Tigers fall to Duke, 82-64

The Clemson Tigers are now at .500 on the season after a 82-64 loss to the Duke Blue Devils Thursday night. With the loss, the Tigers sport a 12-12 record and are 4-9 in conference. Clemson is now 0-3 in the month of February.

Duke always held a slight lead, until they poured in on the last six minutes. Clemson did a good job to keep it close, but the talent and size of the Blue Devils was just too much to handle.

Clemson was already down one starter, Hunter Tyson suffered a broken clavicle in the Florida State game, but right before half time, David Collins would receive a flagrant 2 ejection after a reckless foul on Wendell Moore. Collins played just 14 minutes, scoring 0 points.

The flagrant foul was posted on every major sports social media page and many are calling for a suspension for Collins.

After the ejection was made, Collins did share a moment with Coach K apologizing. He also wrote an apology on his Instagram story after the game:

He has since deleted the Instagram story.

On a positive note for the Tigers, PJ Hall had yet another impressive scoring night, with 17. With that performance, he has now scored in doubles figures in 23 consecutive games. For PJ, the rebounding numbers were not up to par, finishing with just three. PJ has been getting treatment of his foot for hours a day and wears a walking boot. What he is doing while having a nagging injury is incredible.

Rebounding was a major issue for the Tigers throughout the game. Duke excelled in 2nd chance points and points in the paint. The main reason Clemson kept it close in the first meeting was their ability to limit Duke to just one shot. That was not the case Thursday night, where Duke grabbed 9 nine offensive rebounds.

Chase Hunter was electric tonight. We saw some things out of Chase Hunter that we have never seen before, including two ferocious dunks that ignited Littlejohn. Hunter had 13 points on the night, shooting 5-8 from the floor.

Ian Schieffelin got the start for the injured Tyson and we was a force on the glass, notching 10 rebounds.

Trevor Keels was a matchup problem all night for the Tigers, he finished with a game-high 25 points. Keels really turned it on in the second half, where he scored 23, most of those in garbage time.

Paolo Banchero had a rough night shooting for Duke, but still ending up with with 15 points. He shot 5-15 from the floor and 1-4 from deep. He had a hard time getting to his spot at the mid-range, which led to a lot of forced shots.

Mark Williams and AJ Griffin both had double figures for Duke, with 16 and 12, respectively.

Next up for the Tigers will be Notre Dame on Saturday. Our NCAA Tournament hopes have been dead for a while, but now making the NIT isn’t even likely. A good night shooting will be a must on Saturday.