Tige
Tiger basketball falls short against #5 North Carolina
Clemson faced off with North Carolina in Littlejohn Coliseum in front of an electric atmosphere. With a win, the Tigers were guaranteed a run in the NCAA tournament. Shelton Mitchell would get the ball rolling for the Tigers nailing the first three of the basket.
In an electric first half, Clemson would stay neck and neck throughout the entirety of the first half. But heading into halftime, North Carolina would take the 39-35 lead. During the first half the Tigers field goal percentage was 43% making 13 shots on 30 attempts, shot at 38.5% for three pointers making 5 on 13 attempts and were 4 for 4 from the free throw line.
Clemson’s Elijah Thomas cracked Clemson’s top 25 in rebounding and moved to No.22 all-time with 608 rebounds in a Clemson uniform,
The Tigers would enter into an electric atmosphere after halftime that would help push the Tigers throughout the rest of the night. Clemson put up an extremely hard fight against the Tar Heels but would fall short by a score of 79-81. Clemson would complete the night with a 47% field goal percentage making 27 shots on 57 attempts, 36% for three-pointers making eight on 22 attempts and were 77% from the free-throw line and made 17 on 22 attempts.
Senior Marquise Reed led the Tigers with 24 points, who had his 25th career 20-point game and 3 assists and Senior Elijah Thomas led the team in rebounds with 11.
Right before halftime, Coach Roy Williams went down with a vertigo spell and had to be assisted off the court, Williams would not return to the court in the second half. Coach Williams made a brief appearance at the post game press conference to let everyone know that he was feeling “much better” and to express how proud he was of assistant coach Steve Robinson, who took over after Williams went out.
A defeated Clyde Trapp Jr. addressed the media in the postgame. “We had a great week of preparation and everyone brought their best tonight. A huge thank you to the fans, they made the place a great atmosphere and we fed off their energy.” he said.
“What a great game of basketball by both teams and our guys were very spirited coming into the game and I thought that we did a good job of managing the ball in the second half. I am really proud of our guys, they fought until the end. It was a very sad locker room that I had to address after the game.” Brad Brownell said post-game. Coach also stated that the absence of David Skara was due to an elbow injury suffered at Pitt earlier in the week. Skara approached Brownell about 18-19 minutes before tipoff and said that he didn’t think that he would be able to give 100% tonight and that his elbow was still giving him trouble.
Clemson will head out to South Bend to face Notre Dame next before ending their regular season at home against Syracuse next Saturday.
Notes:
Marcquise Reed moved into 15th on the all-time scoring list (1,380) … Reed turned in his 66th double-digit scoring game of his career – just four shy of tying Butch Zatezalo (1967-70) and Larry Nance (1977-81) for 16th on the all-time list … Reed also posted his 25th 20-point outing of his career – just one shy of tying Jim Sutherland (1964-67) for 10th all time … Reed tied his career mark for steals in a game with five … he now has 160 in his career which is good for 11th in program history … his 1.70 steals per game in a career is fifth all time … Elijah Thomas notched his eighth double-double of the season and the 19th of his career … with 614 career rebounds, Thomas enters the top-25 in program history and currently sits 22nd … Thomas posted one block and now has 168 for his career – just nine shy of tying Sharrod Ford (2001-05) for ninth all time … Thomas now has 933 points as a Tiger … Javan White grabbed a season-high three offensive rebounds.
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