On Tuesday night, the Clemson men’s basketball team will face the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (8-8, 1-4 ACC) at Littlejohn Coliseum in an ACC affair.
It’s the first time this season for Clemson’s trademark “Grit After Dark”, which happens when the game starts at 9pm or later. Thus will be the case for this contest Tuesday night. After snapping a three-game winning streak in their latest game against Boston College, the Tigers (12-4, 2-3 ACC) are looking to get back to .500 in the ACC with a win over the Yellow Jackets.
Another home game marks an incredible advantage that head coach Brad Brownell has at Littlejohn Coliseum. Clemson is 7-1 at home, with their only loss being to No. 4 North Carolina in a game that didn’t favor the Tigers from a shooting standpoint.
On the other hand, Georgia Tech is 1-4 away from home, with its only win being at Hawaii. Winning, despite playing a few time zones away, is impressive, however beating the Tigers at home will be a much bigger feat for the young Yellow Jackets.
Clemson’s win over the Eagles hopes to kickstart Clemson’s big three, PJ Hall, Chase Hunter, and Joe Girard III, to get back to their early-season form. Before that game, Brownell revealed to the media that he spoke with them during their losing streak last week.
“When you guys play poorly,” Brownell said to the three senior leaders, “we’re probably going to lose.”
And Brownell got the best from them all, hoping that it allows for the beginning of a great stretch of games. Hall and Girard scored 26 points each, and Hunter added seven but made a lot of plays that did not show up on the score sheet. Brownell will hope to continue to get his stars going against a Georgia Tech team that allows 80.8 points per game against conference opponents.
The Yellow Jackets are looking to snap a five-game losing streak, four of those being ACC opponents. Most recently, Georgia Tech went toe-to-toe with the No. 11 Duke Blue Devils, going into halftime at Cameron Indoor tied at 39 before the Blue Devils pulled away late to give the Yellow Jackets their fifth straight loss.
First-year head coach Damon Stoudemire has plenty of pieces to potentially disrupt a noisy Littlejohn on Tuesday night, however. Leading the Yellow Jackets in scoring is guard Miles Kelly, a junior who averages 15.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. Forward Baye Ndongo is another face that could spell trouble for Clemson. The freshman has reached double-digit points in his last seven games, as well as averaging 8.8 rebounds, a block and a steal per game. Ndongo has plenty of tools to help the young star face the Clemson frontcourt.
Tip-off is set for 9 p.m. and the game will be broadcasted on the ACC Network.
