Freshman Brandenburg makes his presence felt

CLEMSON, S.C. — John Brandenburg’s technical foul in the waning moments of the lopsided loss to Clemson on Tuesday night definitely fell under the category of “silly freshman mistake.”

With under seven minutes left in the game and Virginia trailing by 16 points, Brandenburg made a nice defensive play when he swatted the shot of Tigers guard Demontez Stitt. He drew the technical foul after celebrating the block.

“He rotated, had a good block, showed some overexuberance and then stared the guy down,” said Virginia coach Dave Leitao. “I didn’t see it, but one of the referees said to me that he didn’t say anything, he just yelled.”

Brandenburg’s display was definitely uncalled for, but you can bet there was a large contingent of Virginia fans that was excited by it. The word “overexuberance” hasn’t exactly gone hand in hand in with many UVa players this season.

Leitao gave Brandenburg his first playing time since the Jan. 15 game at North Carolina.

“Without Assane [Sene], we needed to go deeper into the depth of the frontcourt,” Leitao explained. “With their physicality and size, Solomon [Tat] had been an option but he hadn’t been much of an option, especially when you get deeper into the game. We needed some more help.”

Brandenburg didn’t light up the stat sheet in his eight minutes on the court. He had just two points and one rebound.

But you can say this about the St. Louis native — he didn’t look the least bit scared or intimidated in the hostile Littlejohn Coliseum environment. In fact, he looked quite confident.

“It’s nice to get a little time, even if it’s in a bad situation,” said Brandenburg, who guarded Clemson beast Trevor Booker on a couple of defensive sequences and wasn’t embarrassed. “But I’m more frustrated by the game than happy for playing.”

The 6-foot-11, 241-pounder nailed both of his free throw attempts after drawing a foul on a fast break.

“I think those were my first two consecutive free throws made in a college game,” Brandenburg said, “so that helps my confidence, but it’s mostly frustration coming out of this one.”

Leitao, clearly not thrilled with his team’s latest poor showing, seemed encouraged by Brandenburg’s cameo.

“We’ve been trying to get John ready all year long,” he said. “I thought he didn’t play great, but he didn’t play bad. He held his own a little bit. Hopefully that will allow him, at least psychologically, to take a little bit of a step forward.”