On Sunday afternoon, the Clemson men’s basketball team moved to 3-0 on the season, defeating the Davidson Wildcats by a score of 68-65 in the Asheville Championship to win the four-team tournament.
Despite an early onslaught by the Wildcats that put Clemson at a deficit, the Tigers were able to weather the storm and dominate the latter half of the game, with some help from Joe Girard III and PJ Hall.
Davidson sprang out into a strong lead early, locking up head coach Brad Brownell and his team by opening the game with a 19-2 run in the first eight minutes. The team missed their first eight attempts from three-point range, struggling to get started in the game until the end of the first half.
Clemson woke up, however, outsourcing the Wildcats 16-5 to end the first half. Shots began to fall with the help of Girard, R.J. Godfrey, and Josh Beadle, and the Tigers were only down five points when they headed into the locker room for halftime.
After entering the last half with momentum, the Tigers took the lead away from Davidson and never looked back, using a 16-3 run that propelled them into the lead. Despite leading by a game-high nine points with more than five minutes to go, the Wildcats did not give up. Davidson forced turnovers and missed shots to get in within a point with less than a minute to go.
Despite the late run, the Tigers remained strong, with help from an acrobatic layup from Chase Hunter and two key free throws from Hall. On the last possession of the game, the Wildcats had three chances to send the game into overtime and missed all three shots from downtown as the clock struck zero.
Girard and Hall were the two who helped mount a comeback from the early Davidson scare, scoring 17 points each. While Girard sank five threes, Hall brought the Tigers back in the second half, scoring 15 points in the last 20 minutes for the victory.
The bench also proved to be successful for Brownell in the win, who scored 27 out of Clemson’s 68 points in the victory, showing that the team has scorers in all of the rotation places. Godfrey scored the most points off the bench, scoring 10 points and blocking three shots.
The Tigers will be back in action next Sunday, Nov. 19th, where they will face Boise State at Littlejohn Coliseum at 1:00 p.m.
