CLEMSON – Clemson remained unbeaten in ACC play with its 80-68 win over Cal on Saturday night inside Littlejohn Coliseum.

The Tigers once again got off to a slow start, committing seven first-half turnovers that led to 12 Cal points. Viktor Lakhin also missed the opening half due to an illness he’s been dealing with.

With Lakhin on the floor, the second half was a much different story.  Clemson shot 67% from the field over the final 20 minutes while holding the Golden Bears to just 42%. The Tigers dominated down low, outscoring Cal 28-10 in the paint in that second half.

With the win, Clemson improves to 12-3 overall and 4-0 in ACC play.

“I am pleased with where we are,” head coach Brad Brownell said. “We are 4-0 in the league. We had a good non-conference. We didn’t have a great non-conference but we had a good non-conference.”

Coming into the season, Brownell said due to some of the new faces, his team would be a work in progress. Possibly into the month of January. While he is mostly pleased with how the Tigers have progressed, there is one area where he still wants to see more growth.

“We’re trying to figure it out,” Brownell added. “We need to keep working our bench. That is the only thing I am disappointed in. I didn’t play my bench a little bit more.”

In the win over Cal, Clemson got 14 points from its bench. Del Jones scored six, Dillon Hunter five and Jake Heidbreder three. Christian Reeves, who usually comes off the bench, got the start in place of Lakhin, scoring four points in his eight minutes of action.

“I thought Del was really good,” Brownell said. “Christian got us off to a fine start. He played fine in his minutes. But we need to keep developing our bench for the long haul. It’s a long-distance race.”

On top of Lakhin’s illness, the Tigers are also a little beat up at this point. Ian Schieffelin and Chase Hunter are both a little banged up at this point, making getting some production from the reserves that much more important.

“We are a little sickly right now. We’ve had a couple of guys that have some colds and we are a little beat up,” Brownell said. “Chase has an ankle that’s been bothering him and Ian has a couple of things that have been bothering him. It’s kind of that time of year where you are going at it. Little things flare up and we are playing some of these guys a lot of minutes. So we have to be smart as a staff and try and manage that.”

Clemson will next play at Louisville on Tuesday. Tipoff is set for 7pm and the game will be televised on ESPNU.

A limited number of signed replica road signs from Cade Klubnik are available!  Visit Clemson Variety & Frame or purchase online!