Sweet Revenge: Gardner’s 23 Points Leads Virginia to 75-65 Victory over Clemson in Rematch
What a difference 13 days can make.
Less than two weeks ago, a matchup between these exact same teams resulted in a 17-point Clemson victory in which Virginia shot 36.6% on its home floor. On Tuesday night at Clemson, UVA shot 54.3% from the field and, behind 23 points from Jayden Gardner, the Cavaliers defeated the Tigers 75-65 for their second-straight ACC road win and their sixth-consecutive victory at Littlejohn Coliseum.
The shooting percentage was just one of many areas in which Virginia was vastly improved from two weeks ago.
When Clemson defeated Virginia on December 22nd, the Tigers outscored the Cavaliers in the paint 22-12. On Tuesday night in Clemson, the Tigers had 22 points in the paint again, but this time around, the Cavaliers had 34 paint points.
Clemson scored 24 points on 14 Virginia turnovers the last time these two teams played. UVA took much better care of the ball in the rematch, turning the ball over just nine times, the same amount as Clemson.
In the previous meeting, Clemson outrebounded Virginia 35-26 and scored eight second chance points. This time, UVA won the rebound battle 28-23 and had 10 second chance points to just four for Clemson.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Virginia’s bench outscored Clemson’s bench 15-4, an outcome which seemed extremely improbable coming into this matchup after the Tigers’ bench unit outscored UVA’s 17-0 in the last game. Francisco Caffaro gave Virginia a huge lift off of the bench, playing 19 minutes at the center position with Kadin Shedrick struggling with foul trouble. Caffaro was a perfect 3/3 from the floor and 2/2 from the free throw line and scored eight points, including a powerful one-handed dunk in the second half.
Kody Stattmann also had a solid game off the bench, recording five points, two rebounds, and two assists in 14 minutes played.
Virginia’s offense has seemingly undergone a major transformation in 2022. In the last two games, the Cavaliers have been smoothly running their offensive sets and producing open looks with an efficiency that did not seem possible a week ago. UVA had six different players score at least eight points, led by Jayden Gardner, who scored 23 points on 7/11 shooting and 9/10 from the free throw line.
Virginia made just four three-pointers in the game, but the Cavaliers also took less threes (14), working hard to generate clean shots from inside the arc and refusing to settle for lower-percentage perimeter shots. Gardner and Armaan Franklin, who scored 13 points in the game, were especially effective shooting from the mid-range areas of the floor. Reece Beekman tallied eight points and filled the stat sheet with four rebounds, five assists, and a steal, which he turned into a dunk on the other end.
Even with UVA’s offensive improvements, the game was a very competitive and back-and-forth affair. There were 15 lead changes and 15 ties in the game and the score was held at a single-digit margin until the very end.
Clemson had four players in double figures, led by Hunter Tyson, who once again delivered a solid performance against Virginia with 15 points on 5/8 shooting and nine rebounds. The Tigers, who lead the ACC in three-point shooting percentage at 41.0%, made nine threes in the game, including five in the first half. Both teams had 10-0 runs in the first half and Clemson took a 37-36 lead into halftime.
The second half was also tightly-contested, with neither team leading by more than four points until the final five minutes of regulation.
A three-pointer by PJ Hall gave the Tigers a 57-56 lead with 8:08 remaining. Then, Virginia’s defense clamped down on Clemson, who did not make another field goal until nearly seven minutes later.
The two teams had been trading small leads until that point and then UVA used the Clemson drought to go on a run. For the second game in a row, Kihei Clark hit a big-time three-pointer to give Virginia a bit of separation, extending the lead to 67-59 with a little over four minutes remaining.
Clark finished with eight points, four rebounds, and two assists and went 2/5 from three-point range.
Kadin Shedrick and Jayden Gardner made a series of clutch free throws down the stretch that sealed the victory for Virginia, who remained perfect on the road in ACC play this season. With the win, UVA improves to 9-5 overall and 3-1 in conference play.
Up next, the Cavaliers will play their third-straight road game as they head to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina on Saturday at 1pm.
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