Girard leads Clemson past Radford in Tigers’ final contest before ACC play

Girard leads Clemson past Radford in Tigers’ final contest before ACC play 

Joseph Girard III finished with 24 points, and P.J. Hall and Chase Hunter combined for 33 more as No. 18 Clemson continued its roll through non-conference play with a 93-58 victory over Radford on Friday night at Littlejohn Coliseum. 

The win was noteworthy for several reasons. For starters, it was the Tigers’ (11-1 overall) 600th all-time victory at Littlejohn Coliseum, the arena the team has called home since 1968. It was also Clemson’s final tuneup in non-conference play before the Tigers begin their ACC schedule Wednesday, Jan. 3 with a trip to Miami. 

The Highlanders (10-5 overall) were overmatched from the start. 

Backed by 17 points from Hall and 16 from Hunter, Clemson jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. But it was Girard who was the star for the Tigers again. He buried a 3-pointer near the top of the key on his first shot attempt of the night to give Clemson an early 8-3 advantage just before the under-16 timeout. 

The Tigers never trailed afterwards and would go on to lead by as many as 43 points at one point in the second half. Girard connected on 4-of-7 shots from three-point range and was 8-for-11 from the floor in another solid performance. 

In hitting four three-pointers in the game, Girard moved into fifth place among all-time ACC scorers with 335 for his career. Duke’s Trajan Langdon, who sank 342 3-point baskets from 1995-99, is one spot ahead of Girard for fourth place in conference history. Girard’s 38 three-pointers this season leads Clemson. 

The senior from Glenn Falls, N.Y. is in his first season at Clemson after four seasons at Syracuse under Jim Boeheim before transferring during the spring. With the help of Girard’s exploits Friday, Clemson used a 28-9 run to take control of the game, during which Girard sank 12 points. He had 17 points by halftime, and the Tigers led at intermission, 49-23. 

For his part, Hall scored the Tigers’ first five points of the night with a layup just 14 seconds into the game, followed by a 3-point jumper minutes later. 

Hunter had a game-high five assists in 28 minutes, and the Tigers got some help off the bench from sophomore RJ Godfrey, who scored 10 points in 15 minutes. 

Ian Schieffelin totaled a game-high 13 rebounds in 23 minutes, marking the third time this season the junior forward has tallied 10-plus rebounds in a game.