Clemson basketball falls at North Carolina for third straight defeat, out of first place

Todd Shanesy, Greenville News
·3 min read
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Clemson basketball dropped its third straight game Saturday, 91-71 at North Carolina, and dopped out of first place in the ACC.

The Tigers (18-7, 10-4 ACC) came into the day tied with Virginia and Pitt, which got a victory against Florida State. Clemson last week had back-to-back defeats against Boston College and Miami.

PJ Hall led Clemson with 18 points and Chase Hunter scored 15 but was just 1-for-8 on 3-pointers. He was 8-for-8 at the foul line. Brevin Galloway scored 10. Hunter Tyson scored just three points. only the third time this season he was held to single digits.

For North Carolina, Caleb Love scored 23, Armando Bacot had 19 to go with 11 rebounds, and RJ Davis scored 17.

Both teams pulled their starters with 4:22 remaining and a 25-point difference.

Clemson plays at home 7 p.m. Wednesday against Florida State and 7 p.m. Saturday at Louisville. The Tigers’ last two games at Littlejohn Coliseum are Feb. 22 against Syracuse and March 4 against Notre Dame.

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Hunter Tyson reaches 1,000-point milestone

Clemson’s Tyson only basket was a milestone. He reached 1,000 points for his career on a 3-pointer from the top of the key early in the first half.

Tyson became the 43rd player in program history to hit that milestone. The most recent were Aamir Simms (1,122 points) in 2021, Shelton Mitchell (1,084) in 2019 and Donte Grantham (1,100) in 2018. Clemson’s all-time leader is Elden Campbell, who scored 1,880 points from 1986-90.

Tyson, a graduate student, will break Clemson’s record for career games. He has 131 and is four away from breaking a mark shared by Cliff Hammonds, K.C. Rivers, David Potter and Trevor Booker, who played at Union High School.

Clemson basketball on bubble for NCAA Tournament

Clemson is in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, and the Tigers are running out of time to impress the voting committee.

Coming into Saturday’s game, Lunardi had Clemson as a No. 11 seed but would drop to the last four in with a loss in Chapel Hill. UNC was the last team in the field of 68. The schools might have basically switched places.

With only six regular-season games remaining, the Tigers’ best chances to strengthen their resume would be back-to-back against NC State (No. 41 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool rankings) and Virginia (No. 14). Clemson will also play Syracuse (95), Notre Dame (198), Florida State (215), Louisville (331).

Hurting the Tigers’ chances the most were losses to South Carolina (271), Loyola-Chicago (276) and Boston College (174).

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson basketball falls at North Carolina for third straight defeat