There are no off nights in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and head coach Brad Brownell and the Clemson Tigers got that reminder first hand against Boston College last night, losing 70-68 after having a 23-point lead in the first half.
BC and head coach Earl Grant didn't take their first and only led until 27 seconds remained in the second half, and also had the contest's three leading scorers in Makai Ashton-Langford (19), Brevin Galloway (18), and James Karnik (17). Clemson's Al-Amir Dawes also finished with 17 but was the Tigers' highest scorer of the night.
Galloway hit the three with 27 seconds left to put the Eagles up by one point, and free throw added one more, and Clemson could never match the second half energy put out by the other side, losing the second half by 11 points. Clemson out-rebounded BC by 5 (37-32), typical for the tall Tigers, but only beat the Eagles in one other category finishing with five more second-chance points.
With Boston College standing as one of the more beatable conference opponents left on the schedule, Clemson now sits at 10-7 (2-4 ACC) with Jim Boeheim and the infamous Syracuse 2-3 zone waiting for them at the Carrier Dome on Tuesday night. The Tigers are now 10th in the ACC standings, with the road only getting tougher; after a visit to Syracuse, Clemson plays a stretch of Pittsburgh, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina. Only the Yellow Jackets have a worse conference record at the moment.
But so did Boston College heading into last night's affair.
