Balanced scoring effort, overtime surge lead Clemson over Drake |
Clemson
big man
PJ Hall matched a career-high in scoring (22 points) and notched his first career double-double (13 rebounds) in the Tigers' 90-80 Holiday Hoopsgiving overtime win over Drake Saturday in Atlanta's State Farm Arena.
Drake cut a Clemson second-half lead that had been as large as 11 points down to three with two minutes left, and a free-throw fest went back-and-forth until Drake's Tremell Murphy hit a game-tying 3-pointer with 13 seconds left. On Clemson's ensuing and last possession of the second half, Hall appeared to be fouled and it wasn't called as time ran out for a 74-all score through 40 minutes. Prowess at the free-throw line worked in Clemson's favor with both teams in the bonus late, where the Tigers grabbed the lead early there and built onto it as Drake went cold shooting. Clemson finished 23-of-27 at the free-throw line. Al-Amir Dawes' trey with under two to go in overtime gave the Tigers a 6-point advantage and Nick Honor tacked on another on the next possession to seal the win. Clemson head coach Brad Brownell joked postgame that he sort of accidentally predicted the effort needed. "Just what we’ve talked about all week. That we’ll be in a situation like this," Brownell said of his message going into the overtime period. "Actually on the board today, I wrote that we needed to defend for 40 minutes or as long as it takes. I don’t know if I knew what was going to happen today. A little surprised but it sure came to fruition. So I talked about that. Our guys really hung in there. We didn’t really hang our heads. We talked a lot about body language and positive attitude and sticking together. We’ve had some trouble defensively at the end of games, finishing off some wins. Obviously we haven’t played great on offense either sometimes but I’m just proud of the way our guys competed. "(Told them to) just go compete and we’ll try to have fun and let’s play with good body language and good attitude and don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Play to win. We talked about that throughout the second half, and unfortunately, it took five extra minutes but just love the way we played in overtime. I thought we played great." The Tigers (6-4) snapped a two-game losing run that was a part of four defeats in five games, topping another 2020-21 NCAA Tourney participant with Drake (6-4) and snapping their three-game winning streak. Clemson came out on top at the end of the first half in a game of runs. The Tigers extended a lead out to eight points thanks to 52% shooting through the first 15 minutes of action, but the Bulldogs answered with an 8-0 run to tie things up. Clemson then answered with a 7-0 run to the finish and a 39-32 advantage at the break. Both teams knocked down six 3-pointers through the first 20 minutes and hit 48% of their shots overall. Dawes led Clemson with 13 points and Alex Hemenway hit his career-best in 3-pointers in the first session (3). Clemson extended its advantage to the largest of the game to that point with 7:50 left and an 11-point lead. Second-half leads have been hard to hold onto for the Tigers, with three advantages of nine-plus points surrendered in losses this season, but Clemson held the Bulldogs at bay in OT to notch a second victory away from Littlejohn this season (2-4 now). "Really good win against a good Drake team. You can see why those guys are so successful," Brownell said. "They just keep coming at ya. We knew it. It’s a difficult game. They played small a lot and they’re good players. It’s a challenge for matchups. I thought it was a great team win. We tremendous contributions from a lot of different players today. Obviously PJ was terrific. Great to see Alex Hemenway come off the bench and shoot the ball the way he did. Had a great week of practice – probably the best practice week of the year. So I had really planned to use him this week and thought we could really get him free a bit. "But I’m just happy for my team. We were really disappointed after the Miami game. Thought we had played really well and let one get away. This was another hard-fought game and we played well for a long period of time. They made some big shots and we had a couple tough calls down the stretch. And then the way we rallied and played in overtime, I thought we played extremely well when it mattered most and got a big win." The Tigers had five score in double-figures total, with Hall joined by Dawes (19), David Collins (16; also 10 rebounds), Hemenway (12) and Honor (12). Clemson returns to action at home on Tuesday versus Miami (Ohio) in a 7 p.m. start (ACCNX). .@pjhall020 with the AND 1!!! ???? pic.twitter.com/3S9J9yaoWS .@HemenwayAlex is feelin' it from deep!!! 3?????? pic.twitter.com/hs8uuzJPdC .@NickHonor3 with the dagger three ??3???? pic.twitter.com/5PfEiKqkM9 Big time three by the ???????????? ?????????????????? (@AlDawes33) pic.twitter.com/q8PtfL3CVX
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