The Clemson men’s basketball team defeated the Miami Hurricanes by a score of 77-60 in Littlejohn on Wednesday. The win marks Clemson’s third straight in the conference. Following the game, graduate forward Jack Clark, senior guard Chase Hunter and head coach Brad Brownell spoke to the media.
Clark, who has been dealing with injuries during the season and did not play in the first game against Miami last month, scored a season-high 8 points. After the game, he spoke about how his injury has affected his play and caused fatigue when he first returned.
“I was definitely asking for a breather (after) maybe about a minute, two minutes in, but once two or three games happened, I got in my stride, and I’m good,” Clark said.
A transfer from NC State, Clark spoke about the upcoming matchup with his former team on Saturday. He mentioned that he still talks to his past teammates and that he has been speaking with them in recent weeks about the upcoming game.
Hunter also spoke about the matchup against the Wolfpack and former Clemson forward Ben Middlebrooks, who now plays for NC State. Hunter mentioned Middlebrooks’ matchup with Clemson’s center PJ Hall and how he was excited to see them compete against each other.
In the game against the Hurricanes, Hunter led the Tigers with 20 points on the night, 15 of which were scored from beyond the 3-point line. Brownell spoke about the importance of Hunter spacing the floor and being able to make shots from deep.
“It makes it easier to get the ball inside,” Brownell said. “You know, it takes pressure off Joe (Girard). The thing about Chase is when he is making shots like that, and then he’s also getting by and getting in the paint, three-level scorer. So now, that’s a different player, a lot of guys don’t have, can’t play at all three levels.”
Brownell also spoke about the importance of the 7,211 fans who were in attendance for the game at Littlejohn Coliseum. He specifically spoke about how the crowd was able to force Miami into using timeouts due to how loud they were.
“Fortunate to get a win and give a lot of credit to our crowd,. I want to thank them for their juice and energy tonight; we needed it,” he said. “That’s the kind of help that you need. You know they called two timeouts because the crowd was roaring as we made a couple of shots and trying to get it settled back down.”
Clemson will be back in action on Saturday at 7:45 p.m. against NC State in Littlejohn.
