Hot-shooting Hokies send No. 21 Clemson to third-straight loss

Virginia Tech's offense had them out front for most of the game. (Photo: Peter Casey / USATODAY)

by TigerNet Staff - Wed Jan 10 20:59:48 GMT-04:00 2024

Three NET Quadrant 1 opportunities – three losses to start 2024 for Brad Brownell’s Tigers.

No. 21 Clemson dropped its third ACC game in a row with an 87-72 loss at Virginia Tech (10-5, 2-2 ACC) on Wednesday night. The Tigers (11-4, 1-3) slipped to 3-4 versus the Quadrant 1 opponents in the NCAA’s NET season resume tool. All three ACC losses have come by double-digits.

Clemson entered the week as a 4-seed in ESPN’s latest bracketology and was as high as a 2-seed last week.

Virginia Tech led by as much as 13 points in the first half, shooting 65 percent from the field and were led by four 3-pointers each from Sean Pedulla (19 points in the half) and Tyler Nickel (16 points in the half).

The Hokies hit nine 3-pointers over the first 20 minutes. Clemson had surrendered nine 3-pointers or less in all but four whole games coming in this season. A Chauncey Wiggins trey at the buzzer kept the deficit in single-digits, at nine, however.

"I'm really extremely perplexed as to why that happened," Brownell said of the uneven effort. "We tried to do everything we could to get emotionally ready to go back and complete. And I thought we were there. I thought we had a good shootaround today. I thought we had a pretty good practice yesterday...For whatever reason, we were a half-step behind...I'm fighting this team some defensively. And we rectified some things at halftime, and I thought Dillon (Hunter) really helped out team. Chase (Hunter) couldn't guard the ball tonight. I don't know what it was. Dillon guarded the ball and slowed down Pedulla at the beginning of the half and really got our defense back."

Midseason Wooden Award watch list member PJ Hall didn’t get on the board until nearly 10 minutes in, when he hit his first 3-pointer since the Miami game last Wednesday. After fouling out in the previous two games, Hall did pick up a second foul with over seven minutes to go in the first half, where he finished with six points over 12 minutes. He totaled only 11 points.

"Five 2-point field goal (attempts) is not enough," Brownell said. "Ian (Schieffelin) has got nine. We're running an offense where we're throwing you the ball more and we're also running an offense where both post players post and he's (Ian) finding ways to get more. (Talking to Hall), 'We've got to get you more. You've got to earn more -- fight for more.' We've got to work our way through it. You've got to roll up your sleeves and you better fight and work your way through some stuff."

Clemson crawled back to within four early in the second half, and then both teams went cold shooting for a few minutes. Pedulla’s sixth 3-pointer of the night broke that run for the Hokies, and a Pedulla steal and assist extended the lead back out to nine with 12 minutes left.

"I'm a little bit more angry tonight with my team than I've been. I was upset with them at Miami at half, proud of them for their fight," Brownell said. "Some nights you're going to miss shots, but today, as bad as we played for a while -- offensively we did some good things in the first half. We still gave ourselves a chance. We had it at four and really had a little bit of momentum, but we just don't make enough smart, tough plays. We kinda hope our way into stuff. We've got to be a little bit more disciplined. And our older players have got to make sure we're following through on some things."

The Tigers cut the lead back to four a couple of times, but Nickel, who scored a career-best 24 points, hit his fifth 3-pointer to extend the lead back out to nine points with 5:30 to go. Clemson didn't hit a field goal in the final 3:39 of the game as the Hokies pulled away. Virginia Tech finished with 13 3-pointers and 54.4% shooting overall.

Pedulla scored a game-high and a career-best 32 points. Clemson was led by 15 points from Ian Schieffelin and 12 points each for Joseph Girard III and Wiggins.

"Offensively, we miss a lot of shots," Brownell said. "I think PJ has got to fight harder for better position and deeper position. He's got to play like an All-American. We've got to get a little bit more out of him that way. Chase has to make some open shots. Joe has to relax a little bit. We had the turnovers. We got the ball in the paint four times and guys refused to bounce pass on the drop-off and we turned it over. But just like I told the guys in the locker room, 'Hey, you were 10-1 in the non-conference so you gave yourself some breathing room to stumble. We have 16 to go.' We've had a hard stretch here and it's another quick turnaround with Boston College, who's playing well and plays very hard. It's going to be a great test for us. We've got alumni coming back.

"We just need to figure out a way to get a win and get our mojo back a little bit. Can't feel sorry for ourselves. We've got to play better. We've got to play better basketball on both ends. We're not thinking what we want to get done and executing it and making way, way too many mistakes."

Clemson hosts Boston College next on Saturday (3 p.m./ACCN).

Virginia Tech stayed unbeaten at Cassell Coliseum this season, at 8-0, while Clemson dropped to 2-3 in true road games.