hellish experience for a team that will surely plummet from the nation’s top 10 as a result.
While the Cavaliers didn’t seem interested, the Tigers wisely tore a page out of last year’s game plans. It was the page entitled: How to beat Virginia, something the Tigers couldn’t pull off, having been swept the last two seasons by the Cavs. Still, they knew how to do it, they just couldn’t.
This time, they could. Aided by a big spoonful of overconfidence by the Cavaliers, Clemson executed the mission as precisely as a stealth special forces unit.
“We tried to keep Virginia from doing what they wanted to do,” said Clemson junior guard Ed Scott, who scored 17 points and teamed with senior Jamar McKnight (25 points) to bury Virginia down the stretch after the Cavs had drawn within a basket at 38-36 with 14 minutes to play. The Tigers went on a 20-5 run, bolting to a 58-41 lead over the next seven-minute stretch.
“That’s when the roof caved in,” said UVa coach Pete Gillen. “We lost our composure. Clemson gained confidence and momentum and the crowd got behind them. Next thing you know, it became a tidal wave.”
Clemson’s plan wasn’t anything new. It was something Xeroxed and sent out and posted on every locker room bulletin board in the ACC last year. Play zone defense, slow the pace of the game, make the Cavs win the game from the perimeter. Everybody knows — Gillen boasts about it all the time — that the Cavaliers prefer a frantic, maddening pace. The more helter-skelter, the more opponents play into Gillen’s hands.
But those wise and or patient enough, have found that it is the Cavaliers who most often panic when the tempo is not to their liking.
“We wanted to take all that away from them,” said Scott. “We knew that Virginia is a great team in the open court. That’s where they make so many of their plays. We wanted to take away their athleticism and slow them down with our zone and make them play a halfcourt game.”
After exhibiting some ability to survive halfcourt battles against the likes of Georgetown in a physical, Big East-style game a few weeks ago, the Cavs appeared armed for such a challenge in their own league. But perhaps Virginia needed to check its collective egos at the door before they took the court.
Captain Roger Mason Jr., as much as said so to teammates after the loss dropped UVa to the bottom of the ACC as Clemson gained its first win over a Top 20 Virginia team since 1980, Ralph Sampson’s freshman year.
It didn’t help that Virginia shot only 8 percent from beyond the 3-point line for the night (2 for 25) against the Tigers’ assortment of zones. Perhaps UVa was surprised because Clemson had not played a zone from start to finish all season, but Coach Larry Shyatt believed his only chance was to play either a triangle or some straight and matchup zones against the Wahoos.
That is one of the weaknesses exposed already in this young ACC season. Gillen doesn’t have the luxury of reaching to the bench for a zone-buster like Keith Friel as he did a year ago. Even though Virginia led the league in 3-point shooting efficiency coming into the game, the Hoos have been woeful when it has counted the most. Mason, who is being asked to do too much by running the team as a point guard and still putting up the big numbers as a shooter, nearly came up empty from the arc, going 1 for 8. Chris Williams, the only other proven sharpshooter on the team, was shutout for the first time in his career as the senior missed all seven shots he took, including five treys, and sat helplessly on the bench for the final 7:28 of the upset.
While Gillen criticized his team for its lack of defensive intensity in its first loss last Saturday, it was the offensive end that betrayed his frustrated team on this Southern night. UVa was a pathetic 22 for 61 (36 percent) from the field. Mason hit 9 of 16 shots. The rest of the starters were a combined 7 of 32.
“We’re tentative against the zone,” said Gillen in perhaps the understatement of the year.
Now that certain flaws have been exposed and capitalized on and those Xeroxs are making their away again from College Park to Tallahassee, what is Gillen to do?
UVa didn’t have the usual inside punch because of the ailing Travis Watson, who came out of the N.C. State loss with leg cramps, didn’t practice Sunday or Monday and didn’t start against Clemson, although he played 27 minutes as his streak of four straight double-doubles came to an end.
No one took up that slack inside. On the perimeter, Gillen experimented more with freshman point guard Keith Jenifer playing alongside Mason, freeing up the UVa deadeye for more opportunities. Jenifer, sporting a new bushy hair-do, scored a career-high nine points and committed only one turnover.
But Gillen’s answer is still out there somewhere. He hasn’t quite put his finger on the solution to UVa’s woes, which could become more complicated Saturday when the Cavs travel to Chapel Hill, where they have a less than sterling history.
“We have to dig down,” said Gillen. “Maybe we think we’re a little better than we are.”
After admitting that his team had too much confidence, now Gillen must work on their psyches to make sure it has enough. This is the nucleus of a team that beat the likes of Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri last season.
It’s up to Gillen to find the same formula before things get out of hand.

