Just an outstanding effort night from the Tigers handing Roy his worst loss at UNC. Now can we bring it on the road and make it last?
We came out with the Press in the first half and UNC looked totally lost and confused. 15 first half turnovers led to 21 Clemson points and we shot a ridiculous 7/12 clip from the arc to start out, and the hot shooting built up an early 20 point lead that we never relinquished for the remainder of the game. It appeared to me to be the most complete game intensity-wise we've played all year.
“I texted my mom today,” said junior point guard Demontez Stitt. “Last night I had a dream that we’d beaten Carolina by a lot. She told me it wasn’t a dream, maybe it was foreshadowing, a prophecy. It came true and I’m feeling great right now.”
"I just coached a poor game tonight," Williams said. "(Clemson) had a tremendous sense of urgency and tremendous passion. We went down 7-0 and I almost called a timeout, and I've never done that in my life. We turned the ball over 15 times (in the first half), had 2 veterans who couldn't pass and catch. There is no reason but to say that the head coach did a poor job. We need to have a better sense of urgency and poise."“I thought we could turn them over and they struggled with that,” Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. “That’s who we are, Clemson basketball. When we’re playing well, our pressure defense is good and we have seven, eight, nine guys applying pressure. It paid dividends.”
Trevor Booker, agreed.
"It was real big. That’s what we wanted to do, press them all night, make their point guards handle the ball," he said." Fortunately we came up with a lot of turnovers and it cost them the game." (source)
- Noel Johnson, lighting them up early on with 2 quick 3 pointers, but then his defense falters a bit. This game, together with BC, make a case for him to be playing much more. It helped that UNC was not playing any defense to start the game either.
- Clemson shot 18/20 from the FT line, damn. Potter even sunk a shot. You know its our night when that happens.
- UNC passing = bad. Clemson passing was much improved, especially on hi/lo. Alot of our turnovers forced were due to them being just horribly lazy with some passes, definitely a night where we out-efforted them. UNC was mentally out of this game from the opening tip. They do better in the half court, and never set it up. Roy Williams was at a total loss for words after the game.
- UNC's defense was really poor to start, but picked up later. However, the fact that Clemson's scoring output in the 2nd half is down is a function of us taking too many jumpers and not pushing the ball inside. Clemson was getting some good looks, but they stopped falling (29% shooting 2nd half). You have to push it inside when that happens, and when you have Booker, able to dominate them inside, why wouldnt you? We run a pick & roll and can't even run it right, or pass it around and don't take a good shot.
- Demontez Stitt, please ignore what Purnell says, be selfish. If Booker isnt killing them, then you need to take the ball to the basket yourself. You have too much skill to be passing the ball as much as you do. 20 points tonight only points to your potential.
- I ride Potter pretty hard on his offense (1/5 shooting, 0/4 from 3), but 5 first half steals, thats worth kudos. Tanner Smith also pulled down 5 steals and 6 rebounds.
- 2nd half defense dropped off, and UNC shot substantially better (47% in 2nd half). OP did back off the Press a good bit however. Clemson forced 11 turnovers in the first 10 minutes, and 26 overall, 14 were steals.
- Clemson was 0/11 from 3 point range in the 2nd half.
- Rebounding was a mixed bag. On one possession UNC got 4 offensive rebounds, so somebody wasn't doing his job blocking out. UNC won the offensive battle 14-7 and the defensive battle 24-23. Booker pulled down 9.