Chase Hunter scored a season-high 20 points and made five 3-pointers, and Clemson won its third straight in ACC play with a 77-60 victory over Miami at Littlejohn Coliseum Wednesday.
Both teams traded a pair 9-0 runs in the second half before Clemson pulled away. The Tigers (17-7 overall, 7-6 ACC) throughly dominated the Hurricanes (15-10, 6-8) down the stretch after leading just 31-30 at halftime and after trailing by six at one point in the second half.
Hunter broke a 57-all tie with his fourth 3-pointer of the night with 5:44 to play to put the Tigers ahead for good. PJ Hall added a 3-pointer with just over a minute left to run the Tigers’ lead to 74-60.
The game was well in hand even before then.
All told, Clemson closed the game on a 24-3 run over the final 6:45 of play. It was the third straight night in which the Tigers took control of the final 10 minutes of action.
“That was an incredible last 10 minutes,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said after his team’s win. “Incredible shot-making but good defense (too). I’m proud of our guys. We only had one turnover in the second half and 18 assisted baskets.”
Joe Girard added 18 points and Hall finished with 13 to give the Tigers three players in double figures for the night.
Then there was Hunter, the fifth-year senior who closed out the Tigers’ scoring when he sank his fifth 3-pointer of the game with 20 seconds to play. Hunter had 12 points in the second half.
“I’m so happy to see him shoot the ball like that in a big game when we needed it down the stretch,” Brownell said of Hunter. “They were doing a really good job of packing it in and it was really hard to get the ball to PJ and to Ian Schieffelin, so our guys had to make some shots from the perimeter.”
Clemson finished with 13 baskets from beyond the arc. Norchad Omier led Miami with 18 points. Nigel Pack played 25 minutes and was held scoreless in a game for the first time in his four-year career.
All told, Miami scored just three points over the final nine-plus minutes of play. Matthew Cleveland’s 3-pointer with 9:50 left gave the Hurricanes a six-point lead — their largest of the night — at 54-48. Clemson closed with a 24-3 run from there.
UP NEXT: Clemson is in a stretch of four out of five games at home. The Tigers return to Littlejohn Coliseum Saturday when they host NC State at 7:45 p.m. EST. The game will be televised regionally by the CW Network. The Wolfpack fell to Wake Forest, 83-79, last Saturday in Winston-Salem.