Clemson Men's Basketball: Tigers trounce Highlanders to move to 11-1
Clemson Men's Basketball overcame a slow shooting start Friday night to overwhelm a shorthanded Radford Highlander team in Littlejohn Coliseum on the Clemson campus by a score of 93-58.
The outcome was never in doubt as Brad Brownell's team jumped out to a 17-5 lead, despite a one for seven start from the field.
Clemson trailed only once, and it was brief, at 3-2 for 26 seconds.
The Tigers found their footing in due time, finishing the game shooting 56.7% from the field, including a blistering 70.4% in the second half, hitting 37.9% from three-point range (11 of 29) and going a perfect 14 of 14 from the line.
Clemson outmanned the Highlanders and dominated on the boards by a margin of 45 to 13, a difference that is difficult to fathom.
The Tigers were also 23 of 31, 74%, from two-point range, finding themselves open or dominating the smaller Radford players near the basket as evidenced by their 38 points in the paint.
Joe Girard led the Tigers with 24 points, including 17 in the first half. P.J. Hall added 17, Chase Hunter 16 and R.J. Godfrey was the fourth Tiger in double figures with 10.
Girard led Clemson from three-point range, going four for seven from deep.
Ian Schieffelin once again dominated on the boards with 13 rebounds, including 4 on the offensive end.
As a team, Clemson had 15 offensive rebounds on 26 missed shots, which is a nearly unheard of rate.
Radford shot just 41.5% from the field and was led by 17 points from Kenyon Giles and 11 from Chandler Turner.
Turner also led the Highlanders with 4 rebounds.
The Tigers were 14 of 32 from the field when Dillon Hunter drilled a three-pointer that ended the first half and then Clemson hit their first seven shots and 10 of their first 11 of the second half in the blowout.
As mentioned in the preview, this Clemson team plays to a standard and does not play up or down to the level of their opponent, which would be easy to do in a game against an opponent such as Radford during the Christmas break and was a hallmark of Brownell teams in the past.
Clemson Men's Basketball has 19 straight ACC games ahead starting Wednesday in Miami
The Tigers, 1-0 in the ACC, non-conference schedule is over and ACC play begins in earnest with a Wednesday trip to Coral Gables, Florida to face the Miami Hurricanes, followed by a home contest next Saturday afternoon against the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Brownell's team has done better than expected in the non-conference portion of their schedule, owing three Quad 1 wins and losing only once and that was on the road against No. 38 (NET Ranking) Memphis.
Now they must follow it up with a solid showing in conference if they hope to maintain an advantageous seed in the NCAA Tournament in March.