The Clemson men’s basketball team fell to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish by a score of 69-62 at the Purcell Pavillion in South Bend, Indiana, on Saturday night.
A poor shooting performance from three-point range as well as a late Notre Dame second-half surge gave the Irish their fifth win in the last six games, upsetting the Tigers (20-9, 10-8 ACC) and causing more chaos in the ACC standings.
The team only hit five three-pointers in the loss out of 28 attempts, which is an 18% completion rate, in the loss.
The loss sends Clemson in a four-way tie for fourth place in the ACC, with Wake Forest, Syracuse and Pittsburgh joining the Tigers in the position.
Notre Dame (12-17, 7-11 ACC) was able to etch a home win through their late-game lead in the last eight minutes. The team took advantage of Clemson’s poor shooting night, with the Irish’s Matt Zona drilling a three-pointer at the 8:25 mark in the second half to deal the final lead change of the contest. The Tigers were unable to come back with a run of their own, dealing a huge blow in the late season.
Notre Dame’s Braeden Shrewsberry dealt the knockout blow with a minute and a half to go, hitting a three-pointer of his own to put the lead to seven and send the Tigers back to the Upstate with their eighth in-conference loss.
Both teams remained in a battle during the entire contest, with 11 lead changes throughout the match. However, the Tigers maintained a one-possession lead for the majority of the first half, going into the locker room up by three.
Luckily for head coach Brad Brownell, Clemson was able to get a bounce-back performance from center PJ Hall, who scored 21 points and added seven rebounds to the score sheet. In a previous three-game stretch of lower-scoring performances than usual, having another great performance by the senior is important for momentum as the postseason is set to begin in two weeks.
Junior Ian Schieffelin recorded another double-double, making it back-to-back games with recording this accolade. The forward scored 10 points and grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds in the loss.
The Tigers will be back in action on Tuesday night when they will host the Syracuse Orange in the final home game of the season at Littlejohn Coliseum.
