What began as a routine flight to New York quickly turned into one of the strangest pregame routines Clemson men’s basketball has ever experienced.
On Monday night, en route to New York City to face No. 10 BYU at the Jimmy V Classic in one of its biggest nonconference tests of the season, Clemson’s plane was forced to reroute and refuel, leaving the Tigers grounded in an airplane hangar in Easton, Maryland. Walk-throughs in hotel ballrooms or arena hallways aren’t uncommon in college hoops — but a hangar? That was new.
Head coach Brad Brownell wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.
“Let’s go, walk through … in the hangar,” Brownell told his team as they unloaded.
“Certainly, we didn’t plan on the diversion, but you gotta make the best out of it,” he added in a pregame interview with Fox Carolina.
The unconventional practice may have contributed to Clemson’s start on Tuesday night, as the Tigers opened the game with some of their best play of the early season, knocking down big shots to seize early momentum. But the Cougars quickly showed why they entered the season with a high ranking and even higher expectations, as freshman phenom AJ Dybantsa and sophomore standout Robert Wright III kept BYU within striking distance.
Clemson’s frontcourt carried much of the early load. Carter Welling and RJ Godfrey commanded the paint and combined for 15 points, while in the backcourt, Dillon Hunter flew up and down the floor commanding fast breaks, and Jestin Porter looked unguardable, hitting four of his five 3-pointers and finishing the first half with 14 points.
Alongside the offense, Clemson’s defense delivered one of its best halves of the season. The Tigers held BYU to a season-low 22 points and used a 21-0 run to head into the locker room with a 21-point advantage.
Momentum flipped dramatically in the second half. BYU, fueled by Dybantsa’s scoring burst and Clemson’s miscues, stormed back to take a 1-point lead with three minutes remaining. Two more tough Cougar buckets extended the BYU lead to 62-56, capped by an electrifying jam from Dybantsa.
Efrem “Butta” Johnson halted the slide with a clutch 3-pointer, and Hunter followed with two strong drives, banking in a shot to tie the game at 64 with just five seconds left.
After a timeout, BYU inbounded with 1.3 seconds remaining and found Wright, who caught the pass and, without taking a dribble, launched a leaping heave over two Clemson defenders. The shot dropped cleanly, sealing a remarkable 22-point comeback for the Cougars.
“I’m proud of our guys. I thought our guys fought like crazy,” Brownell told reporters after the game. “The first 20 minutes, I thought we played our best basketball of the season.”
“My guys keep playing, but we have to play better basketball against elite teams. That’s what we’ve played this week,” Brownell said. “We’ve played Alabama and BYU, two top-15 teams in the country, and we just haven’t quite played well enough for 40 minutes to beat them.”
Despite controlling the opening 20 minutes, Clemson struggled defensively after halftime, allowing BYU to shoot 53.3% from the field in the second half.
After dropping two hard-fought matchups in the past six days, the Tigers, now (7-3), will look to reestablish momentum as they return home to face Mercer on Saturday at 3 p.m. in Littlejohn Coliseum.
