LITTLEJOHN COLISEIUM: Clemson continued its dominant stretch Wednesday night knocking off the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 83-68. The Tigers set a school record with their 15th ACC win with three regular season games remaining. They also extended their program record with a 13th double-digit ACC victory.
The victory clinches a double-bye in the ACC Tournament for the Tigers. They will be no worse than a top four seed and thus won’t play their first game in Charlotte until Thursday of tournament week.
Clemson had a seven minute scoring drought in the middle of the first half when the Tigers missed 12 straight shots, and they trailed by a point with six and a half minutes left in the half. Ian Schieffelin, who finished with a career high 24 points and surpassed 1000 points in his career, put the Tigers back up for good with a layup, and then followed that with a three-ponter from the top of the key.
That was part of a personal ten-point run for Schieffelin who closed the first half with 13 points sparking the Tigers to a ten-point lead at the break. They didn’t look back from there.
Clemson pushed the lead to 15 points within the first five minutes of the second half with Scheffelin adding six more points to his total. The Irish closed to within nine with 8:41 to play, but the Tigers responded with a 10-2 run to restore order at 72-55 with 6:17 left. The lead never dropped under 15 points from there.
Viktor Lahkin had another strong outing with 18 points, including three-pointers and euro-step layups. The Russian big man is averaging 17 points in his last five games for the Tigers. Jake Heidbreder stepped up off the bench and hit four threes on his way to a 14 point night, one point oiff his season high. Jaeden Zackery rounded out Clemson’s double-digit scorers with 11 points.
Meanwhile, star guard Chase Hunter put up an uncharacteristic eight points off two-for-six shooting. After the game, coach Brad Brownell revealed that Hunter had been dealing with a calf injury he suffered in practice on Thursday, so they limited in his minutes.
The Tigers shot 48% from the field, including 9-for-23 from three, and made 14 of 18 from the line. They had 23 assists on their 30 made field goals and committed just four turnovers.
Clemson is now 23-5 overall and 15-2 in the ACC. The Tigers will play at Virginia on Saturday afternoon.