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CLEMSON, S.C. — Both Syracuse and Clemson needed wins on Wednesday night. By the final buzzer, it was clear who had played like it.

The Tigers, sitting on the NCAA Tournament bubble, were looking to continue bolstering their resume. They won 91-73. All five of their starters had double digit points. The Orange, meanwhile, are fighting just to make the National Invitation Tournament. They didn’t look competitive, giving up 14 Clemson 3-pointers. They trailed by 10 after four minutes and 13 at halftime, and they never got closer than 11 in the second half. They gave up the most points they had in a game all season.

“They were just much better than us,” Jim Boeheim said postgame. “We just didn’t react well defensively tonight.”

Three possessions late in the first half perhaps summed up the loss best. It started with one of SU’s best defensive possessions of the night as the Orange rotated soundly, forcing Clemson to take the shot clock inside five seconds. But then, Hunter Tyson took Joe Girard III off the dribble and used his seven-inch height advantage to shoot right over the senior for two points.

Jesse Edwards coughed up the ball on the other side of the court, and Brevin Galloway knocked down a transition 3 from the left wing to put Clemson (20-8, 12-5 Atlantic Coast) up 38-20. Boeheim called a timeout. Judah Mintz — frustrated with the prospect of getting blown out for the second straight game — pulled the ball behind his head and slammed it to the floor. Simply put, nothing was going right for Syracuse (16-12, 9-8 ACC).

The Orange had turned in one of their worst performances of the season against Duke, and Wednesday’s loss in LittleJohn Coliseum only added to that, sending an already spiraling season into a further nosedive.

Jesse Edwards looks for an opening on the baseline against Clemson’s Hunter Tyson and Ian Schieffelin. Courtesy of Mikaela Carroll | Clemson Athletics

Still, Wednesday’s matchup had meaning. With a win over Clemson — a team sitting on the NCAA Tournament bubble — SU could increase its likelihood of both getting into the NIT and avoiding two straight years without a postseason appearance for the first time since 1969-70.

Clemson was heavy on 3-point shots early, with 14 of their first 18 field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc. They made six of those, four from Tyson — who finished with a game-high 29 points — and two from Chase Hunter. Sprinkle in a few mid range shots from PJ Hall, who finished with 16 points, and the Orange trailed by at least eight for nearly 13 minutes in the first half. Mintz said it seemed like Clemson hit every shot it took.

The Tigers were able to hoist four 3’s on their first possession coming off 3 offensive rebounds, something that Ian Schieffelin said “set the tone” for what the game would be like. Hunter, eventually, sunk one from the corner.

“It’s always good to start out with a lot of momentum,” Tyson said. “And we just carried it to the end of the game.”

Late in the first half, Tyson hoisted up a 3-pointer several steps behind the line, just in front of Boeheim, and buried it. Even a strong contest from Chris Bell’s 6-foot-8 frame wasn’t enough, emblematic of how little Syracuse’s defense could get in the way of a scorching hot Clemson barrage from beyond the arc.

“They were confident, they knew what they were gonna do,” Mintz said. “They knew they wanted to shoot 3s early, and they stuck to it.”

While Boeheim said Clemson moved the ball well, he noted SU didn’t make the rotations it needed to, typically because they were too slow. Hunter added that Syracuse lacks the long wings it had in the past, making it easy to move the ball and get everyone open shots.

By game’s end, the Tigers had become the fifth team to hit at least 13 3-pointers against the Orange this season.“Our defense — I wouldn’t even call it fair,” Boeheim said. “It was awful.”

A persistent theme throughout the season, the Orange once again got out to a slow start, trailing 13-3 after four minutes, and going without a field goal for three minutes early in the first half.

Chase Hunter recorded a double-double tallying 13 points and 11 assists in Clemson’s win over Syracuse Courtesy of Mikaela Carroll | Clemson Athletics

Four days after Duke held him to just five points, Edwards faced another challenge — 6-foot-10, 245-pound Hall. Boeheim said Edwards is having a hard time responding to teams pushing him out of the paint, something that forces SU to give the center the ball 10-15 away from the basket. Clemson made it tough, too, by fronting Edwards. He finished with 12 points, though most of that came in garbage time, with the outcome already solidified.

“When he doesn’t have it going, other people have to step up,” Mintz said. “Obviously, if somebody like Jesse is taken out of the game, it makes it difficult for us.”

Mintz was really the only player who did step up. The freshman went 4-of-4 from 3-point range, and finished with a team-high 23 points. Mintz said he found a rhythm in warmups, and Boeheim allowed him to keep firing up shots with the Orange in search of offense. Yet it mattered little with the Tigers’ ability to drain 3 after 3 of their own.

Boeheim tried some defensive adjustments in the second half, turning to the full-court press and a 1-1-3 defense that Mintz said Syracuse has worked on since November. Clemson, though, had no trouble getting the ball over halfcourt, and after Hunter drilled a 3, the Orange returned to their usual 2-3 defense.

Then, at the 14:17 mark, Benny Williams was caught in the paint and Alex Hemenway was wide-open on the wing where Williams should’ve been. The 3-pointer was good, Clemson’s 12th make of the game, and Syracuse trailed by 20.

It only got worse from there. Girard handed Clemson the ball trying to draw a foul moments later, and Tyson threw down a two-handed dunk on the other end. Mintz, the only guy the Orange could turn to for points on Wednesday, missed a windmill dunk in transition.

After the ball had hit the floor, and the Tigers had started their transition push, Mintz put his head down for a brief second. And only after that, with Syracuse down 16, did the freshman pick it back up and begin the jog upcourt.

Published on February 22, 2023 at 9:12 pm

Contact Connor: csmith49@syr.edu | @csmith17_