CLEMSON 68 VIRGINIA 52

CLEMSON, S.C. - Their shots aren't falling, but the Virginia Cavaliers are, and at an alarming rate. Three days after suffering its first loss, U.Va. tumbled again - this time to an ACC team that lost at home to Winthrop and Yale.

Clemson, which had dropped four straight to Virginia, romped 68-52 last night before a raucous crowd of 8,500 at Littlejohn Coliseum. The Tigers' fans waited until fewer than three minutes remained to begin the inevitable chant - "Overrated, overrated" - but they could have started much earlier.

In one of their most dismal efforts under coach Pete Gillen, the seventh-ranked Cavaliers (0-2, 9-2) led for only 1 minute and 52 seconds - all in the first half. In its home loss to N.C. State on Saturday, then-No. 4 U.Va. led for only 1:58, all before intermission.

"The bottom line is, we're not as good as we think we are," said junior guard Roger Mason Jr. (19 points), the only Cavalier to score in double figures last night.

Rarely have so many of Virginia's veterans struggled so much in the same game. To wit:

Senior forward Chris Williams failed to score for the first time in his college career, missing all seven of his field-goal attempts, including five from beyond the 3-point arc. He watched the final 7:28 from the bench.

Senior guard Adam Hall grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds, but he was 0 for 4 from long range and 2 for 11 overall.

Junior center Travis Watson, who didn't start after missing practice time with an injury, finished with six points and six rebounds, ending his string of four double-doubles.

Clemson (2-1, 11-5) came out in a zone defense and never switched to man-to-man. Who could blame it? Virginia's ineptitude from beyond the arc reached mind-boggling proportions. The Cavs entered as the ACC leaders in 3-point field-goal percentage, but they made only 2 of 25 attempts.

"The zone just totally threw us out of our game," Williams said. "It slowed the game down, and we just never recovered from it."

Mason launched his team's first trey, and it fell through to give Virginia a 7-4 lead. That was no omen. The Cavaliers missed their next 20 shots from behind the arc before reserve guard Jermaine Harper's trey with 44 seconds left. Mason was the only U.Va. starter to make more than half of his field-goal attempts, but that was deceptive. He was 1 for 8 on 3-pointers and also had six turnovers.

Only twice in four seasons under Gillen have the Cavaliers scored fewer points in a game.

"We dodged a bullet with their poor shooting," Tigers coach Larry Shyatt said.

Poor defense hurt U.Va., too, as it had against N.C. State. Clemson shot only 29.4 percent from the field in the first half - it led 27-25 at the break anyway - but hit 53.3 percent in the final 20 minutes. The Tigers scored on the break, scored down low and scored from outside. Senior forward Jamar McKnight (25 points) made 3 of 7 shots from beyond the arc, and senior point guard Edward Scott (17 points, six assists, two steals) made 3 of 4.

"In the second half, we didn't play defense," Mason said.

It was a two-point game at the 14-minute mark of the second half, but Clemson went on a 20-5 tear over the next 7:30 to end the suspense. A week ago, U.Va. was considered an ACC title contender. It looked like nothing of the sort against the Tigers.

"They played very well," Gillen said. "They got a little bit of confidence, a little momentum, the crowd got behind them, and then it became like a tidal wave. . . . The roof just caved in. We lost our composure."

Reserve point guard Keith Jenifer scored a career-high nine points and had three assists and two steals in 20 minutes.

"I thought Keith was one of the few bright spots we had," Gillen said.

Mason may have put it best:

"When you don't play defense and you don't make shots and you go on the road in the ACC, then you lose."

By Jim Reedy
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, January 9, 2002; Page D04

CLEMSON, S.C., Jan. 8 -- Clemson used red-hot shooting in the second half to turn a two-point game into a blowout en route to handing the No. 7 Virginia men's basketball team its second straight loss, 68-52, following a nine-game winning streak to start the season.

After a brutal first half at Littlejohn Coliseum in which they shot 29 percent, the Tigers hit 53 percent in the second half. Senior small forward Jamar McKnight (career-high 25 points) and junior point guard Ed Scott (17) led the charge.

