By Will Vandervort.
Clemson had the play it wanted on Tuesday.
Trailing 10th-ranked Notre Dame by two points with 22 seconds left on the clock, the Tigers got the ball to Jaron Blossomgame in the middle of the floor. The sophomore went to his right, towards the basket and put up a shot with nine seconds to go that did not hit its mark.
The ball was tipped back to the backcourt where it appeared guard Rod Hall had a handle on the ball before being chopped down by an Irish defender who dove for the loose ball. Notre Dame’s Bonzie Colson ultimately came up with the ball, but Demarcus Harrison poked it out of his hands to Landry Nnoko who got it back to Harrison, who launched a three as time expired, only to watch it hit the side of the rim and bounce off.
Harrison bent over in disbelief, while the Irish breathed a sigh of relief, escaping Littlejohn Coliseum with a 60-58 victory.
“I got a good look at the rim, it just did not fall for me,” said Harrison after the game.
Harrison finished the night with 15 points on 6 of 8 shooting. He had the hot hand and the ball ended up in hands with a chance to win the game.
“I thought it was going in,” he said. “It looked good to me, but it was a little short. I’m proud of how we played tonight. We played very tough and we competed.”
But don’t be fooled.
The Tigers (14-10, 6-6 ACC) desperately wanted to win this game, especially knowing what it means to their NCAA Tournament hopes. Having an opportunity to beat the 10th-ranked team doesn’t come every day, especially when that team is trying to build a resume for the selection committee, while covering up two dreadful early season losses to Winthrop and Gardner Webb.
“It hurts because it’s a top 10 team in the country and we had it to one possession. It was in our grasp and we kind of let it go,” Harrison said.
Clemson will now try to get it back, but it will not be easy. The Tigers do have winnable games against Virginia Tech (Saturday at noon) and Georgia Tech coming up, but then there is a trip to No. 4 Duke, another matchup against the Yellow Jackets at home, NC State comes to town to close out the final game at Littlejohn before a rematch against this same Irish team in South Bend to end the regular season.
“We just have to regroup as a team and try to finish this thing strong,” Harrison said.
That’s the problem. This Clemson team has had its issues when it comes to closing things out.
The Tigers were up four points, 56-52, when Hall drove the lane and layed the ball in with 4:07 to play following the old fashioned three-point play at the foul line. But Clemson went the next 3:33 seconds without a basket and subsequently the Irish went on an 8-0 run to seize the lead, while setting up the game’s final hectic seconds.
“We probably weren’t as aggressive down the stretch as we needed to be, not as confident,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “Sometimes, in the second halves of these games, I think our guys get a little passive. We need a go-to guy sometimes, Jaron can be that sometimes, we kind of struggle sometimes looking for one more guy to help us get over the hump.”
Blossomgame tried his best to get the Tigers over it. He scored a team-high 17 points, while grabbing a career-best 14 rebounds. In the end though, despite how well designed the play was, Blossomgame could not get his game-tying shot to fall.
“We had plays for both man and zone,” Brownell said. “They came man, we wanted to get the ball to JB in the middle of the court and see what he could do … and he got a shot and it didn’t go. There was a scrum, boy it looked like our guy got clipped or knocked down, but we didn’t get the call.”