Bah! Humbug!

What started out as a very optimistic trip to a warm Hawaii ended with the cold, hard reality that the Clemson basketball team still has to play close to its best to win even against mediocre teams.

The Tigers went to Honolulu on the wings of a five-game winning streak, which included victories against Ohio State and South Carolina, and return home losing two-of-three after Georgetown took a 75-60 victory in the fifth-place game of the Rainbow Classic Thursday night.

Clemson, which falls to 8-3 on the season, finished a very disappointing sixth in the eight-team tournament. The Hoyas improve to 6-3.

It’s very evident that as goes the Tigers’ outside shooting, so goes their chances to win. When it’s good, they can beat almost anybody. When it’s bad, as it was in Hawaii, they can lose to almost anybody.

Clemson shot 40 percent from the field and was just 2-of-12 from 3-point range. In the Tigers’ other tournament loss against Alabama-Birmingham, they shot 43.5 percent from the floor. In their win against Indiana State, they nailed 53.1 percent of their shots.

For the tournament, Clemson was 9-of-41 (22 percent) from 3-point range.

“Our guys, other than Vernon Hamilton, struggled from the outside,” Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. “I thought we got frustrated out there at times. And as we tried to get back in the game, as was the story all game long, we didn’t make shots. We couldn’t knock them down.”

Hamilton finished with 13 points, but the star of the game and tournament for the Tigers was senior forward Sharrod Ford, who scored 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting.

Ford was the only consistent aspect for Clemson during its trip to Hawaii.
“We’ve got to have an inside game with Sharrod Ford,” Purnell said. “Unfortunately as they doubled him, we didn’t do a good job of shooting from the outside and we turned it over some.”

Georgetown shot 55.8 percent overall and was 6-of-15 from beyond the arc. Much of the Hoyas’ high shooting percentage can be attributed to several easy baskets, which is a direct result of the Princeton-style offense they run.

Brandon Bowman scored 22 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to pace the Hoyas, which opened the second half with a 13-1 run to take a 41-28 lead and control of the game. That came after Georgetown scored the first half’s final five points to hold a 28-27 lead at halftime.

Georgetown hit two 3-pointers during the five-minute run while forcing Clemson into five missed shots and five turnovers. The Tigers couldn’t get any close than nine points the rest of the way.

Jeff Green added 15 points and 10 rebounds, Jonathan Wallace 13 points and Ashanti Cook 12 points for Georgetown.

Clemson’s next game is against East Carolina on Dec. 29, at Littlejohn Coliseum.