By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — Though he was 1-for-9 from the floor in Clemson’s loss to top-ranked Duke Tuesday night, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell liked what he saw from freshman guard Jordan Roper.

“I don’t think he played with any fear at all,” Brownell said. “He did not have a good game. He was 1-for-9, but he was able to get to some places on the court against good players and get shots off that were reasonably good shots.

“That’s one of the things I have talked to him about was being able to have the ability to score. Sometimes you are going to move the defense and put a guy in a closeout and then your offensive player has to go make a play. You are not going to get wide open shots.”

Despite his shots not falling, Roper continue to attack the Duke defense as he did finish with six points thanks to making all four free throws after being fouled on a layup attempt and a jump shot.

“You have to move on to the next play,” Roper said. “You can’t let one play affect you because the game is still going on. I have always had that mindset ever since I was little. My dad taught me that.”

As an eight year old playing in the Columbia, SC recreation leagues, Roper said he would get frustrated when he missed a shot and that he would pout and just stare at the basket.

“I would miss a shot and the game would still be going on,” he said. “The other guys would still be running down the court trying to make a shot. You have to have amnesia in a way. You have to forget about it and keep playing.”

Clemson (8-6, 0-2 ACC) has had a lot of amnesia lately. The Tigers, who host Virginia today at noon, cannot seem to find its mark. They scored just 10 first half points against Duke Tuesday night and were just 3 of 25 from the floor.

“The game against Duke turned out really bad,” Brownell said. “The score was worse than the way the game was played, though. I was really proud of our guys at halftime. I know we only scored ten and nobody is happy with that.

“But to hold Duke to 25 points when you only score 10, that’s pretty good. That means you are on transition defense because you are three-for-25. That’s 22 missed shots. That’s 22 times they were coming at you on a miss. Then if you have a couple of turnovers, then throw those in there. That means they are coming at you 25 to 30 times to score in transition, and they only ended up with 25 points?

“There were some positives. Our team competed very hard in the game. We fought them.”

And Brownell was glad to see Roper was one of those guys that continue to fight hard, even though his shots weren’t going down.

“It’s hard to get wide open shots against really good teams,” the Clemson coach said. “We did not have many of those the other night, so a guy has to beat a guy on a closeout and go make a play. Jordan can do some of that. He can beat some guys and get into his shot. He is quick and he has a good pull-up.

“Now he did not make very many. In fact, he only made one, but his ability to do that, and to show that he was not tentative was really good to see.”