Stephen A. Smith Rips Clemson
By: Gavin Oliver March 22, 2025

Stephen A. Smith didn’t hold back on the Clemson basketball team’s performance in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday.

The ESPN personality blasted the fifth-seeded Tigers after their historically bad showing in the first 20 minutes of an eventual 69-67 loss to No. 12 seed McNeese State in the Midwest Regional.

Clemson (27-7) became just the second team seeded 5th or better to score 13 points or fewer in a first half of an NCAA Tournament game in the shot clock era (1986). Fifth-seeded Wisconsin had 12 points vs. Missouri State in a 1999 first round game.

The Tigers shot just 20.8 percent (5-24) from the field overall and 6.7 percent from 3-point range (1-15) in the opening half.

“Clemson was horrific. They were a disaster,” Smith said during ESPN’s First Take show.

“So we have to understand, as impressive as McNeese may be, there are certain things that it’s really about you,” Smith added. “No matter how good, no matter how great McNeese may have been, the bottom line is Clemson was historically bad. They seemed ill-prepared. They didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”

Smith pointed out that the Southland Conference entered this season 0-7 all-time against ACC teams in the NCAA Tournament prior to the stunning win for McNeese (28-6).

“So, you’ve got to look at it from that standpoint as well,” he said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. The fact that it happened – if it was some thriller or whatever it is – I understand it’s 69-67, close first-round game. But Clemson was so damn bad, so inexplicably bad, that’s what you walked away with.

“You walked away looking at them saying, ‘This is an ACC team?’ How in God’s name could they look this bad, and that’s what I walked away from.”

Clemson’s 13 first half points marked the fewest by a Clemson team in a first half in its 29-game NCAA Tournament history. The Tigers’ fewest prior to Thursday came in the 1990 Tournament against BYU, 28 points.

It was also the fewest points Clemson produced in a half this year and the second fewest under Brad Brownell. The worst was in 2013 at Virginia when that team scored 10 points in the first 20 minutes.

The end result, despite a late Clemson rally in the second half, was McNeese’s first-ever NCAA Tournament victory.

“So give McNeese props. I’m not trying to take anything away from them,” Smith said. “But I really think the story was how bad Clemson was in that first half. It really stands out because they didn’t seem ready to play at all.”

–Photo courtesy Kirby Lee-Imagn Images