Hokies' dagger 3-pointer as time expires dooms Tigers in ACC Tournament

Darius Maddox hit a running 3-pointer as time expired in overtime. (Photo: ACC)

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Mar 09 21:30:24 GMT-04:00 2022

There will be no March Madness for the Clemson basketball team.

Darius Maddox hit a running 3-pointer as time expired in overtime to lead Virginia Tech to a 76-75 victory over Clemson in the second round of the ACC Tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

PJ Hall hit one of two free throws with 6.7 seconds remaining in the overtime period, setting up the shot by Maddox. The Tigers overcame a 14-point second-half deficit to force the overtime period, but missed two free throws in the final 30 seconds to give the Hokies the chance for the win.

Clemson entered the day on a five-game winning streak, knowing that it would have to make a deep run in the tournament to even be considered for postseason play. But those hopes were dashed by Maddox.

Hall led the Tigers with 16 points, with Chase Hunter adding 13 and Hunter Tyson and David Collins adding 12 apiece. Tyson grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. Keve Aluma scored 19 to lead the Hokies, while Storm Murphy added 15.

Clemson’s season ends with a 17-16 overall record after finishing 8-12 in ACC regular season play. Virginia Tech, a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament, improves to 20-12 overall. The Hokies advance to play Notre Dame in the quarterfinals at 7 pm Thursday.

Head coach Brad Brownell called it a brutal loss.

"Obviously brutal. Brutal ending. Just incredibly proud of the way our guys competed, not just tonight but throughout the season," Brownell said. "A lot of adversity, and our guys just kept getting better and being coachable and working through things. We didn't play as well for a while tonight. I thought Virginia Tech was really good in the first half and controlled the game, but our guys just kept hanging in there and made some really good basketball plays at the end of the game.

"I thought Naz (Bohannon) and the group that was out there in the middle of the second half really energized us and gave us the chance to have a comeback, and then I thought my team played great. End of the game, overtime, I thought we did most things well. But give Virginia Tech credit; huge shot by Darius Maddox. They got a couple rebounds in the second half that hurt us that led to points, but certainly this is painful. I thought my guys played well enough at the end especially to win, and we didn't guard the last play very well, and they made a big shot. Congratulations to them."

Brownell said he didn't like the way his team guarded on the final play.

"Just he didn't pick the ball up early enough. He picked it up early enough, but he didn't stay into the ball," Brownell said. "Obviously we talked about no threes. If they go by us and they make a two, that's fine, but we don't want any threes. We sandwiched the point guard to try to take it out of the PG's hand. We kind of did that with Michael DeVoe a couple games ago against Georgia Tech and it worked. Darius is not a guy who's a heavy dribble guy, so they threw it into Darius, and we picked him up, but we just kept backing up.

"We obviously talked about, hey, if they screen, we're switching, if they go screen, what we're doing, all these scenarios. At the end of the day, they just threw it to a guy and he dribbled up and shot it over our guy. We needed to be a little tighter, and we shouldn't have kept backing up and kind of let him walk into one, and to his credit, he made it."

The Tigers defeated Virginia Tech in Littlejohn Coliseum last Saturday and played the Hokies tough in the early going Wednesday. Alex Hemenway hit a layup to put Clemson ahead 17-16 midway through the first half, and Chase Hunter added a jumper a minute later to put the Tigers ahead 19-18 with 9:51 to play.

Clemson then went cold from the field and the Hokies went on a 13-3 run. When Storm Murphy hit a 3-pointer it put Tech ahead 32-22 with just over five minutes to play in the half. A Hall free throw pulled Clemson to within six at 35-29 with just over three minutes to play, but the Hokies ended the half on an 8-2 run when Keve Aluma hit a hookshot in the lane with 14 seconds remaining, and Clemson trailed 43-32 at intermission.

Aluma hit a 3-pointer early in the second half that gave the Hokies a 14-point lead at 46-32, their largest lead of the game. The Hokies kept a working margin of double digits for much of the first ten minutes of the second half, and when Keve hit another 3-pointer at the 9:15 mark Tech held a 57-45 lead.

The Tigers then went on a run. It started when Hunter Tyson converted a turnover into points to make it 59-51 with five minutes to play. The Hokies made a free throw, but Collins and Tyson each hit shots that made it 60-55 with just 3:13 to go. Hall then drove from the left wing for a layup that made it 60-57 Virginia Tech at the 2:18 mark.

The Hokies added another free throw for a 61-57 lead, but Hunter made a driving layup that brought the Tigers to within two at 61-59, forcing the Hokies into a 30-second timeout with 1:48 remaining. Twenty seconds into the Hokie possession, Tyson fouled Aluma, but Aluma missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and Tyson grabbed the rebound.

The Tigers moved quickly down the court and Nick Honor calmly drained a 3-pointer from the left wing to put Clemson ahead 62-61 with 1:11 remaining, putting the exclamation point on a 14-2 run. Out of yet another timeout, the Hokies’ Justyn Mutts grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back to put Tech back in front at 63-62 with 49 seconds on the game clock.

It didn’t take the Tigers long to re-take the lead, with Tyson grabbing an underhanded pass from Hall and laying it up for a 64-63 lead with just 36 seconds to go. However, Murphy got loose on the other end and calmly drained a 3-pointer to put the Hokies back in front at 66-64 with 18.9 seconds left.

Out of a Clemson timeout, Honor drove up the court and passed the ball to Hall at the top of the key. Hall backed down to the right key and then turned around with a sweet right handed hook that swished through with just nine seconds left to tie the score at 66-66. Murphy missed a shot at the buzzer, sending the teams to overtime.

Following a ragged start to the overtime period for both teams, Aluma and Dawes traded 3-pointers, then Aluma hit on an old-fashioned three-point play to put Tech ahead 72-69 with just over two minutes remaining in the extra period.

The Tigers got a layup from Tyson to pull within one at 72-71, and following a defensive stop Hall hit two free throws to put Clemson ahead 73-72 with only 1:19 remaining. Murphy then missed a 3-pointer from the left corner and Hall grabbed the rebound, and Dawes was fouled on a drive to the lane. He hit one of this two free throws and Clemson led 74-72 with 30 seconds left.

The Hokies brought the ball down the court and Murphy shuffled the ball to Mutts, who was fouled by Hall on the floor with eight seconds on the clock. Mutts missed the first free throw, and still trailing by two, the Hokies called a timeout to set up a play. Mutts hit the second free throw line and Clemson led 74-73. The ball was inbounded to Hall, who held it in the backcourt and was fouled with 6.7 showing on the clock.

Hall hit one of his two foul shots, and Clemson called timeout leading 75-73 with those 6.7 seconds still showing.