It has been a bad year for No. 13 Clemson to have its best Atlantic Coast conference season.
With three games with regular season left, including a Saturday test at Virginia, Clemson has already collected more conferences than any other season in his 72-year-old ACC history.
Just a problem. Clemson (23-5, 15-2 ACC) still traces no. 2 Duke (25-3, 16-1) in the conference position. While Tigers gave Blue Devils a defeat 77-71 on February 8, the game remains the only spot on Duke’s Conference Record.
For one down year for ACC, the tigers have not received any help in their quest for Blue Devils.
“We’re not really talking about those things,” said Clemson coach Brad Brownell. “We just keep talking if we play well and handle business and do things properly, then we will have important games. I think an older group we have, who has reasoned with them.”
Brownell spoke Wednesday evening after Clemson rolled to his fifth straight victory, 83-68 over visiting Notre Dame. Of the Tiger’s 15 conference winnings, 13 have come with two -digit margins.
Most of the victories have been surgical and stress -free for the business -like team with a veteran starting lineup.
Against the Irish of the battle, Tigers led for all except 70 seconds and published 23 assists and only four turnover for the second best assistant-to-round relationship in program history. Viktor Lakhin and the Chase Hunter brothers and Dillon Hunter contributed five assists without turnover.
Clemson also dominated inside against Notre Dame when 6-foot-8 Ian Schieffelin made 9 out of 11 shots and got a career high 24 points with nine returns. At the same time, 6-11 Lakhin beat 8 out of 17 shots for 18 points.
Clemson takes a winning line on six games to Virginia, which has been on his own at the top. Cavaliers (14-14, 7-10) have won four of their last six, including an 83-75 road upset by Wake Forest on Wednesday.
Cavalier’s surge has been emerged by their backcourt. Isaac McKneely preserved 10 out of 14 shots for 27 points against the Demondia cones.
“They cut down the lead and we drew a couple of documents for him and he delivered to give us some separation,” said Virginia Interim coach Ron Sanchez. “To be able to do it as a marked man in the scout report, it’s really impressive.”
During the last five games, McKneely is an average of 20 points and shoots at a 20-for-44 clip (45.5 percent) from 3-points.
Andrew Rohde has also been hot from outside and met 18 of his last 38 3-point attempts (47.4 percent). The junior has also delivered 54 assists and only 11 sales in their last nine matches.
In addition, Dai Dai Ames has had a metamorphosis for Virginia. After failing to score in two figures in one of his 13 matches in December or January, Ames made it in each match in February, while an average of 15.4 points at 59.5 percent shooting.
This is the first meeting of the team since Tony Bennett went out as Virginia’s coach. Cavaliers won 15 of his last 16 games against Clemson with Bennett at the helm. Virginia leads the series 83-53.
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