The ACC has some very tough venues but among the toughest are Virginia Tech’s Cassell Coliseum and Clemson’s Littlejohn.
Roughly the same size as Cameron, Littlejohn isn’t a pit every night but for big games, it’s an amazing home court. We saw that earlier this year with Kentucky. We said at the time that playing there might give Clemson enough to beat the Wildcats and as it turned out, it certainly was.
Yes, Kentucky was (and remains) in transition from the John Calipari era to the Mark Pope era, but when Kentucky loses to Clemson, anywhere, we’re in a different era.
The other reason why we thought that Clemson might win is because of the respect we have for Brad Brownell.
He first came onto our radar when UNC-Wilmington very nearly upset Maryland in the NCAA tournament the year after they won the national title.
Not only is he a quality coach, but unable to routinely get top shelf recruits, he’s become of the best developers of talent in the game. Look at who he’s turned out lately: PJ Hall. Hunter Tyson. Aamir Sims. Chase Hunter.
He’s just exceptionally good at identifying young players who are maybe overlooked who he helps become much, much better.
Aside from that, his teams always play hard, always defend hard, and are disciplined offensively (Hunter’s unfortunate would-be clutch shots against Georgia Tech were an unfortunate exception).
One of the most interesting things that he’s changed at Clemson, that we rarely saw before he got there, is that Clemson typically has smart guards and they are often the dominant factors on his team.
And that’s quite a change from the past. When you think about Clemson basketball greats, your mind goes to guys like Tree Rollins, Horace Grant, Dale Davis, Elden Campbell. Historically, they’ve gotten guys like that.
Lately, not so much – but in our opinion, the program is as strong as it has ever been.
This year, Jaeden Zackery, a transfer from Boston College, and Chase Hunter are the base of a really good backcourt.
Zackery, a 6-1 senior, has done well in Tigertown. He’s averaging 10.1 ppg and 3.2 assists and he’s been a steady point guard.
Chase Hunter, 6-4 and also a senior, is getting 17.7 ppg, 2.9 boards and 2.4 assists.
Ian Schieffelin, a 6-8 senior, is one of our favorite ACC players. He doesn’t look like he’d be a good player – on TV, he looks pudgy and maybe not in great shape, but appearances can be deceiving because at times, the guy has just been great.
He’s been erratic this year, at least on TV, but there may be reasons for that that we’re not aware of. We’d just assume he’s going to be great. He’s a great example of Brownell’s ability to identify and develop under-appreciated talent.
Chauncey Wiggins is a 6-10 junior who has also come along nicely. He’s averaging 9.6 ppg and 3.0 rebounds. He’s a surprisingly good three point shooter, too.
Viktor Lahkin is a 6-11/245 lb. Russian kid who previously played for Cincinnati. He’s a solid inside presence who could beat up Khaman Maluach. As we’ve seen, he doesn’t always do well against more physical big men. He’s getting 10.1 ppg and 6.1 rebounds. He’s not bad.
Chase Hunter’s little brother, Dillon, has done okay. He’s a 6-3 junior who is averaging 5.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists. He’s not a great player, but he’s solid and he doesn’t hurt his team.
Jake Heidbreder is a 6-5 junior transfer from Air Force. He sat out last year with a back injury but came in with a solid reputation as a shooter.
Del Jones is a 6-2 freshman from Maryland. We haven’t seen enough of him to form an opinion, but we respect Brownell’s ability to spot talent. If not this year, maybe next.
And of course Clemson is where former Blue Devil Christian Reeves ended up. He hasn’t played a whole lot, but we’d keep an eye on him going forward, given Brownell’s talents for development.
What we admire about Brownell’s teams are that they always play hard, with great energy, and defend with passion. And in big games in particular, Littlejohn just fuels them.
Consider too that their top seven players are all either juniors or seniors. Duke has been on an impressive roll, especially the last two games, but having guys with experience is invaluable.
Back to Duke’s roll.
Other than a few minutes at the end of the UNC game, Duke has been particularly brilliant in the last two outings. We thought that they might have a letdown at Syracuse, because it’s very typical after the Duke-UNC game for both teams to not be able to reach that emotional and competitive height twice in a row.
That didn’t happen. In fact, Duke was probably better than they were against UNC. What we saw in both games though was first that Duke’s defense was superb. That’s been the case for a while though. What we saw offensively was different.
Part of it was that Syracuse is just weak and couldn’t stop Duke, but that doesn’t explain everything.
The funny thing is that while Cooper Flagg’s stats were lower than they have been (11 points, five rebounds and two assists), that’s partly because he played just 28 minutes. In the three previous games, he played 38 against UNC, 37 against NC State and 39 against Wake Forest.
However, if you watch the play we highlighted on today’s Twitter Gold, watch his passes carefully. Maybe it was that Duke was carving up Syracuse, and Flagg has been a great passer all season. However, we’re not sure we’ve seen him pass quite like that.
And we’re also seeing Kon Knueppel playing with vastly more confidence. So is Tyrese Proctor. So is Sion James. And Khaman Maluach, Maliq Brown, Mason Gillis, Isaiah Evans and Patrick Ngongba.
It’s not that Duke hasn’t played with confidence. Of course they have. However, they appear to be hitting a new level.
This is something to keep in the back of your mind too. Isaiah Evans comes from Huntersville, which is just about two hours from Clemson. He’s going to have family and friends there and he may be especially motivated to put on a show.
He’s kind of slim to deal with Clemson’s physical defense, but it won’t surprise us if he has a big night. We saw some things in the Syracuse game that he did that really impressed us. And while Mason Gillis’s absence due to illness changed the rotation, Evans nonetheless moved up. Why? Because he earned that time in practice. There were just a lot of small, smart things. He’s always got a flamethrower of a shot. Now the rest of his game is coming along.
Finally, we would encourage you to remember last year’s game in Cameron, which Proctor won at the line with :01 left and Duke down 71-70.
Brad Brownell fumed about it afterwards, saying it wasn’t the first time he had seen something like that happen in Cameron. He kind of overlooked Jared McCain’s three late steals, but forget about that for now.
Clemson has an axe to grind and we expect, at a minimum, that they’ll come out on fire at the start of the game. How Duke responds will be key. Will that swagger we’ve seen in the last two games be as robust?
One last, wonderful note: this is the game where Dick Vitale will return after about a two-year absence due to multiple bouts with cancer. For anyone to beat cancer once is impressive. To beat it twice, remarkable.
To beat it four times? In your 80’s? It’s completely insane.
Vitale has always been a font of optimism and hard work. It’s easy to listen to someone rattle on about it, but the man is 85. For him to have overcome all of this, and to return to work – again, he’s 85 – is just remarkable. The man is a lion.
We’re sure the Clemson fans will give him the respect he has earned. We’ve said this a couple of times, but it would be amazing if Clemson gave him the chance to ring the bell publicly. Aside from his own astonishing recovery, Vitale has worked tirelessly for the V Foundation to end cancer. He’s a tremendous example to anyone who is suffering from that awful disease and to honor him publicly would be entirely appropriate.
We’ll add more links as we find them.
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