After Saturday's 81-74 loss to North Carolina State, the Cavaliers (9-2, 0-2 ACC) blamed their first loss of the season on poor defense.

"When you don't play defense and you don't hit shots, you go on the road and lose in the ACC," Virginia guard Roger Mason said. "In the second half, we didn't play defense."

Frustrated by Clemson's 2-3 zone, the Cavaliers spent much of the game waiting on the perimeter for someone to post up or find a lane to the basket. Time and again, Virginia was forced to attempt a three-pointer with the shot clock winding down. Only two of its 25 three-pointers found the target.

"The zone just totally threw us out of our game," said Virginia senior Chris Williams. "We just never recovered from it. We figured somebody was going to hit a shot, but it didn't happen."

Mason led Virginia with 19 points on 9-of-16 shooting, including 1 of 8 on three-pointers. He was the only Cavalier to score in double figures. Williams, center Travis Watson and guard Adam Hall had been combining for 40 points a game, but tonight they totaled 10. Williams missed all seven of his shots to go scoreless for the first time in his 101-game college career. Hall continued to slump, hitting 2 of 11 for four points.

Watson, still bothered by the cramps that attacked his right calf in Saturday's game, did not start and was not as effective as usual when he came off the bench five minutes into the game. He had six points (2-of-5 shooting) and six rebounds. One of the misses was a blown dunk, a play on which he appeared unable to get his usual elevation.

"I can relate to how Virginia feels," Clemson Coach Larry Shyatt said. "We dodged a bullet with their poor shooting. They are certainly one of the better teams in the country. We were fortunate to dodge this particular bullet."

Despite all their problems, the Cavaliers trailed 38-36 when Hall hit one of his two field goals with 14 minutes left in the game. Fueled by the noise of 8,500 fans, the Tigers went on a 20-5 run over the next seven minutes. Down 17 points, Virginia had to play desperately for the rest of the game. It wasn't enough.

"They got some confidence and the crowd got behind them and then it was like a tidal wave," Cavaliers Coach Pete Gillen said.

At halftime, Clemson led 27-25 after the teams combined to shoot 32 percent. Virginia shot 36 percent, including 1 of 10 from three-point range. The Cavaliers were saved from a huge deficit, though, by their hosts' 29 percent shooting.

"We've just got to get our act together," Gillen said. "You've got to have character and toughness."

Mason told his teammates after the game they have to decide whether their season gets worse or better after two deflating losses. "At this point, I think we've bought into ourselves too much," he said. "We're not as good as we think we are."

Virginia men collapse in 16-point setback at Clemson
By Steve Argeris
The News & Advance
CLEMSON, S.C. - Dazed by North Carolina State Saturday, Virginia is now slipping in a quicksand of its own making. Trounced on defense, rudderless on offense, the Cavaliers were upended for the second consecutive game, this time by Clemson, 68-52, in Littlejohn Coliseum.

In the wake of Saturday's 81-74 loss to the Wolfpack, the Cavaliers (9-2, 0-2 ACC) dropped from No. 4 to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll, catching the benefits of the doubt and a slew of upsets to top-ranked teams. It is unlikely they will be so lucky this week, especially with a gut-check game at North Carolina Saturday at noon.

The Tigers (11-5, 2-1), coming off a 83-76 victory at Georgia Tech Saturday that was preceded by a loss to Yale, rode a career-high 25 points from Jamar McKnight and 17 points from Edward Scott to their second consecutive ACC victory.

The Cavaliers' big guns were mostly silent. Roger Mason Jr., as usual, led the team in scoring with 19 points, on 9-for-16 shooting. But he missed seven of eight 3-point attempts, leading a 2-for-25 performance from behind the arc by the Cavaliers.

Center Travis Watson, who has not practiced since leg cramps flared up against the Wolfpack, did not start and labored through 27 minutes with a season-low 6 points and 4 rebounds.

Chris Williams, Virginia's star senior forward, did not score in 29 minutes, his first scoreless game in the 101 he has played in a Cavaliers uniform. His previous low was four points against Florida State his senior year, and he had scored as little as five points as recently as the Rutgers game Dec. 23. He missed all seven of his shots, including five 3-pointers, and sat the final 7:28 of the game.

"I couldn't do anything, I guess," Williams said, and his feelings of impotence were shared by his teammates nearby.

After coach Pete Gillen finished his postgame remarks, Mason, a junior captain, addressed the team, informing them that "we can go two ways," according to Williams. "It can't get a whole lot worse than this."

