Tigers Cruise Past Pitt

The Clemson Tigers snapped a three game losing skid with a 75-48 win over the Pittsburgh Panthers, Saturday night. For the Tigers, this the 11th time this season they have scored 70+ points.

PJ Hall set the tone early, scoring the first seven points by himself. Hall finished the game with 16 points, connecting on both of his 3-point attempts, and shooting 4-6 from the floor. For Hall, this was the 18th consecutive game where he has scored in double figures.

The Tigers took the lead early and never looked back, which is a huge sigh of relief. Clemson held an 11 point lead heading into halftime and kept a double digit lead for the rest of the game. It was such a refreshing sight to see this team hold a lead throughout the entirety of a game.

Al-Amir Dawes had a game-high 19 points, draining five shots from behind the arc. Dawes had a flawless second half. 13 points, 4-4 from the field, 3-3 from deep, 2-2 from the foul line. Greatness.

Chase Hunter continues to turn around his season with great efforts, tonight he had 13 points. Hunter has been playing with tons of confidence the last two weeks and it is reflecting in the box score.

David Collins also had double figures scoring with 10. Collins certainly has his flaws, but he has become on of my favorite players this season. He is extremely gifted defensively and is one of the few players that consistently plays with grit. Collins had seven rebounds tonight, which was a game high. Collins also still leads the Tigers this season in rebounds per game.

Hunter Tyson had a relatively quiet night, but he did knock down a 3-pointer in his 20 minutes of action. Saturday night was Tyson 100th career game for the Tigers.

The birthday boy, Naz Bohhannon brought the intensity in his 22 minutes. Bohhannon finished his night with just four points, but a lot of the dirty work he did will not show up in the box score.

Clemson shot 48% from 3-point land as a team. That is the single reason of why Pitt never had a chance to get back into the game. When the Tigers shoot 12-25 from deep, they are a tough team to beat.

Tonight was one of the better defensive outings of the season for the Tigers. Pitt’s lack of ball movement really allowed Clemson to win their one-on-one defensive battles. The Tigers had seven steals.

For the Panthers, Hugley was their leading scorer with 15. It was a poor shooting night for the Pitt big man however, he was 4-12 from the floor and 0-3 from long range. He notched seven points at the free throw line.

With this win, Clemson improves to 11-8 overall and 3-5 in conference play. The Tigers currently stand in 10th place in the ACC standings. Their schedule does not get any easier as the Tigers travel to Durham to take on the Blue Devils on Tuesday, January 25th at 7pm.