CLEMSON, S.C. — The good just keeps getting better for Clemson fans. With Clemson’s football team getting set to play in the National Championship next week, the NC State men’s basketball team came to town for an ACC matchup. Despite the fact that the Tigers (7-7, 1-3 ACC) had lost six of their last seven games, the Wolfpack (10-4, 1-2 ACC) could not stop the hot 3-point shooting in the first half from Clemson and struggled to score in the middle of the second half, resulting in an 81-70 loss.
“We got extended and did a poor job defending the three-point line, especially in the first half, giving up eight 3-pointers,” said NC State head coach Kevin Keatts. “Didn’t play great. I thought our guys defensively didn’t communicate enough, and don’t have enough ball pressure, and certainly when that happens, you get a loss on the road.”
Amir Simms led the way with 17 points for Clemson, and Al-Amir Dawes also turned in 16 points for the Tigers.
The Wolfpack had four scorers in double-digits, led by redshirt junior forward D.J. Funderburk, who led the team in scoring for the second game in a row with 14 points.
Despite still scoring in double figures with 11 points, senior guard Markell Johnson arguably had one of the worst offensive games of his career. The Cleveland, Ohio native missed 10 of his 15 shots attempted, missed five of six free throw attempts, and turned the ball over six times.
“I just need [Johnson] to play like a senior and run the show,” Keatts said. “That being said, there’s a lot of pressure on him right now. He’s our only pure point guard on the roster right now, playing a lot of minutes.”
Clemson came out of the gate as the aggressor, jumping out to a 6-0 lead. Sophomore forward Jericole Hellems responded with four quick points, but was sent to the bench with two early fouls as Clemson continued to attack NC State offensively.
Out of the media timeout, NC State had new energy defensively, forcing two quick Tiger turnovers, but couldn’t find anything offensively. This led to the Tigers pushing their lead to 16-7, but buckets on consecutive possessions from Funderburk and redshirt junior guard Devon Daniels cut the lead back to 16-12.
Redshirt freshman Manny Bates finished above the rim on a junior guard Braxton Beverly miss to cut the lead to two points, but the Tigers immediately responded with a corner 3-pointer and an easy layup. For much of the first half, Funderburk and Bates played together in a tall lineup for the Wolfpack.
Bates was also a big problem around the rim defensively for the Tigers, blocking two shots in the first half and contesting many more.
Clemson went on an 18-6 run across seven minutes to push the lead to double digits at 34-20 with a few minutes left in the first half.
In a game that could have easily gotten away from the Wolfpack, it fought hard. The Wolfpack made seven of its last nine field goals in the first half, capped off by a 3-pointer from graduate transfer forward Pat Andree to cut the lead to 41-35 at the break.
Clemson was averaging eight 3-pointers a game entering the game, but it matched that stat in the first half on only 17 attempts.
“We let them get up the shots they wanted,” Daniels said. “They shoot a lot of threes, and we knew that, but we didn’t execute how we needed on defense, so they got off to a hot start.”
Despite being in early foul trouble, Hellems came in later in the first half and led the team with nine points in the first half on 4-of-6 shooting. Beverly also made an impact in the first 20 minutes, scoring seven points.
NC State quickly cut the lead to two points at the start of second half off four points from Daniels, but Clemson responded with five points of its own, capped off by an old-fashioned 3-point play. Johnson and Daniels scored the Wolfpack’s first eight points of the second half.
Andree put in a nice reverse layup to cut the lead to one point, but another old-fashioned 3-point play for Clemson took it back to four. The two teams went head to head, trading buckets for a much of the first 10 minutes of the second half.
Three made free throws from Andree put NC State within one point again right after the under-12 media timeout.
Despite having the chance to tie or even take the lead, NC State went scoreless for nearly five minutes, allowing Clemson’s lead to get back up to five points. It wasn’t until two made free throws from Funderburk that the drought ended.
“Once we got the lead down to one, we took some questionable shots that certainly could take you out of the game,” Keatts said. “And they did.”
A corner 3-pointer from Scott pushed the Clemson lead to 66-58, its biggest lead of the second half at the time, with just under five minutes left. Two free throws pushed the lead to 11, which was more than NC State could fathom to try and pull a late comeback.
Funderburk recorded an old-fashioned 3-point play to cut the lead to 71-63 with 2:25 left. On the next possession, a Johnson steal led to an Andree layup to cut the lead to six points and give the Wolfpack a sliver of hope with just under two minutes left.
Out of a timeout, the Tigers responded with back-to-back layups and defensive stops to kill the game off.
Clemson hit six free throws in the final 1:05 to put the icing on the cake of an 81-70 win. The Tigers were in control from tip-off to the final buzzer, as NC State did not hold a lead at all during the game.
“We’re definitely going to look back on this loss and feel like we could’ve played a lot better,” Andree said. “There’s a lot more games, but we’re going to watch film, we’re going to get to practice, and we’re going to move on to Notre Dame, and that’s how we get back this Clemson loss.”
NC State will be back in action Wednesday night at PNC Arena against Notre Dame. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m., with the game being streamed live on ESPN2 and live updates on @TechSports twitter.