It would be hard to imagine much worse than Tuesday's 36.1 percent shooting night against the Tigers, 15 turnovers (6 from Mason) and just 7 assists. Then throw in Clemson's 16-for-30 shooting performance in the second half, while forcing just 13 Tigers turnovers.

"We didn't shoot the ball well, and we didn't play good defense," Mason said. "When you don't play defense and you don't make shots, and you're on the road in the ACC, you lose."

The Cavaliers, who struggled to stop N.C. State from scoring during the Wolfpack's 81-74 victory Saturday in University Hall, held down the Tigers for most of the game. Clemson shot 29.4 percent in the first half - "We can't ask for anything better than that," Gillen said, - but trailed 27-25 at halftime because of its own offensive ineptness.

The Tigers forced Virginia into a slowed-down game with a zone that prevented the ball to get inside to Watson. No one was able to penetrate other than Mason or freshman guard Keith Jenifer, who had his best game yet, scoring 9 points, making 3 steals and turning the ball over just once despite heavy pressure.

"The zone just threw us out of our game," Williams said. "It slowed the game down and we never recovered. … We figured somebody was going to hit a big shot - Mase, me, Adam, Travis. It didn't work out that way."

The Cavaliers were forced to shoot jumpers, and missed, dramatically. Entering the game, Virginia had made 57 of 147 3-pointers (38.8 percent). They had never attempted or missed as many as they did Tuesday, including 20 in a row between the 15:58 mark of the first half and the 0:49 mark of the second.

"Two-for-25?," Mason asked. "I knew we didn't shoot well, but I didn't know it was that bad."

Clemson led 38-36 with 14 minutes left, then blew out the Cavaliers with a 20-5 run over the next eight minutes. McKnight scored 12 of those points, eating alive whoever Virginia used to defend him.

The Cavaliers attempted to press and run to get back into the game, but it ended up being fairly easily broken by the Tigers, who were led by the unruffled Stockman, the ACC assists leader who dished six Tuesday to go along with 7-for-13 shooting and three 3-pointers.

"He's always been a good player," Gillen said. "He has taken his game to another level."

But guard Roger Mason Jr. had a message for teammates in the locker room:

"I told them this isn't the worst it can get," said Mason, who had 19 points but six turnovers. "It's pretty bad now, and we feel terrible, but this isn't going to just go away. Everybody needs to look in the mirror and change things. We're at a fork in the road now.

"We have to play harder, that's the bottom line. Xs and Os are great and you need them to win games, but the bottom line is you have to play hard. When you don't hit your shots and you don't defend, you're going to go on the road in the ACC and lose."

Mason's point total was eight more than the other four starters combined. Senior forward Chris Williams went scoreless for the first time in his career on 0-of-7 shooting. Adam Hall was 2-of-11 and Travis Watson, coming off the bench because of leg problems, had six points and six rebounds.

"I can relate to how Virginia feels," Clemson coach Larry Shyatt said. "We dodged a bullet with their poor shooting."

If you absolutely had to pick a bright spot for the seventh-ranked-but-sinking-like-a-brick Cavaliers (9-2 overall), it would be freshman Keith Jenifer, who had nine points and two assists in 20 minutes. But that mattered little.

Mason hit a 3-pointer with 17:41 left in the first half; freshman Jermaine Harper hit another with 43 seconds left in the game. In between, the Cavaliers missed 20 consecutive attempts, hardly looking like the league's best 3-point shooting team. Virginia had no answers for Clemson's 2-3 matchup zone.

"We kept figuring somebody would start hitting," said Williams, who was benched for good with 7:28 remaining. "Either (Mason) or me or Travis -- somebody. But it didn't work out like that."

Still, Virginia was only down two at halftime and trailed 38-36 at the game's 14-minute mark. From there, Clemson (11-5, 2-1) went on a 20-5 run and took a 58-41 lead on a 3-pointer by McKnight, who had 18 after the break. The Tigers went 9-of-14 from the field during that stretch, 5-of-7 from the arc.

"We just couldn't get stops or baskets," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said.

In the 80 minutes of the past two games, Virginia has led for 4½ minutes. Now all but certain to fall out of the top 10 for the first time since mid-November, the Cavaliers face a must-win situation going to North Carolina Saturday.

"We bought into (thinking) we're better than we are," Mason said. "But we're not as good as we think we are."