CHARLOTTE — It wasn’t quite how Nick Davidson envisioned it happening but his perfect execution of a play late in the game helped fifth-seeded Clemson hang on for a 80-79 win over fourth-seeded North Carolina in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday.

With the Tigers clinging to a one-point lead, after leading by as many as 18 in the second half, Davidson was fouled and headed to the free-throw line with 2.5 seconds left. Two makes would have put Clemson back up by three, meaning the Tar Heels would need a very quick three just to tie and send the game into overtime.

However, Davidson’s first shot rimmed off, forcing head coach Brad Brownell to call a 30-second timeout to discuss what he wanted his veteran big man to do on his final attempt.

“He told me to miss it, but miss it soft specifically,” Davidson told The Clemson Insider. “Sometimes you want to hit it like a dart so it comes back to you, but he said miss it soft, so it was kind of below the hash marks, so it does not give them momentum going the other way in transition. It was a good miss on my part, and I am glad we were able to kind of mitigate the bounce off the rebound.”

Davidson really couldn’t have missed it any better, as North Carolina was forced to throw up a three-quarter court desperation heave that came nowhere close to going in. At the same time, the redshirt senior noted it surely wasn’t perfect.

“I think perfect would have been had I made both and kind of relieved everyone’s stress with the situation we were in,” Davidson added.

With Carter Welling out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL suffered in Wednesday’s win over Wake Forest, the Tigers needed Davidson to step up and that is exactly what he did.

That final play helped the Tigers beat UNC in the ACC Tournament for just the second time ever.

“It is great, they are a great program,” Davidson said. “It means the world to all of us pretty much. We are in it for each other.”

The 6-foot-10 big man recorded his first double-double in a Clemson uniform in the victory, and the 12th of his career, as he scored a team-high 17 points while pulling down 11 rebounds. Davidson had a great night shooting the ball, going 5-of-6 from the floor, while hitting on all four of his three-point attempts.

And that kind of performance on that kind of stage was a big part of his decision to transfer to Clemson over the offseason.

“Without a doubt,” Davidson said. ” The ACC conference speaks for itself. The name speaks for itself. This is what you play for.”