Ouch.
The Clemson Men’s Basketball team lost to the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday by the largest margin of defeat this season at 87-68.
Duke entered the game as the number one ranked team in the country, headlined by by their freakishly talented freshmen RJ Barrett, Cam Reddish and Zion Williamson.
Clemson, on the other hand, entered the game unranked with a 10-3 record. The Tigers began the season inside the top 20, but concerning losses to Creighton, Nebraska and Mississippi State soon plummeted the team outside of the AP 25. After the loss to Mississippi State, though, the Tigers rattled off five straight wins to close out 2018. Entering the game, the team looked like it was back on the right track.
In the game’s first half, Clemson did an exceptional job of hanging with the Blue Devils. Elijah Thomas had a height advantage against Duke’s starting 5 and exploited it early, scoring 10 of the team’s first 18 points on 5-5 shooting that involved an assortment of both layups and jump shots.
Clemson’s offense also did a magnificent job of utilizing off-ball-screens in the first half to get shooters open. One such instance took place in the first five minutes of the game. Elijah Thomas set a screen for Clyde Trapp, pushing Trapp’s defender out of position. As a result, the player guarding David Skara was forced to help out and try to defend both Skara and Trapp. To exploit this, Skara immediately made a cut toward the basket while Trapp ran out to the three-point line. The defender had to make a snap decision and chose to defend Skara, leaving Trapp wide open for a three.
The ball movement and screen-setting helped the Tigers shoot 3-4 from the three-point line and 14-28 from the floor.
Duke’s plan in the early going seemed to be to get Williamson involved. Having gone to Spartanburg Day School (just an hour away from Clemson) for high school, many thought that Williamson would don the orange and purple, a notion that was only exacerbated by the fact that the basketball program had just had its most successful season in 20 years.
As a result, it was no surprise to see Duke utilize Zion early and try to help him assert convincingly that he was in control: of both the game and his choice of college.
Right from the tip, Williamson was aggressive. He attacked the basket with no regard for the height disparity he had against Thomas. Williamson scored the first two points of the game on a breakaway dunk.
That aggression infected the rest of the Blue Devils, especially on the glass. Duke pulled down 40 rebounds compared the Tigers’ 36. Many of Duke’s rebounds came on the offensive end and resulted in easy putback tip-ins and dunks.
Thanks to a Marcquise Reed flurry to close out the half, the Tigers were in striking distance.
And then they weren’t.
Duke came out in the second half and looked like they were playing a different sport. Their physicality, quickness, aggression, defensive intensity all went up to a new level. Everything the Blue Devils did seemed like it was all on a plane that the Tigers just couldn’t match.
Spearheading this monstrous half was none other than Williamson. He went 5-6 on his field goals in the second half and finished with 10 rebounds and a game-high 25 points. His ability to attack the rim is unlike anything else in collegiate basketball, and the incredibly talented team that surrounds him makes Duke a truly terrifying matchup.
As well as Duke plays on offense with their high flying dunks (Williamson pulled off a 360 degree dunk in the second half) and electrifying shooting (Jack White made a huge impact by going 4-6 from three), their defense is just as stupefying.
The Tigers, who shot well in the first half, didn’t score in the second for nearly the first five minutes of the half. Rather than try to play at their own pace, Clemson tried to match Duke’s speed and were roundly beaten thanks to the Blue Devils’ length and athleticism. The Tigers were rash and careless with the ball, turning it over 19 times and giving up 27 total points as a result of the turnovers.
This loss hurts not just because of the final score, but because of what it leaves in the minds of Clemson students and fans. “What if?”
It’s impossible not to ask the question. What if Zion Williamson had decided to bring his talents to Clemson? Could he have made a difference in the Tigers’ five point loss to Creighton? Or the two point loss to Nebraska? Even against teams like Mississippi State and a Zion-less Duke, might he have been enough to provide a spark that propels the team to victory?
Probably.
And that’s what hurts the most. Knowing that this one player would have validated the basketball program’s past and altered its present and future, but is instead garnering more hype than any athlete since LeBron James on another team.
None of this is to say that Clemson does not still have a quality team. The recent win streak should be indicative that the team has plenty of talent and is still ironing out how all the pieces fit together. Plus, Clemson is not the first and will not be the last team to get blown out of the water by this Duke team. The fact that the Tigers were able to hang around with Duke for a time speaks volumes about the team’s heart and Brad Brownell’s ability to gameplan.
Clemson will have plenty of chances to prove itself against the rest of the ACC as conference play begins. Hopefully none of them have a Zion Williamson up their sleeves.
