By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

During the course of the year, Clemson’s Damarcus Harrison has shown glimpses here and there of what he is capable of as a scorer.

Though he was still out of shape as the season began because compliance issues due to his transfer from Brigham Young University kept him from practicing with the team, Harrison still opened the year with a 4-for-9 shooting night against Presbyterian and followed that up with 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting in a win at Furman.

But then some inconsistency set in. The sophomore still had his moments, like hitting a big three-pointer late that was key in the Tigers’ win at South Carolina on Dec. 2, or his 15 points against S.C. State on Dec. 23, or his 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting against The Citadel on New Year’s Day.

But when he scored a career-high 19 points in Clemson’s 77-70 victory over Virginia Tech Sunday afternoon at Littlejohn Coliseum, head coach Brad Brownell saw something in the Greenwood, S.C. native that he had not seen in quite a while.

“Damarcus played like the guy that I saw when I was recruiting him a couple of years ago,” the Clemson coach said afterwards. “He was outstanding. He played with so much more confidence. He has had a great year for us defensively. He just has not played as well offensively as we thought he would. He has been working at it and a lot of it is confidence.”

It probably helped that Harrison got off to a good start. He made the Tigers’ second basket of the game on a layup thanks to an assist from Devin Booker, and his second field goal came much in the same way to open up the scoring for Clemson in the second half.

But then, with the Tigers (11-8, 3-4 ACC) trailing 39-38, he drained a three from the right corner and then followed that up with a jumper in nearly the same spot on the very next possession.

“I knew I could do better,” Harrison said. “All I really wanted to do was keep playing and keep shooting it. I had seen a couple of them go in early. I got an easy one early with a layup so I just kept playing my game and I got a lot of shots to go in tonight.”

Because of his good start to the season, Brownell admitted as a coaching staff they were a little tentative in regards to fixing too much of Harrison’s jump shot when he first started to really struggle. But once ACC play began and they were not seeing any improvement, Brownell said they had no choice but to step in and help.

“When he first got here, he was so out of shape that he was not shooting it well,” Brownell said. “I really did not say much to him, I left it alone, but it was not improving. We finally started to work with him, probably a little too late, but you have to mess with some kids that have had some success.”

Harrison accepted his coaches help graciously and has spent hours and hours putting up shots in trying to improve his stroke, especially his jump shot. On Sunday, all that hard work paid off.

With the game tied at 50-50, and Virginia Tech still sitting in a zone defense, Harrison again made a big shot, draining his second three-pointer of the afternoon from the left wing with 9:36 to play. That shot kind of opened up things everywhere else on the floor as he then started getting the ball more to the post and more in the hands of Booker and Milton Jennings as defenders started to fly out on him.

“I missed a couple, and I really wasn’t looking to see who was coming at me, and Coach was like, ‘You have to drive it. That’s a four-man
coming at you,’” Harrison said. “So when I saw people coming fast, I attacked their closeouts and I was getting some good looks at Book in the post.”

Then he made the shot of his season thus far. With the Tigers clinging to a one-point lead, 61-60, and the shot clock winding down, he lifted a three from the left corner that found the bottom of the net with 2:49 to play.

The three-pointer brought the Littlejohn Coliseum crowd to their feet and kept the momentum on Clemson’s side for the rest of the game.

“I was just playing the game,” Harrison said. “I’m just in the midst of the game. I had the ball in my hand, made a good move, got a shot off and it went in.”

Harrison later added two free throws to complete his career-day. Overall, he was 6 of 10 from the field, 3 of 7 from behind the arc and 4-for-4 from the foul line. He also had two assists.

“Damarcus had shot the ball at times in practice really well. (Saturday), he made three threes in practice. We have seen it at times in practice,” Brownell said. “It is good to see some hard work pay off for a guy. As much as working with guys in their shooting and things like that is important, confidence in games is the most important thing.

“When you have positive experiences from game play, that’s what makes you grow as a player the fastest. You can see things in practice and have a playbook, but to be able to do it in crunch time and do it throughout the course of the game, that’s big. It wasn’t just a two-minute stretch where he made two threes back-to-back. This was a performance throughout the game, and that was good to see.”