CAVS DEFENDING ACC ROAD WIN STREAK
Showing poise, U.Va. set to face Clemson after football parade
In his native French tongue, Virginia forward Mamadi Diakite describes the soothing manner in which Cavaliers coach Tony Bennett speaks to his players in unpleasant settings with a term that loosely translates in English to “the art of talking.”
Within that explanation lies a key to the enduring success away from home experienced by No. 4 U.Va, which won its 11th straight Atlantic Coast Conference road game Wednesday night at Boston College. At noon Saturday, U.Va. (14-0, 2-0 ACC) will look to extend its victorious streak on the road in the conference at Clemson (10-5, 0-2).
When Diakite was a freshman at U.Va., he spent a lot of time processing what ACC fans were saying to the Cavaliers whenever they played away from John Paul Jones Arena. A native of Guinea, Africa, Diakite could decipher enough to gather what was being said wasn’t particularly kind.
“I was listening a lot to what people were saying,” Diakite said. “Coach Bennett is very good at what he does. He knows how to talk.
“It’s like a box, and we only worry about what’s in the box. We don’t worry about what’s outside the box. If you do that, you have a big trust between each other. That gets you to where you want to get to.”
Staying in the moment and ignoring the noise has helped create the proper mindset when U.Va. has ventured outside Char-
lottesville in the ACC. Of course, when discussing U.Va., there’s certainly something to the “defense travels” cliché.
U.Va. is in familiar positions this season near the top spots in the nation in some of the most significant team defensive categories: first in scoring defense (51.8 points per game), second in 3-point field-goal-percentage defense (25.1) and eighth in field-goalpercentage defense (37.5).
Those numbers are obviously a representation of what U.Va. has done at home, on the road and at neutral sites all season, but they also nearly mirror what the Cavaliers have done on the road in the ACC during their 11-game winning streak, which is tied for the fourth-longest road winning streak in conference history. Duke has the longest ACC road winning streak — 24 games from 1998-2001.
U.Va. has held opponents to 52.3 points per game, 37.3 percent shooting from the floor and 28.3 percent from 3-point range on their home floors during the streak.
After losing 87-68 last Saturday at Duke and 61-53 Wednesday night at Syracuse, Brad Brownell is trying to avoid his first 0-3 ACC start in his ninth season as Clemson’s coach.
“This happens to us a lot,” Brownell said regarding Clemson’s difficult opening stretch of ACC games. “I think the league obviously has certain times they want certain teams to play. Duke and (North) Carolina are never going to play in January, so that’s obviously going to have a trickledown effect to other teams. We’ve had a lot of times where we’ve had five games and four teams are top-25 teams at the beginning of the (ACC) season, so it’s not something we’re not familiar with.”
Experienced backcourts will be on display Saturday, with Clemson seniors Marcquise Reed (19.3 ppg, 5.2 rebounds per game) and Shelton Mitchell (13.1 ppg) squaring off against U.Va. juniors Kyle Guy (15.4 ppg; made 14 of 21 3-pointers in U.Va.’s last three games), Ty Jerome (13.5 ppg) and redshirt sophomore De’Andre Hunter (14.1 ppg). Clemson center Elijah Thomas (13.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg), who was an All-ACC Defensive team member last season, has continued to expand his offensive game.
U.Va. might have an extra dose of distractions. A celebration is scheduled on campus at Clemson to honor the Tigers’ football team, which beat Alabama on Monday night to win the national championship.
Two years ago, U.Va. was coincidentally at Clemson for a men’s basketball game the same Saturday the Tigers’ faithful was celebrating a football national championship after beating Alabama.
U.Va. came away with a 77-73 win two years ago. Jerome anticipates that he and his teammates will show the same level of resolve Saturday they always have on the road.
“It definitely helps being at home, but I know it’s our poise as a group,” Jerome said. “We try to stay super-calm on the road. I try to make sure everybody is calm, especially on the road, because if the other team goes on a run, the crowd will go pretty crazy, especially if it’s a really hostile environment.”