By Will Vandervort.

After Rod Hall poked the ball away from Wake Forest’s Codi Miller-McIntyre with 25 seconds to play on Saturday, Clemson’s Donte Grantham aggressively moved the basketball into the frontcourt. The freshman then let up and handed the ball off to senior guard Rod Hall.

But during all of this, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell sprinted back up the sideline to the nearest official he could find while yelling for a timeout.

“I was afraid when we got the last stop that he was going to come down and jack one,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “So I had to sprint down and catch the referee, the best as I can call that a sprint, to make sure we have a timeout so we did not take a bad shot and give them the last shot.”

But that never happened as the Tigers got the last shot—a dribble-driving layup by Hall that was off the back of the rim and put back up by Josh Smith with 0.5 seconds to play. Smith’s last-second putback allowed the Tigers to beat the Demon Deacons, 59-57.

Grantham did not put up a shot on the Tigers’ final possession, but his play Saturday in Littlejohn Coliseum played a big role in why Clemson was able to overcome a 12-point second-half deficit and another poor free-throw performance (15 of 27) to get the win.

The true freshman scored a team-high 13 points on four of 10 shooting, while grabbing seven rebounds. With Clemson trailing late in the game, Grantham scored seven straight points to keep the Tigers close.

He scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half, including a windmill-like reverse layup that made the score 53-51, Wake Forest, with 5:29 to go. That started his run of seven straight points for the Tigers.

“I thought he showed great courage and really that he is one of our go-to guys,” Brownell said. “He is a guy that we are looking for to make plays. That can only help him going forward.”

Saturday marked the third straight game in which Grantham scored at least 11 points. The Tigers will travel to Raleigh, N.C. on Wednesday to play NC State at 9 p.m.