Carolina coasting: Clemson basketball blows out UNC, continues hot ACC start

Chapel Fowler, The State on Feb 10, 2025

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CLEMSON, S.C. — This was supposed to be a tricky two-game stretch for Clemson.

Sure, the Tigers men’s basketball team didn’t have to leave home. But they were playing the No. 2 team in the country and blue blood in back-to-back games. It was their only Saturday-Monday turnaround of ACC play this year.

To make things a little more uncomfortable, Clemson lost the trap game everyone saw coming against Georgia Tech early last week ... in triple overtime.

How’d the Tigers respond?

By gutting out their signature win of the year against Duke, dominating an unranked but talented UNC team and more or less clinching an NCAA Tournament spot.

Clemson grit, indeed.

Newly ranked in the AP Top 25 after a seven-week absence, the Tigers avoided any post-Duke hangover and smoked the Tar Heels 85-65 on Monday night at Littlejohn Coliseum, just two days after they knocked off the No. 2 Blue Devils 77-71.

Center Viktor Lakhin had 22 points, four 3-pointers and five blocks as Clemson moved to 20-5 and 12-2 in the ACC and its eighth conference game in nine tries.

The Tigers shot a scorching 12-25 on 3s as a team, led by as 26 points in the second half and didn’t trail past the 9:23 mark of the first half against a UNC team in desperate need of a win to boost its own postseason chances.

Instead, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels fell to 14-11 (7-6 ACC) and, despite a roster loaded with McDonald’s All-Americans, looked outmatched against a veteran Clemson squad that’s now 9-4 in Quadrant 1 and 2 games per the NCAA’s NET metric.

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