In a game of horse between Clemson’s PJ Hall and Notre Dame’s Markus Burton, it was the freshman who got the better of the senior. Burton scored 20 points and collected six rebounds as the Fighting Irish rallied past Clemson 69-62 in South Bend on Saturday night. The loss snapped the Tigers’ three-game winning streak and dropped Clemson to 20-9 overall and 10-8 in the ACC. Brad Brownell’s club will enter the final week of the regular season in a four-way tie for fourth place in the league.
Clemson held a 34-31 lead at the break thanks to a monster first half from Hall. The senior from Spartanburg led the Tigers with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the floor. Hall’s performance was the only reason the visitors had the lead, as he got very little help from his teammates. Whereas Hall shot 55% in the opening twenty minutes, the rest of the Tigers were just 7-of-18, with Chauncey Wiggins and Ian Schieffelin combining to score 14 points.
And while Hall was hoopin’ for the Tigers, Burton was putting on a show for the home fans. The Indiana native outshined Hall with seventeen first half points on 7-of-13 shooting and actually shouldered more of his team’s load than did Hall. Burton’s teammates made just five other field goals in the first half, shooting a combined 28% from the field.
“Obviously Markus Burton is an elite player,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said in the postgame. “He’s just hard to handle for every team in the league. He puts so much pressure on everybody that he makes everybody else better. That’s what great players do.”
The second half was a completely different story, as Notre Dame took their play up a notch while the Tigers regressed. Sophomore forward Tae Davis exploded for 18 points in seventeen minutes as the Irish shot 46% from the field to seize control.
Meanwhile, Clemson’s offense went stale as the Tigers were just 10-of-30 in the second half, with only three of their field goals coming off assists. The Tigers also failed from beyond the arc, shooting just 2-of-15 from three in the second period.
Despite the offensive struggles, Clemson placed four players in double figures, as Hall finished with 21 and Wiggins tossed in twelve. Joe Girard had a much better second half to finish with eleven points, while Schieffelin collected another double-double, tallying 10 points and 14 rebounds. Burton, Davis, and Carey Booth each finished in double-digits to lead the Irish.
Clemson wraps up the regular season next week by hosting Syracuse on Tuesday before traveling to Wake Forest on Saturday.
