PJ Hall picked a good time to have one of his best performances of the season. So did some of his teammates.
Clemson had an uncharacteristically poor shooting night from deep and seemingly coughed up possession after possession on the road. But the Tigers did enough down the stretch Saturday to bounce back from their midweek loss at Virginia.
The Tigers (10-5, 2-2 ACC) needed all of Hall’s 20 points to hold off North Carolina State for a 70-65 win at PNC Arena. The Wolfpack (8-8, 1-4) had few answers for Clemson’s sophomore big, who shot 10 of 16 from the field for his first 20-plus point game since scoring 22 against Drake on Dec. 12.
The Tigers also got 16 points from Al-Amir Dawes, 11 rebounds from David Collins and seven points off the bench from Chase Hunter, who played significant minutes in the second half after Collins got in foul trouble.
It all helped Clemson, the ACC’s top 3-point shooting team coming in, overcome a 30% clip from deep and 16 turnovers, which N.C. State turned into 15 points.
Clemson also regained its defensive form after allowing Virginia to shoot better than 53% from the field Tuesday. The Tigers held the Wolfpack to just 31.7% shooting, including just 10 baskets within the 3-point line.
Dereon Seabron scored a game-high 27 points for N.C. State, which has lost five of its last six games.
Clemson eventually got its offense going to lead 30-28 at the half, though turnovers kept the Tigers from extending their lead. Clemson missed its first six shots of the game and went more than 4 minutes without scoring later in the opening 20 minutes before a 3-pointer from Dawes – Clemson’s first of the game – ended the drought with 9:02 left in the first half.
It was the first of six consecutive makes for the Tigers, who ripped off a 10-0 run to take a 23-16 lead with 5:10 remaining before halftime. Dawes had 10 of his points in the opening half while Hall contributed eight first-half points.
But the teams combined to turn it over 17 times before halftime with Clemson committing eight of them. That contributed to the Tigers scoring just three points off the nine they forced from the Wolfpack, who ended the first half on an 8-2 spurt capped by Cam Hayes’ 3 just before the buzzer.
This story will be updated.