By Will Vandervort

CLEMOSN — Though they tried and tried, Clemson could not overcome itself Saturday at Littlejohn Coliseum.

After trailing Florida State by as many as 16 points, before cutting that lead to as low as three-points in the second, the Tigers could not make that one play to get them over the hump in a 71-66 loss to open the ACC part of their schedule.

“There isn’t too much to say about it. We had them right where we want them and they got the best of us,” center Devin Booker said.

Clemson (8-5, 0-1) did not have the Seminoles anywhere close to where they wanted them to be in the opening 20 minutes. The Tigers missed 12 of their first 14 shots and fell behind 24-9 as Florida State connected on five of its 10 three-pointers in the first 10 minutes of the game.

The start of the game was eerily similar to early season losses at Littlejohn to Purdue and Arizona.

“I don’t know why we get off to poor starts at home in some of these games, but it has really cost us,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “We have had a hard time scoring at some of these games at home. Give Florida State credit, I thought they came in and made shots.

“In the first half, they shot better than they normally shoot and got into a really good rhythm.”

Florida State (9-5, 1-0) was led by Okaro White’s 15 points and seven rebounds. He was 3 of 6 from downtown, all in the first half, and connected on 5 of 12 shots overall. Terry Whisnant added 11 points for the Seminoles, while Terrance Shannon dropped in 11 as well and had eight rebounds.

“The problem is, when you are struggling a little bit on offense and then they score, you are always going against five-on-five defense. You never get any transition baskets and you never get in any advantage situations and so you are constantly going against their set defense.

“If you don’t score, you are in transition defense and it becomes a cycle and in the first half it was a problem.”

Clemson ultimately got out of that cycle late in the first half and trimmed the FSU lead to 11 points at one point before intermission. After falling behind by 16 points to start the second half, thanks to a Snaer three-pointer from left wing, the Tigers scored eight straight points to cut the lead to 41-33.

After FSU answered to build the lead back to 12 points, the Tigers again went on a run, which Devin Booker slammed home on an alley-oop pass from Rod Hall. That made the score 50-43 with 13:17 to play.

“We played with more energy in the second half,” said Booker, who led all players with 19 points and 11 rebounds. “In the first half we did not have it. That’s why they got us. We dug ourselves in a deep hole and ever since then we were trying to fight out of it.”

Thanks to 11 points from Jordan Roper, who came off the bench, and seven second half points from Milton Jennings and nine from K.J. McDaniels, Clemson twice got the lead down to three points. In the final minutes of the game, the Tigers had five opportunities to tie the score, but they turned it over four times and missed two shots. Jennings, who scored 10 points, was charged with three of those four turnovers.

“We executed the first of those three plays out of the time out,” Brownell said about the one time the Tigers did get a look at the basket. “We had practiced it a lot. It was a look to K.J. or Book. We got the ball to K.J. in the middle of the court, he drove, and then missed the layup. I think Book missed the tip.”

Down the stretch Clemson also missed key free throws as Booker, McDaniels and Adonis Filer hit the front end of one-and-ones. The Tigers were 8 of 17 from the foul line in the second half and just 18 of 30 for the game.

“We had opportunities to come back and steal one and we didn’t make baskets, didn’t execute and we got beat,” Brownell said.

In other words, Clemson could not get out of its own way.