Clemson Clemson/Virginia Virginia Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

"The game was real boring," Hand said Wednesday night after getting 15 points, eight assists and four steals as Virginia (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today, No. 7 AP) beat Clemson 84-65.

"We played to their pace tonight. For us to be as good as we're capable of, we have to come out, play our style and just let it be known that we're going to push it. That's when we're at our best," Hand said.

In the first half, with Hand leading a fullcourt press, Virginia forced 17 turnovers and turned them into 19 points.

"We handled the ball extremely poorly in the first half, but all of the credit goes to a very tenacious, feisty Virginia defense," said Clemson coach Larry Shyatt, whose team finished with 25 turnovers.

Hand had all four of his steals in the opening half, which also featured several missed dunks and a technical foul against Shyatt.

"I wanted to go out and bring a lot of energy to the team, play with a lot of excitement," said the four-year starter who is 13th on the career scoring list. "It would have been a terrible Senior Night if we had lost."

The Cavaliers (20-6, 9-6 Atlantic Coast Conference), coming off a huge victory over No. 4 North Carolina on Sunday, were never in danger against the Tigers (11-17, 2-13), who were largely without scoring leader Will Solomon.

"I would have been happy with a one-point victory, to be honest," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said, "after the Carolina game Sunday and the emotion of Senior Night."

Solomon flew into Charlottesville earlier Wednesday after staying behind in Clemson nursing the flu, Shyatt said. Solomon played only in short bursts, was 1-of-7 from the field and finished with seven points in 18 minutes.

Tomas Nagys led Clemson with 19 points, while Dwon Clifton had 10.

Virginia led 42-33 by halftime and never let the Tigers closer than 11 points despite shooting just 41.7 percent.

Hand was 5-for-14, but missed his first seven 3-point attempts before finally connecting with 5:10 to play. Chris Williams led the Cavaliers with 17 points, and Stephane Dondon, also in his final game, added 11.

But it was Hand, who bridges the end of the Jeff Jones era, when Virginia basketball was down, to the return to prominence under Gillen, who drew his coach's - and the crowd's - biggest praise on Senior Night.

"I thought our pressure was the difference, and Donald was a big part of that," he said. "He played harder than anybody else on our team."

With 34 seconds left, the fourth and fifth seniors, seldom-used walk-ons Josh Hare and Greg Lyons, drew another huge cheer when they entered the game with Virginia ahead 81-65. Hare then added to the fury, hitting a 3-pointer with 7 seconds remaining for the final score.

"That was icing on the cake," Gillen said.

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