GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Jayden Gardner had 23 points and 12 rebounds and No. 13 Virginia beat Clemson 76-56 on Friday night, sending coach Tony Bennett’s team to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title game for the first time since 2018, when the Cavaliers won it all.
Armaan Franklin scored 16 points and Kihei Clark added 13 for the Cavaliers, who shot 50% from the field while outscoring the Tigers 40-22 in the paint.
The second-seeded Cavaliers (25-6) will meet fourth-seeded and 21st-ranked Duke in Saturday night’s championship game at the Greensboro Coliseum. Virginia beat Duke 69-62 in overtime on Feb. 11, the teams’ the only meeting this season.
Hunter Tyson made four 3-pointers and scored 15 points, and P.J. Hall had 13 for Clemson (23-10), which is on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Virginia broke open a close game with an 8-0 run in the final 2:23 of the first half to build a 37-25 halftime lead, getting four points each from Franklin and Gardner during that stretch — with all of those points coming in the paint.
Before the start of the second half, Tyson gathered his Tigers teammates together on the court and gave an impassioned speech, imploring them to play harder.
But Clemson came up empty on its first five possessions of the second half while Virginia continued to pound away inside, opening an 18-point advantage and bringing the crowd to its feet with chants of “UVA! UVA!”
Clemson’s first field goal of the second half didn’t come until nearly four minutes in on a driving layup by Tyson, snapping a scoring drought of 7:49.
Virginia stretched its lead to 52-29 behind a powerful two-handed dunk by Kadin Shedrick off a pick-and-roll feed from Reece Beekman, and the Tigers never challenged again.
Frustration began to mount a short while later, with Tigers coach Brad Brownell getting a technical for shouting at the referees.
A RARE CHAMPIONSHIP
Virginia and Duke both have had plenty of success over the years, but they’ve only met once before in the ACC title game, with the Cavaliers winning 72-63 in 2014 behind MVP Joe Harris.
BIG PICTURE
Clemson: The Tigers are a good team — better than a lot of people think — but questions remain over whether they’ve done enough to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. Normally, a third place finish in the ACC regular season gets you into the Big Dance, but this is a down season for the ACC and with Duke, Miami and Virginia already locks to make it, the Tigers will have to sweat this one out on selection Sunday.
Noting Friday’s Semifinals – Game 2
- Virginia (25-6) moves on to face Duke (25-8) in Saturday night’s 8:30 p.m. championship game. Virginia won the regular-season meeting 69-62 in overtime on Feb. 11 in Charlottesville.
- Virginia is 46-64 all-time in the ACC Tournament and 20-24 in Greensboro. The Cavaliers are 16-9 in the ACC Tournament under current head coach Tony Bennett and 10-16 in ACC Tournament semifinals
- The Cavaliers are now 8-4 all-time as the tournament’s No. 2 seed.
- Virginia’s 25 wins are the most for the program since the NCAA Championship team of 2019 won 35. It is the Cavaliers’ sixth 25-game win season under current head coach Tony Bennett.
- The Cavaliers have won at least one game in the ACC Tournament a program-record nine consecutive years. Friday night’s win was Virginia's 15th in the tournament in the past 10 years. The program won 14 tournament games in the previous 24 years.
- With the win, Virginia’s Bennett moved into a tie for eighth place with Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton on the ACC Tournament’s coaching victories list with 16. Bennett passed three others Friday: NC State’s Everett Case, Virginia’s Terry Holland Georgia Tech’s Bobby Cremins, all of whom won 15 games in the event. All of the top seven on the list are in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame or both.
- The championship game will be only the second of the past 20 contested by the No. 2 and No. 4 seeds. It will be the 10th such meeting all-time; the No. 2 leads 5-4.
- Virginia advances to the title game for the 10th time. The semifinal victory margin is the second-largest of the 10, surpassed only by a 29-point win over Georgia Tech at the Omni in Atlanta in 1983.
- Virginia committed six turnovers against the Tigers. That’s the Cavaliers' 11th straight game with fewer than 10.
- Virginia is 2-0 versus Clemson in 2022-23 after defeating the Tigers 64-57 in Charlottesville in the regular-season meeting on Feb. 28.
- The Cavaliers are 10-5 away from home this season, including a 4-0 mark on neutral courts.
- The Tigers slipped to 23-69 all-time in the New York Life ACC Tournament and to 9-28 in tourney games played in Greensboro. Clemson is now 2-12 in ACC Tournament semifinal games.
- Virginia is 82-53 all-time versus Clemson in a series that dates to the 1935-36 season, including an 8-1 mark in the ACC Tournament. The Cavaliers have won 14 of the last 15 meetings in the series, and Bennett is now 16-4 versus the Tigers.