The win improved Clemson to
8-4, while dropping The Citadel to 3-8 on the season.
Adonis Filer scored a season-high 21 points, the most for a Tiger freshman since
Terrence Oglesby had 21 against Puerto Rico-Mayaguez in 2007-08. Filer did not miss
in seven field goal tries and was 3-4 from the line. He made all four of his
three-point attempts, also a season-best. Jordan Roper, another freshman guard,
added 13, while Damarcus Harrison chipped in 10.
The Tigers’ 92 points were the most by the program since the 2009-10 season, when
Oliver Purnell’s final team posted 94 against College of Charleston. Clemson shot
61 percent and made 35 field goals, a high in 77 games under Head Coach Brad
Brownell. Defensively, the Tigers had 16 steals – also a high under Brownell.
Point guard Rod Hall had four of the steals. Ten of Clemson’s 11 active players
scored Tuesday.
Clemson jumped out to an 8-3 lead, but The Citadel closed to within a point after
Matt Van Scyoc scored on a transition bucket. The Bulldogs actually took the lead
at 9-8 on a pair of free throws, but the Tigers responded with a 16-6 run that
included seven points from Filer. The Tiger lead stretched to 12 at 30-18 on a
corner three by Milton Jennings. He then found a cutting Rod Hall for a layup to
push the advantage to 14.
Clemson’s run reached 13-0 after Jordan Roper converted a layup behind a screen from
Devin Booker. Filer hit his second trifecta on the next possession to make it
39-18. The lead reached 24 on yet another Filer three-pointer with two minutes left
in the half. Clemson took a 47-27 lead into the halftime break.
A modest 9-7 run coming out of the break ended on a layup inside by Devin Booker,
who hit the floor hard after tangling with Bulldog center Mike Groselle. Booker had
eight points and four rebounds, despite playing on a sore ankle. He left the game
and did not return after 17 minutes of play, but is expected to be okay.
Clemson used a working margin throughout the second half. With Clemson up 60-40,
the Tigers put together an 8-2 run that included dunks from Filer and K.J. McDaniels
to push the lead to 26 points. Filer hit his fourth three of the game moments later
to give Clemson a 75-47 lead. McDaniels provided a late highlight with a block on
one end followed by an alley-oop on the other to bring the home crowd to its feet as
the Tigers built a 35-point lead with just over four to play.
Groselle led The Citadel with 13 points and was 6-of-7 from the field. He did have
five of the Bulldogs’ 25 turnovers. The Citadel shot 50 percent, but was outscored
44-13 in points off turnovers.
The Tigers stay at home to open the regular season portion of the ACC schedule on
Saturday, Jan. 5. Clemson will play host to Florida State at 4:00 PM at Littlejohn
Coliseum.
Overall thoughts
“I thought it was a really good game for us offensively. I don’t know that
defensively we were as good as we needed to be at times. We didn’t play as sound
defensively as I would have liked, but moving in to conference play it was good to
see us shoot the ball well and have a convincing win and a good offensive
performance. We are better than the last two teams we have played, and you need to
exploit that. In a game with as many possessions as we had, and as many defenses as
they showed us, we did well to only have eight turnovers. We shared the ball well
and had a lot of advantage situations and didn’t get in too big of a hurry. We had a
reasonably good mix, though I would have liked a little more inside scoring at
times. We got away from that a little in the first half. Overall, a pretty good
performance by our guys.”
On Adonis Filer’s performance
“It was good to see Adonis make four threes today. They played off of him, gave him
open shots and he made them. We have had other games where that has happened and we
haven’t made them. Other than him just knocking down the open shots, I really liked
his energy and spark defensively. I thought he really got after the ball handler and
pressured and got our defense going a little bit. I think his greatest strength
right now is his competitive spirit. He wants to play, he wants to compete, and he’s
not afraid. It’s a huge help to our team when he can make shots like that. He is a
little streaky right now as a shooter, but we need him to have some games like this
if we are going to beat some good teams in our league.”
On the up-tempo offense
“You might see it a little bit more, but not as drastic. We are trying to play
faster on offense, but to be honest with you, sometimes the players don’t like to
play fast, because they get tired. In games when we feel we have better players we
do like to speed the game up a little bit. We like it, especially at home, but I’m
not sure we will do it a lot in ACC play. When you play better competition with
better guards they make you press at times so you have to be careful with that.”
On the youth of the team
“There are a few more frustrating moments than years before because you feel like
you get some things going in a good direction and then you either see something new
that you haven’t practiced as much and it shows or, because you have newer and
younger guys who aren’t as experienced with it there are things you think they
should have mastered but they haven’t because you are constantly game planning for
another game or another situation.
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