Clemson lets opportunity slip away against struggling Louisville

Clemson took a bad loss on Saturday night, falling 83-73 against a struggling Louisville team in the KFC Yum! Center. Despite 28 points from PJ Hall, it will go down as a Quad Four loss and a major demerit for the NCAA Tournament resume.

Brad Brownell’s team is now 19-8 (11-5) on the season and will need to continue working on its resume ahead of the ACC Tournament and Selection Sunday in mid-March. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi placed Clemson in the First Four Out category entering Saturday’s full slate of games.

The loss against Louisville 4-23 (2-14) adds to a perplexing season for Clemson, which now boasts seven Quad One and Quad Two wins but has three Quad Four losses.

Clemson got off to a rocky start in the game, making just two 3-pointers in the first half while relying on PJ Hall and Brevin Galloway for 25 of the first 36 points.

“Our team panicked just a little bit,” said Brownell. “We seem to have panicked a little bit on offense in some of these games, especially on the road when things aren’t quite going as well as they should for us.

“There was some times in these games where we settled for a quicker 3. And it’s not something that we really need to be doing. It’s working against us, and it worked against us tonight.”

Things did not improve for much of the second half, but a late push brought Clemson back into the game and forced Louisville to show an ability to close out games which had eluded them so far this season.

To make matters worse on the offensive end, the Tigers got zero bench points throughout the game.

“It’s an interesting game, I’m anxious to watch the game on film,” said Brownell. “There’s a lot of stats that we won. … But our bench got outscored 14-0. That was a factor.”

Defense was also a struggle, as Louisville shot better than 50-percent from the field and from the 3-point line in the first half. A zone look late in the second half temporarily caused issues, leading to a four-minute scoring drought for the Cardinals, but it was not enough.

Despite forcing 14 turnovers in the game, Clemson’s foul trouble led to Louisville shooting 26-of-28 from the free-throw line. The Tigers also lost the rebounding battle 37-26, although they grabbed two more offensive boards.

Clemson will look to start repairing the damage on Wednesday, facing off against Syracuse in Littlejohn Coliseum at 7 pm ET on ACC Network.