Louisville pulls away from Clemson team missing PJ Hall after early injury |
Clemson’s
PJ Hall, one of the bright young stars in the ACC, went down with a foot injury just over a minute into Saturday’s action before the Tigers lost 70-61 at Louisville.
Clemson (12-15, 4-12 ACC) was already missing one of its double-digit scorers in senior forward Hunter Tyson (broken clavicle), and Hall, Clemson’s leading scorer this season with 16 points per game, was accounting for over 30 percent of the Tigers’ points a game in Tyson’s absence. Hall suffered a foot injury Saturday while running down the court on offense, icing down his left foot on the bench shortly after and then in a boot by halftime. After trailing by as much as eight points, Clemson battled to a one-point deficit – leading by the same margin at points – by halftime. After taking an early second-half lead on the Cardinals, Louisville connected on four-straight 3-pointers in a 12-0 run to go up nine points with 17 to go. The Tigers chipped away at the deficit, however, and an Alex Hemenway 3-pointer made it a 2-point game with 11:20 left and the Tigers tied it up at 45-all shortly after. Clemson then took the lead on a 3-pointer from freshman forward Ian Schieffelin. The action continued to go back-and-forth from there, but after an offensive rebound and bucket from Jae’Lyn Withers, Louisville extended a lead out to six points with under four minutes to go. An unfortunate Clemson scoring drought marked the finish, lasting over four minutes as Louisville went on a 10-0 run. Louisville (12-14, 6-10) snapped a seven-game losing streak, while Clemson’s losing run stretched to six games. The Tigers are now 0-7 all-time at Louisville. "Well, I'm really proud of our guys. Tremendous effort. Certainly the adversity of losing PJ in the first minute...then you gotta adjust," Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. "Our two freshmen, obviously were the beneficiaries. I thought Ben (Middlebrooks) and Ian fought really hard. They both battled defensively in the paint against big, strong guys. And they held their own and did OK... "We were obviously in a position to win. I kind of told our team it's not good enough to lose. We're not proud because we've battled with PJ and fought. We're all scholarship players. The expectation is more. We've got to find a way--we had a chance to win this game. We were in a position late to give ourselves a chance to win and we just couldn't get a couple stops and we had a couple bad possessions we've got to finish. "I'm proud of our guys. Our guys are fighting so hard. There's great spirit. There's tremendous effort. We're undersized at almost most of those positions and we're battling in there. Battling on the glass. Rebounding is about even. Just incredible will from our guys...I'm really proud of this team and the way they keep battling. They keep facing a lot of adversity and they're not giving in. Just disappointed that we put ourselves in a position to win with three minutes to go and couldn't make the plays to take it to the last 30 seconds or minute." After Hall’s injury, the freshmen big men Schieffelin and Ben Middlebrooks were thrust into the spotlight and each encountered first-half foul trouble, with Middlebrooks drawing his second and third fouls in the final minutes of the period. Each scored two points before the break, matching Hall’s score in the first minute. Hall, due to the injury, had a 25-game streak of double-digit scoring games snapped. Al-Amir Dawes scored nine points, all from 3-pointers, to help keep Clemson in it after 20 minutes. Louisville was 0-for-10 from beyond the arc at the break. Dawes finished with a Clemson-best 18 points and was joined in double-figure scoring by Chase Hunter (10). Schieffelin finished with seven points and four rebounds, while Middlebrooks contributed four points and two rebounds. Brownell said he wasn't in a position to give an update on Hall's condition postgame. Clemson returns to action at home on Wednesday versus Wake Forest (7 p.m./ACCN).
Big time ????????????@NextUp440 #ClemsonGRIT pic.twitter.com/8I46Y6TFHi
— Clemson Basketball (@ClemsonMBB) February 19, 2022
.@chunt3r2 ??????#ClemsonGRIT pic.twitter.com/IsVlo4RZnm
— Clemson Basketball (@ClemsonMBB) February 19, 2022
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