Tigers fall to Gamecocks in Littlejohn |
CLEMSON – The growing pains continue for a young Clemson basketball team.
Anthony Gill hit a tiebreaking 3-pionter with 1:19 left and Bruce Ellington and Malik Cooke had clinching free throws to lift South Carolina to a 58-55 victory over Clemson on Sunday as the Tigers scored just 20 points in a miserable second half. The Tigers had one last chance, but guard
Andre Young “It’s a disappointing loss, certainly,” Clemson head coach
Brad Brownell
Tanner Smith The Tigers held a 35-28 halftime advantage and did enough defensively to stay in the game, but struggled through a second half that saw them shoot just 7-for-24 from the field in the final stanza. One bright spot for the Tigers was the play of center Bobo Baciu, who came off the bench to score 10 points. Brownell said the Tigers’ inability to hit easy baskets cost them. “Those are back-breaking plays, when you get it to a point in your offense when you get it where you want to get it and you don’t get anything out of it,” he said. “It’s frustrating, but that’s really the game. At the end of the day, your guys have to find a way to get the ball in the basket. I thought we did a pretty good job. We were pretty patient. “We got a lot of paint touches, and we got some kick-out threes against the zone. There are going to be some nights—and there have been two right now—where Andre (Young) goes 2-for-9. Those nights, we’ve lost both games. But that wasn’t the overriding factor. The factor was that we had it around the rim several times in the paint and didn’t come away with any points. You have to get fouled. You have to do something. They even blocked one that hit the backboard first.” He said his goal is to have the team improve enough to be good in February and beyond. “We need to be playing better in February,” he said. “That’s when you want to play your best basketball. At the beginning of the season, you’re still trying to figure things out a little bit. It would be great if this game was like the football rivalry, if it was the last game of the season, in some ways. Our job is to try to make our guys as good as they can be throughout the long race, and we’ll get back to work on Monday.” 
Andre Young
Sr. Guard
#11 5-9, 175
Albany, GA
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’s desperation 3-pointer fall short of the basket as time ran out for the Tigers (4-3). 
Brad Brownell
Head Coach
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said. “I thought we played really well in the first half. We executed and made shots, and we had a working margin. In the second half, both teams were just grinding it out. Baskets were hard to come by. That was really the difference—we had some open threes that my shooters that normally make, and we had some plays in the paint that got blocked, or we missed or we hurried. I thought both teams competed extremely hard and went after each other. We defended really well, but you have to find a way to scrape together a few more points. We just didn’t get it done.” 
Tanner Smith
Sr. Guard
#5 6-5, 210
Alpharetta, GA
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was fouled trying a 3-pointer with 7.5 seconds left but missed the middle of his three foul shots to keep South Carolina ahead by one. That's when Cooke hit two final foul shots with 6.7 seconds remaining to seal the victory for the Gamecocks.
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