By Will Vandervort.

Saturday’s game at Notre Dame will be tough for Clemson in more ways than one.

First off it’s a road ACC game against the nation’s No. 11 team. Secondly, it’s Senior Day in South Bend so the Irish will be honoring seniors Pat Connaughton and Jerian Grant. Thirdly, the Tigers have to find a way to stop Grant.

“Notre Dame is having a great season and Jerian Grant could be MVP in the league in some ways. He has had a fantastic season, controls the game,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said.

Grant scored 22 points and dished out five assists against the Tigers back on Feb. 10 in Littlejohn Coliseum, a 60-58 victory for the Irish.

“We have to do a good job on Jerian Grant,” said Clemson forward Jaron Blossomgame. “His ball screens and the way he moves around the floor is very beneficial for their offense. He can roll a guy or hit one of their three-pointer shooters so that is something we are really going to have to lock in on and focus on if we are going to win this game.”

Stopping Grant is easier said than done. The Tigers spent all day Wednesday and Thursday working on how they are going to slow down the Irish’s point guard.

What Clemson (16-13, 8-9 ACC) did at Littlejohn a few weeks back to slow Notre Dame down was try to limit everyone else as much as possible. That sort of worked, though the Irish’s Big 3—Grant, Connaughton and Demetrius Jackson—all scored in double digits, no one else did much of anything. They only got 13 points from everyone else.

“It’s hard because they have so much shooting,” Brownell said. “Their offensive efficiency is as good as anybody in the country. I mean they make threes at such an alarming rate that it stretches you. They have enough good players, Demetrius Jackson is fantastic. I don’ think Jerian played as well as he has in most games at Louisville and Jackson was fantastic.

“They have a lot of weapons. They are older. They are experienced. They have good bench play. Offensively, they are just extremely talented and that kind of pressure on you makes it hard, even if you stop one of their better players, to stop them as a team. That is why they are so good.”

And that puts a lot of pressure on a Clemson team that is struggling offensively. In Tuesday’s loss to NC State, the Tigers went 14 minutes and 13 seconds without a field goal and shot just 29.9 percent from the field. There was a 10-minute in which they did not score a single point.

“We just do not shoot the ball as well as we need to shoot it,” Brownell said. “I do think in some games we do get timid. We look around for confidence and who is going to make a play.

“It really feels like when Rod (Hall) does not do it, that really puts pressure on the other guys and in several games the other guys have not felt confident enough to finish it.”

And that has led to five losses in the last seven games and it now has the Tigers looking at the possibility of not even playing in the NIT, which last week seemed like a sure thing.

“We are just not making shots,” Blossomgame said. “We are trying to go out there and make plays, but sometimes things have not gone our way. I don’t think we are really conscious of it in the game. I didn’t really know we went fourteen minutes without a field goal in the last game. Someone told me that after the game and I was like, ‘What? Did that really happen?’

“We don’t really know that stuff is happening. It just happens sometimes.”

And that is something the Tigers cannot afford to let happen at Notre Dame.