CLEMSON – The big moments favored No. 24 Clemson through seven games, and that mantra rung loud yet again as the Tigers took down previously undefeated South Carolina 72-67 in Littlejohn Coliseum Wednesday night.

It took a while for Clemson to get going, but the rally of both the team and the crowd created one of the more memorable iterations of the rivalry on the hardwood. Here’s the 411 on the Tigers’ latest gritty performance.

-Anxious is the word to describe Clemson’s start, but senior center PJ Hall took the lid off with an and-one followed by a spot-up three from the top of the key.

“Settle in, missed a lot of bunnies…we were all just kind of getting our feet under us which is something you can’t do in a game like this but we have a lot of veterans,” Hall said.

The Tigers needed another impressive outing from their star and got it from the start.

-The other side of the coin was he was the only spark in the first half. He was 4-8 from the floor, while the rest of the team was 4-21. One-man shows can’t take down tough opponents, and the cavalry arrived after the break.

-Littlejohn was packed out but the crowd matched the careful energy early in the contest. That was until graduate guard Joseph Girard III raised his hands, signaling the crowd to get into the game. The rest of the first half was timid, but it set the tone for a fired up Tiger faithful in the second half.

-Meechie Johnson lit up the scoreboard for South Carolina and led all scorers with 26. He was 6-10 from behind the arc and it came in big moments. Johnson responded to nearly every Tigers’ jab with a three to silence the crowd.

-Sophomore forward Chauncey Wiggins went down with a lower right leg injury early in the second half. He took an extended break before returning, and came out firing.

“If they’re helping with other people, there’s going to be somebody that’s going to get a lot of shots…he’s still learning how to be a great player but he’s one of those guys you think except for  it calling timeout on the inbound, he plays with really good poise and he showed that tonight,” Head coach Brad Brownell said.

Wiggins knocked down back to back three-pointers to snatch the lead, and ended as Clemson’s leading scorer with 15.

TURNING POINT

The Tigers’ hopes were bleak, down 44-33 with 15 minutes to play until Clemson ripped off a 15-3 run. Still, South Carolina was stingy in a hostile environment..

“Just sticking to the game plan and then down the stretch, executing. The biggest thing once again was defense…making sure we limited the things that were going to hurt us the most,” Hall said.

It took a while, but the Tigers took a 54-51 lead, their first since 14-13. That flurry early in the second half was the groundwork for the comeback.

“It was a lot for our guys to have to tackle and I thought we just hung in there…it was a great win for us,” Brownell said.

TELLING STAT: 59.3%

That’s Clemson’s clip from the floor during the second half. Following halftime, the shooting success flipped in Littlejohn and it’s why the Tigers squeezed out a win. It’s been about how you finish so far, and there’s few teams doing it better than Clemson in the country.