The No. 18 Clemson basketball team picked up an impressive Quad-1 win on Saturday taking out SMU 79-69 in Dallas, Texas. The win moved the Tigers to 22-5 overall and 14-2 in ACC play.
The story of the day was the Tigers' hot shooting from 3-point range. Going 14-29 (48.3%) from deep, Clemson had an 18-point edge from beyond the arc whereas SMU was just 8-25 (32.0%). That included a first-half barrage that saw Clemson make 10 of 15 shots from downtown on the way to a 36-32 halftime lead.
In the second half, the Tigers played a stronger all-around offense and essentially got whatever they wanted in the flow of the game. In all, they shot 49.1% from the floor to keep SMU at bay all afternoon.
Four of Clemson's five starters scored in double figures. They were led by point guard Jaeden Zackery who had 19 to be the game's high scorer. It was his second-highest-scoring game of the season following a 21-point game against Georgia Tech in January. Considering that Zackery also had six rebounds and seven assists against SMU, it could be said that this was his best all-around game as a Tiger.
Meanwhile, Chase Hunter matched his season average with 17 points and Viktor Lakhin continued his recent run of strong play with 16 points. Also, Ian Scheffelin contributed 10 points and five rebounds to the winning effort.
Another important factor in the game was Clemson's ability to take care of the ball while forcing the Mustangs into a number of giveaways. The Tigers gave the ball up only nine times while taking it away 16 times.
As a result, Clemson had an 18-8 edge in points off of turnovers. In a game that was decided by ten points, that proved to be the difference.
The victory moved the Tigers to 4-2 in Quad-1 games, an important metric for seeding in the NCAA Tournament. It was imperative that Clemson pick up another Quad-1 win in the regular season given that three of their last four games before the postseason are either Quad-3 or Quad-4 games.
Of course, the Tigers still have dreams of winning the ACC's regular-season title. They trail 15-1 Duke by just one game but since they don't play the Blue Devils again in the regular season, they will need some help from one of their ACC brethren if they are going to claim a share of the crown.
All the Tigers can do is keep winning games, though, and that's what they did on Saturday at SMU. Clemson is playing its best basketball of the season and that continued with the impressive win over the Mustangs.