On Sunday afternoon for 32 minutes and 58 seconds, the scoreboard declared Duke the superior team.
The Blue Devils throttled Clemson at a distance and developed a 14-point lead as they quieted a hopeful home audience. But games don’t get lost on the stopwatch; they get beaten in the margins. Clemson scored 23–12 over Duke in a feverish fourth quarter for a signature upset, despite leading for less than six minutes overall.
One of those moments came not in any other venue but from the most unlikely of places: a player shooting through a haze of tears. Just after the final buzzer, head coach Shawn Poppie of the Clemson Tigers marveled at the toughness of Hannah Kohn, who hit the game-defining bucket just when a defensive blunder had nearly cost the Tigers the game.
“We joked about it in the locker room because she had just given up a three, and she was in tears about it,” Poppie said. “For her to come back and hit a big shot with tears in her eyes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game-winner like that. It was unbelievable execution. It was big for her and big for us.”
The play wasn’t a mistake, of course; the play was more a byproduct of the routine drills we’d gone through on the team’s recent break from drills.
“That’s bye-week sort of stuff that we’ve talked about over and over and over again, late-game sideline out-of-bounds during our game-day out,” Poppie said. “You’re down one, the clear-out is for Mia (Moore), but if they suck in, you have Hannah at the top. Mia did a great job attacking but it was really cool to see that ball go through, especially for Hannah.”
Clemson could not fold, and the “unbelievable” finish could only be accomplished by staying afloat after a catastrophic opening frame. The Tigers stumbled out of the gate and fell behind 20–8 with the offense just stalled by the team. Poppie said the initial thump hurt but the team’s internal temperature never hit a panic point.
“We get off to a 4-0 start and then they punch us. Before we know it, it’s 20-8,” Poppie said. “We just had to stick with what we said. For us, it was always going to be transition and getting them stopped in the half-court. That second quarter push brought it within one... to be completely honest, when you sort of look in their eyes down 20-8, there was no defeat.”
Clemson made only a 32 percent FG from the floor, a number that generally suggests a loss. What mattered, however, Poppie argued, was the “dirty work” — winning the turnover battle and acquiring extra possessions — that led to an equalizer.
“The last part was respecting the ball. We had 12 turnovers, 8 more shots up and got a little more to the line. That’s what it takes to shoot 32 percent and still win. Just stay the course, chip away,”
For Clemson, the win over a top-10 Duke team is more than a point on the win column; it’s about the mission. After years of not managing to find their niche at a busy ACC, the Tigers used the national spotlight to announce that they got ready to play.
“We’ve been saying it we can make this place special. And special here is getting on the national scene,” Poppie said. “To knock off a top-10 team like Duke at home in front of a big crowd, on national television, I feel like that says we’re coming.”
As the program climbs higher, Poppie insists that this is not a flash-in-the-pan moment, but the basis of something sustainable.
“Long term – not only for this year. But for a long time to come. We’re not building teams around here. We’re building a program. We’re going to make Clemson women’s basketball special.”
“So this was one of those stamps to show we’re coming.”