GREENVILLE – Before a near capacity crowd at The Well on Friday night, Clemson lost its second straight game to South Carolina, 65-59.

Clemson (7-4) trailed by as many as 20 points, before cutting the deficit to four on Landry Nnoko’s layup with 4:26 to play.

Both teams went over four minutes before the next made field goal, combing for three makes in the final nine seconds of the game.

The difference in the game, Brad Brownell said, was the 22-4 run by South Carolina (10-0) over the final 10:55 of the first half. The Gamecocks led by as much as 20 before taking a 41-25 into the halftime break.

“Guys fought back, we did a lot of good things in the second half, had opportunities to win…we didn’t have anybody make a big play at the end of the game, to win the game,” Brownell said

The Tigers cut the deficit to four points, thanks in part to Donte Grantham, who finished with 16 points on 6 of 14 shooting.

“Just got to make a tough play, get fouled, something. We’ve got to capitalize on the opportunity,” he said.

Jaron Blossomgame had with a team-high 17 points and 11 rebounds.

As a team, Clemson shot 37 percent from the field and 31 percent from behind the 3-point line (8 of 26).

When Grantham picked up his second foul at the 8:51 mark, the Tigers were in the midst of a 1 for 9 shooting stretch, including misses on their last six attempts from the field.

Fifty-one seconds later, a missed dunk by Landry Nnoko resulted in a five-point swing when Michael Carrera answered with a 3-pointer. South Carolina’s lead moved to 25-14 after Carrera canned another shot from downtown on the Gamecocks’ next possession.

A pair of Clemson timeouts were sandwiched around an 8-0 South Carolina run, before the Tigers closed the first half with a 7-2 run.

They cut the lead to single digits just over three minutes into the second half.

“Game of runs,” Brownell said. “Obviously, the run in the first half…we played poorly.”

Clemson returns to action on Tuesday night at Georgia.