Clemson senior guard Chase Hunter trotted into the locker room at halftime of Tuesday night’s rivalry game with a goose egg in the box score. He had missed all five shots he’d taken from the floor in the first 20 minutes, which led to an eight-point deficit for the Tigers. But 27 points later, Clemson had come up just short, dropping a 91-88 overtime decision inside Colonial Life Arena in Columbia.
Hunter helped rally Clemson back from deficits all night long. The Tigers led for just 2:01 of the contest, to South Carolina’s 38:35. Following a missed free throw at the end of regulation, Hunter launched a runner three-pointer from the right wing that banked in, tying the game and forcing an extra period.
“He’s a terrific player,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “I’m super proud of him because he’s grown, as a young man and player, in our program for a long time. He’s showing his talent, those are big-time plays. You know, he’s probably the only guy on our team that can do all that. To do it when you need it. That’s not easy, especially coming off a game where he made a big time shot and then had a couple of tough plays at the end. But it shows great resiliency.”
In the overtime, South Carolina wore down Clemson’s depth inside, fouling out senior Ian Schieffelin with 3:17 remaining. With redshirt senior Viktor Lakhin already fouled out, the Gamecocks went to standout Collin Murray-Boyles to generate offense.
Brownell complimented South Carolina (now 8-3), who notched their first quad-one win of the season. “They have a good team, he said. “They can play big, they can play small. [Nick] Pringle helps them. When they have him and Murray-Boyles out there, they’re a big, strong, physical team. A guy like [Myles] Stute, who’s shot the ball poorly all year, makes five threes against us today. They can spread you [out] and put pressure on your team because of that.”
The Tigers got off to a slow start offensively, similar to the Memphis game on Saturday. South Carolina led 24-10 in the first half, before a 14-0 Clemson run tied things up. The Gamecocks responded to take a 34-26 lead into the half.
After the break, both teams’ offenses came alive, scoring a combined 100 points in the second half. CU outscored USC 54-46, thanks in large part to scoring outbursts from Hunter, Schieffelin (23 total points), and Jake Heidbreder (10 total points). Heidbreder’s scoring punch off of the Tigers’ bench helped ignite the comeback. The redshirt junior provided 3 steals on the defensive end while filling in for Dillon Hunter, who was ejected after receiving a flagrant foul-two for head-butting South Carolina’s Morris Ugusuk with 12:46 remaining in the second half.
With Clemson’s non-conference schedule wrapped up for the season, the team turns its attention to a ACC matchup with Wake Forest on Saturday, December 21 at Littlejohn Coliseum. Tip-off is set for 2:30 p.m., and the game will be televised on ESPN.
