Clemson suffered it’s 19th straight loss at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium Saturday afternoon 79-53 in a game the Tigers never led. For that matter, the Tigers were hardly competitive after the first ten minutes. They trailed by double-digits midway thru the first half and never recovered. Bad shooting turning into bad defense, and turnovers was the recipe for Clemson’s failure against the Blue Devils.
The Tigers were 8-27 from the floor in the first half and trailed 41-22 at halftime. The second half wasn’t much better. The Blue Devils scored the first 11 points to expand their lead to 30, and the only question was how bad was it going to be for Clemson the rest of the way. The lead grew to 35 on two occasions, and it was just a matter of playing out the clock.
Clemson finished with a 35 percent shooting day, and only 5-21 from three. The Tigers are 12-52 from behind the line over their last two games. The difference in the Louisville win Wednesday night was despite the bad shooting, they didn’t lose their defensive focus. That wasn’t the case against Duke. The Blue Devils shot 46% from the floor and hit 10 threes.
Duke also took advantage of Clemson’s 13 turnovers converting those into 25 points. Conversely, Clemson managed just 6 points off 9 Blue Devil turnovers.
Aamir Simms was the only Clemson player in double figures with 19 points. Five Blue Devils scored in double figures with Matthew Hurt the high man with 13 points.
Clemson has lost four of it’s last five games after reaching #12 in the country and is 10-5 overall, 4-5 in the ACC. The Tigers will host North Carolina Tuesday night.
Brad Brownell postgame
Final Game Stats
