Virginia Opens Conference Play With a 71-55 Loss to Clemson

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia women’s basketball team (0-4, 0-1 ACC) opened Atlantic Coast Conference play with a 71-55 loss to Clemson (6-0, 1-0 ACC) on Thursday (Dec. 10) at John Paul Jones Arena.

Clemson led for all but 14 seconds of the game, but the Cavaliers narrowed an 18-point deficit down to seven points in the fourth quarter before the Tigers managed to hold on for the victory.

Redshirt sophomore guard Amandine Toi (Paris, France) scored a career-high 23 points, going 5-of-9 from three-point range. Grad student Emily Maupin (Charlottesville, Va.) led the team with six rebounds, also adding six points. Danae McNeal came off the bench to score a team-high 11 points for the Tigers.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Clemson jumped out to an early 8-2 lead, but eight-straight points from Toi, in the form of two threes and a layup, over a span of 1:11 gave UVA a 10-8 lead. Clemson responded by scoring the next seven points, eventually outscoring the Cavaliers 15-4 in the final five minutes of the period to take a 19-12 lead.

Clemson went on a 13-0 run in the second quarter to build up a 43-27 lead at the break. Virginia did not make a field goal in the final 7:53 of the half, going 0-of-8 from the field in that stretch.

The Cavaliers fought back in the third quarter with an and-one from freshman guard Kaydan Lawson (Cleveland, Ohio) followed by a three-pointer from Toi cutting the deficit to 10 points, 50-40. In the fourth quarter, Toi’s fifth trey of the game got the deficit down to single digits, 55-48. Clemson mounted a 12-2 run to build back up a 69-52 advantage, a run ended by another and-one from Lawson.

FROM HEAD COACH TINA THOMPSON

“I want to start with just saying that I’m extremely proud of my kids. I mean, we went into this game, knowing that we had six, and Deja (Bristol) tried to tough it out so we had her for part of the game, but I thought that we played really tough and we were very resilient. We went into this game knowing that it wasn’t going to be an easy feat. That Clemson was a tough team. They played hard, they go downhill, they play a lot of people and we don’t have a lot of people to play. So the fact that our kids didn’t fold and they continued to fight. It’s a product of just kind of what we talked about daily and what we’re teaching them and how we’re building them. Not an easy circumstance that we’re in right now, but it is what it is and we’re going to continue to show up and we’re going to continue to fight.”

NOTES

• Virginia shot 29.5 percent (18-of-61) while Clemson shot 43.1 percent (25-of-58)
• Clemson held a 49-34 advantage in rebounding
• Amandine Toi scored 12 of Virginia’s first 16 points
• Toi’s 23 points was the first 20-point game by a Cavalier this season
• Eleven different players scored for Clemson with the bench contributing 40 points
• Sophomore guard Carole Miller (Alexandria, Va.) scored eight points with five rebounds and four assists

ON THE HORIZON

• Virginia has two road games remaining on the schedule before breaking for the holidays, playing at Florida State on Sunday (Dec. 13) and Virginia Tech the following Sunday (Dec. 20). Both games will be televised with the FSU game airing on the ACC Regional Sports Networks and Virginia Tech airing on the ACC Network
• The Cavaliers return to John Paul Jones Arena on Sunday, Jan. 3 to host No. 2 Louisville