Clemson vs Maryland Basketball Recap

Clemson 62, Maryland 53

It was fair to say that the Clemson basketball team, on the final day of January, faced a must-win situation against the visiting Maryland Terrapins. After 40 minutes of desperate defense, the Tigers will now enter February with their NCAA Tournament hopes intact.

Sunday evening's battle with ACC-leading Maryland in Clemson, S.C., was hardly pretty. It lacked style points from the opening tip to the final horn. A Clemson club that often implodes at the offensive end, and has been known to cough up big advantages to less-than-fully-overwhelming opponents, surrendered an 11-point second half lead to the tenacious Terps.

Yet, for all their wobbles and missteps, Coach Oliver Purnell's players never stopped working at the defensive end of the floor, and as a result, a supportive home crowd at Littlejohn Coliseum was able to exhale after a nine-point triumph that kept Clemson in contention for a premium postseason prize.

Look at Clemson's resume, and you'll only see one high-quality win, a Nov. 29 victory over NCAA-bound Butler. With the struggles (that's putting it mildly) of defending champion North Carolina, Clemson needed to take down Maryland in order to burnish its credentials with the selection committee. Therefore, when Coach Gary Williams watched his visiting side take a 47-46 lead with 8:20 remaining in this ACC encounter, the locals in the Palmetto State had reason to be anxious. Fortunately, their favorites flashed fine form in the home stretch.

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Throughout this game, both teams bothered each other on defense. A total of 47 turnovers were coughed up by the Terps and Tigers (26 for Maryland and 21 for Clemson), and neither club shot above 35 percent from the field. Points weren't easy to come by in a slugfest that witnessed sloppy and unproductive halfcourt possessions, so when the Terps took a one-point edge heading into the final eight minutes, there was a pervasive sense inside Littlejohn that the Tigers were headed for a 50-50 coin flip finish.

Instead, Clemson came good with ramped-up defensive pressure. Thanks to guard Andre Young - who saw extended playing time and swiped 7 steals in place of the injured Demontez Stitt - Clemson accumulated one defensive stop after another in those final, fateful eight minutes. The home team's fire and passion found new levels of burning intensity, and as a result, Maryland scored just six points in that eight-minute stretch, with only one field goal attempt splashing through nylon. While Clemson's inside duo of Jerai Grant (18 points and 12 boards) and Trevor Booker (10 points and 16 boards) helped the Tigers attain a 15-6 edge in offensive rebounds, it was the hounding activity of Young, in tandem with backcourt mate Tanner Smith, that unsettled Maryland guards Greivis Vasquez (only 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting) and Eric Hayes (just 11 points in 33 minutes). With Clemson shutting out Maryland completely in the final 4:06, a modest eight-point total - with Booker scoring five and Young adding three - was more than enough for Purnell's pupils.

Normally, 21 turnovers, 32 percent field goal shooting, and 59 percent foul shooting (the Tigers went 13 of 22 from the stripe) will lead to a loss in the ACC. However, because a hungry club's A-plus defense proved to be better than its opponent's A-minus effort, Clemson stayed above water near the Eastern Seaboard. The Tigers will need to display similar amounts of passion and pell-mell intensity if they want to stay on track for a Dance ticket in the middle of March.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer