Clemson’s men’s basketball dropped its fifth straight game, as the Tigers were unable to put an end to their losing skid on the road at Florida State Tuesday.
Nearly a month ago, the Tigers (12-14, 4-11 ACC) gave Leonard Hamilton’s team all it could handle and more in a 75-69 win over the Seminoles. Unfortunately, Clemson was unable to win its first game since then, as they came up just short in an 81-80 loss Tuesday.
The Tigers, who’ve dropped nine of their last 11 games, got a career-high 28 points from PJ Hall and 18 from Al-Amir Dawes, but Clemson shot just 38.6% from the floor, against an FSU team that was missing 4 of its 6 top scorers.
Clemson head coach Brad Brownell was understatedly heartbroken after another tough loss.
“Obviously this one stings,” Brownell said postgame. “I’m disappointed with the way the game was officiated down the stretch.”
Clemson went into the break with a 40-36 lead, in large part due to 17 second-chance points. The Tigers would only get two second-chance points in the second frame.
“We had some lapses, I thought, defensively a couple of times in the game,” Brownell said. “I didn’t think we were very good and early in the second half, we were just kind of on our heels again. Give them credit, I thought they made some shots. In the second half, they had some guys make some threes. Obviously, RayQuan was very good for them.”
FSU got 28 points with RayQuan Evans, who Clemson had no answer for in the second half. The senior guard scored 17 of his 28 points in the game’s final 20 minutes. In the second half alone, Evans went 4-of-8 from the field, 2-of-3 from deep and 7-of-7 from the charity stripe.
The Seminoles also got 17 points — 12 of which came in the second half — from sophomore forward Cam’Ron Fletcher.
Clemson led 80-76 with just under a minute to play, but Evans scored five straight points to give the Seminoles a one-point lead with 14 seconds remaining.
The Tigers crossed halfcourt and called a timeout to set up a play. They traded timeouts with the Seminoles before trying to execute a game-winning opportunity.
“We felt like he was held a little bit making a cut to the basket,” Brownell said of Hall. “We got the ball to our best player in a good area. We had, obviously, our best shooter (Alex Hemenway) coming open…We got it to PJ and they doubled him and he found Alex. He got a wide-open shot. That’s as good a shot as you’re gonna get under the circumstances. He makes it a lot and unfortunately, it was just a little short.”
Things won’t get any easier as Clemson looks to end its losing skid against Lousiville Saturday. While the Cardinals have dropped six straight games of their own, the Tigers have just two road wins this season.
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