The Clemson Tigers narrowly escaped a second-half collapse against the Cincinnati Bearcats in the Greenville Winter Invitational on Sunday afternoon, winning with a final score of 68-65.
The Tigers led by as many as 27 points and exited the first half with a 20-point lead, but the game still came down to the final buzzer.
Clemson guard Jestin Porter opened the scoring with a 3-pointer. From that point on, the Tigers never relinquished the lead, and, for a while, it appeared as if Clemson might boat-race the Bearcats.
Clemson’s first-half dominance exhibited shades of the Tigers’ opening 20 minutes against BYU earlier this month at the Jimmy V Classic. With three minutes remaining on the clock, Carter Welling hit a 3-pointer to extend the Tigers’ lead to a staggering 27 points.
Welling’s score, however, would be the last of the half for Clemson. Meanwhile, the Bearcats went on a 7-0 run to end the half in a sudden swing of momentum. While the Tigers still led by 20 at the break, the collapse against BYU just 12 days earlier suggested that the lead was anything but safe.
When the first half drew to a close, Clemson was shooting 57% from 3-point range — a large jump for a team that entered the game shooting just 32.6%. The question for the Tigers, however, was if they could sustain shooting almost 60% from downtown.
“I knew the game would come back,” Brownell said. “I mean, we were making every shot it felt like in the first half and guarded at an extremely high level.”
As the second half began, the trends from the end of the first half continued as Cincinnati’s momentum carried over, just as Brownell had expected.
“We knew the game was going to flip to some degree, probably at some point, unless we got off to a great start at the beginning of the second half,” Brownell said. “I was a little disappointed with our guys for that.”
Cincinnati opened the half with a 15-2 run in the first five minutes, subtracting the lead to nine. For the first time since the opening three minutes of the game, Clemson’s lead was cut to single digits.
The Bearcats relentlessly chipped away at the Tigers’ lead throughout the remainder of the game, though the Tigers appeared to keep them at bay, not allowing the lead to dip any lower than seven points for the next 10 minutes.
With three minutes remaining, Cincinnati made one last push, closing the lead to just six points. After being down by as many as 27 points, the Bearcats had the game within one point with 40 seconds left.
They would get no closer, though, as a layup from senior forward RJ Godfrey and four clutch free throws from senior guard Dillon Hunter secured the victory for the Tigers.
By securing the victory, Clemson escaped what could have been its second collapse in as many weeks. When Hunter was asked about the team’s mood in the second half and the game’s scary resemblance to the BYU matchup, Brownell interjected with some displeasure.
“I think some of that, though, is basketball now,” Brownell said. “You guys need to understand that. You can turn on TV, and you’re going to see that a lot more than you think.”
Following the near collapse, the Tigers now get a 10-day break to rest up before beginning ACC play. Clemson will begin conference play on the road when it matches up against Syracuse on Dec. 31 at 2 p.m.
