Tigers ride offensive surge to top Bulldogs

Clemson pulled away in the second half.

by Zachary Wagner - Correspondent - Mon Nov 15 22:06:15 GMT-04:00 2021

The threes fell fast and furious for the Clemson Tigers as they moved to 3-0 after a Monday night victory inside of Littlejohn Coliseum against Bryant, 93-70. The Tigers hit 10 threes as a team and shot 55% from behind the arc in the win.

Clemson had five players score in double figures, and for the third straight game, a different Clemson player led the team in scoring. Hunter Tyson poured in 20 points on 2-of-3 shooting from downtown. The senior forward has scored in double digits in all three games so far this season. PJ Hall also scored in double figures for the second consecutive game, scoring 14 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Al-Amir Dawes (11 points), Nick Honor (16 points) and David Collins (10 points) also notched double-digit points.

After a rough shooting start against Presbyterian, Brad Brownell and his squad have had back-to-back games of shooting the lights out. Clemson shot 56% from the field and the 93 points a season-high. The defense also held the Bulldogs to 42% shooting and turned them over nine times.

"Terrific offensive performance today," Brownell said. "We got a good game from a lot of players. Those guys helped contribute off the bench and Nick did a great job with his seven assists and one turnover. We made a couple of adjustments and did a better job defensively in the second half to pull away and get the win."

The opening four minutes of the contest saw Hall pick up right where he left off against Wofford, scoring six of the Tigers' first 10 points as they carried a 10-6 lead into the media timeout.

Bryant stayed in the game though, forcing a one-point contest with under eight minutes left, 28-27. The Bulldogs' Peter Kiss kept them in it, scoring 14 of their 27 points to open the game.

The Bulldogs hung around with the Tigers for most of the first half. After Clemson led 35-34 with less than six minutes remaining, the Tigers started finding ways to break open the Bulldogs zone and finished the half on a 17-6 run. Clemson hit seven treys in the first 20 minutes and shot 63% from downtown. Tyson led the team with 11 points on 2-of-3 shooting from behind the arc.

Clemson took a 52-40 lead into the locker room. The 52 points in the first half were the most the Clemson offense has scored in a single half of basketball since November of 2019 against Alabama A&M (54).

Tyson did not cool down to start the second half, hitting Clemson’s first two shots of the second half to increase the lead, 58-44, with under 16 minutes left.

Honor hit back-to-back threes at the 13-minute mark to increase the lead over 20 points and forced Bryant to call a timeout. After a two-point game against PC, Honor has found his stroke and registered back-to-back 10+ point games.

"I don't think this team has a go-to guy, they have a few," said Brownell. "We have a few guys on this team that can go get you 20 every night. I feel like we have a lot of guys that can shoot and space you a little bit. When we're passing the ball well and on time and on target, we're going shoot like we did tonight."

Clemson travels to the 2021 Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic this week for their pre-season tipoff tournament. The Tigers open the tournament on Thursday playing Temple (4 p.m./ESPN2) before either taking on St. Bonaventure or Boise State.