Ramblers blow away Tigers late in Atlanta |
Clemson men’s basketball had its four-game winning streak snapped as Loyola Chicago improved to .500 on the year by pulling away to a 76-58 win over the Tigers in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on Saturday.
The Tigers dropped to 8-3, while the Ramblers improved to 5-5 in the finale of the Holiday Hoopsgiving college basketball showcase. Clemson was trailing at the half for the fifth time this season after a decent shooting start turned ice cold. After hitting its first two 3-pointers – both from Brevin Galloway – the next 12 attempts beyond the arc were the off the mark in the first half. The Tigers finished the first 20 minutes shooting 14% from 3 and 37% overall. The end-of-half scenario went particularly bad as Clemson had two turnovers in the final five seconds that resulted in five points for the Ramblers and their largest lead of the half, 37-26. "We played against a team that did play well and they beat us," Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. "They did a nice job. They created some turnovers. Obviously the way that we ended the first half was a disaster. We lost all momentum. It felt like our dog died when we went into the halftime and I'm trying to get them figured out a little bit. We played very poorly in spurts...This was a total team effort. Some of our older guys have been getting tired. When you get behind and you're trying to grit it out and play a little faster, you can't play as long. We needed some bench strength and our bench didn't really help us enough... "This was a team loss, all the way around. Coaches, players -- we just didn't play like we needed to and Loyola deserves a lot of credit." After three 20-point games in a row coming in, PJ Hall was held to four points at the break and he finished with seven. Loyola Chicago extended that edge to 14 points early in the second half, but the Tigers did bring it back into the single-digits with a hoop-and-harm bucket and free throw from Chase Hunter to make it 45-38 Ramblers with 13 to go. The Ramblers built it back out to 14 points minutes as it heated up from beyond the arc, connecting on four of its first six attempts of the half to a 55-41 lead with 10 to go. Clemson had held opponents to 27% shooting on 3-pointers in the previous five games. "We got a little bit of what we've been giving to people -- we got back tonight," Brownell said. "Give them a lot of credit, they played great...We just got outplayed and outcoached today. We haven't guarded as well as our record showed at times and I've been talking to my team and begging to my team -- trying to practice showing things that we're not doing and it finally got us today. They exposed us... "I think for the first time all year, we kinda panicked. We didn't share the ball. They got into us a little bit and bothered us. I just thought we panicked...We got behind and we couldn't ourselves back in the game and play the game we need to..." The Loyola lead was cut to eight points with an Ian Schieffelin layup with 6.5 minutes left, but again the Ramblers extended their edge back out to double-digits as the game clock ticked down. Clemson shot 14% from the perimeter on the game after coming in leading Power 5 conference teams in 3-point shooting. The Ramblers hit 50% of their 3s and 56% overall. Clemson returns to action next Saturday in the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville versus Richmond at 7 p.m.
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