After a week off, Clemson basketball (18-4, 10-1 ACC) won its sixth straight game in conference play, by a 68-58 score over the NC State Wolfpack (9-12, 2-8 ACC) on Saturday afternoon at the Lenovo Center.
“I’m really proud of the way our team competed today,” head coach Brad Brownell said after the win. “[We] showed great poise, I thought, especially in the second half of this game. Kevin [Keatts]’s teams are always very good defensively, aggressive, hard to deal with, and our guys only turned it over five times today, which I thought was a big key in the game.”
Star guard Chase Hunter scored 20 points to lead the Tigers to the win. Viktor Lakhin’s 13-point, 11-rebound effort anchored Clemson in the paint.
“[Chase] is very important, but a lot of guys on our team are,” Brownell added. “His job is to score the basketball for us, and make good decisions, which he did. I think what was great about his play today is that he also made some really good plays in the pick and roll. He can do that. His versatility with Jaeden [Zackery] makes those two guys one of the better backcourts in our league.”
Brad Brownell
The win was Brownell’s 450th as a head coach including stops at UNC-Wilmington, Wright State, and Clemson.
A back-and-forth first half with several lead changes saw Clemson take a 34-31 lead into the locker room at halftime. The Tigers were shooting 51.9% from the field to NC State’s 36.4%, but the difference, as was the case for much of the game, was on the glass. NC State’s 13 offensive rebounds created second-chance opportunities, making it difficult for Clemson to close out possessions.
“We did not do a very good job of defensive rebounding,” Brownell said. “We’ve got to keep working on that…Our guards have to continue to rebound better. Chauncey Wiggins has to rebound better. That’s one of the few areas that he hasn’t developed as much as I would like. Our guards have to support our big guys…It takes everybody, rebounding the ball…In the first half, we were really upset with our team because that was the number one thing we talked about, and we didn’t do a good job of it.”
The Tigers’ lead grew to ten at the 5:03 mark of the second half, but NC State wasn’t done yet. A quick 4-0 run by the Wolfpack cut that lead to just six with 3:44 remaining, but the Hunter brothers responded.
First, Dillon knocked down a three-pointer from the wing against the NC State zone defense, letting the CU bench erupt. Chase stole a wayward pass on the ensuing possession, then finished it with an emphatic slam dunk that effectively sealed the game.
NC State guard Dontrez Styles continued his in-form play on the offensive end, scoring 24 points to go with 5 rebounds, all while shooting 9-for-14 from the field, and 6-for-8 from deep. Last time out on Monday, he totaled 18 points and 3 rebounds while shooting 7-of-12 from the field and 4-of-6 from three against Duke.
Clemson returns home Tuesday night to face the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Littlejohn Coliseum. The game, airing on ACC Network, tips off at 9:00 p.m. Clemson won the only prior meeting this season, leaving McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta with a 70-59 victory on January 14.
