Short of the finish line: Clemson eliminated from ACC Tournament by Louisville
Clemson basketball’s ACC Tournament run is over.
But not without a furious comeback across the final two minutes that showed while the Tigers may be flawed, they can still be a fearsome NCAA Tournament team.
Guard Chase Hunter missed a game-tying layup attempt in the final seconds as No. 3 seeded Clemson fell 76-73 to No. 2 seed Louisville in a thrilling, late-night ACC semifinal game on Friday at the Spectrum Center.
The Cardinals and first-year coach Pat Kelsey advance to Saturday’s championship game and will play No. 1 Duke at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN for the ACC tournament title.
Clemson and coach Brad Brownell, meanwhile, dropped their second game to Louisville this season and finished 1-1 in this year’s ACC Tournament.
Louisville led by 11 points with 1:53 remaining in the game before Clemson went on a 10-1 run to cut its deficit to a single possession (75-73) with 27.3 seconds remaining.
Hunter, Clemson’s star guard and leading scorer, drove right and got off a layup that would’v tied the game with about eight seconds left. But his attempt fell short on a controversial no-call play that featured plenty of contact from Louisville defenders.
Hunter and Brownell both declined to say postgame whether or not they felt Hunter had been fouled, which would’ve put him on the line for game-tying free throws.
“I tried to make a play and it just didn’t go my way,” Hunter said.
“It’s a hard play to referee,” Brownell added.
The Tigers have still never won an ACC championship despite being one of the league’s eight founding members and having participated in all 72 ACC tournaments to date. Brownell also falls to 0-4 in ACC semifinal games as Clemson’s coach.
There’s plenty of opportunity ahead for Clemson (27-6). But Friday’s loss to Louisville (27-6) exposed some flaws heightened by the fact the team announced top backup guard Dillon Hunter (broken hand) is out for the rest of the season.
Even though a comeback made the score more digestible, Clemson needs more shooting and more help from a bench that became that much thinner with Hunter’s injury if the Tigers want to advance deep into March Madness.
“Really proud of my players for just continuing to compete and believe and just keep fighting,” Brownell said. “We had a chance to win the game there at the end, had a couple things maybe not go our way. ... These guys just kept fighting.”
Game recap
After Duke and UNC finished a thriller featuring a controversial lane violation call, Clemson and Louisville had their 9:30 p.m. tipoff pushed until 10:01 p.m.
Once the game finally got underway, though, the Tigers looked far peppier than they did in Thursday’s gut-it-out quarterfinal win over SMU and led by seven points early.
Clemson had particular success down low — forwards Ian Schieffelin and Viktor Lakhin provided the majority of the offense — and dominated in points in the paint in the first half against an undersized Louisville lineup.
But the Tigers didn’t offer much offensively outside of that, while Louisville’s backcourt combo of Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. caught fire.
Edwards (13 points) and Hepburn (nine) combined for 22 of Louisville’s 33 first-half points and the Cardinals took a five-point lead over Clemson — 33-28 — into the half.
In other halftime news: The Tigers were locked out of their own locker room at the Spectrum Center for about four minutes for reasons unknown, prompting Brownell to give a midgame pep talk to Clemson players and staff in the hallway.
After a back-and-forth first half, Louisville grabbed a small lead out of the break and eventually stretched it to double digits — while Clemson played brutal basketball.
At one point, the Tigers went nearly seven minutes of game time without scoring while missing eight shots and committing four turnovers. That’s the sort of flatness they were able to withstand in their quarterfinal win Thursday.
But Louisville is not SMU.
The high-flying Cardinals seized their opportunity and the game’s momentum and stretched their lead to a game-best 13 points (56-43) with nine minutes remaining.
Despite a few strong individual moments from Hunter and forwards Schieffelin and Lakhin, the Tigers’ cold shooting and poor defense hurt them in the second half.
Edwards (21 points) led four double-digit scorers for Louisville.
“It was obvious we got frustrated in the second half,” Brownell said.
Clemson fans were heading for the exits by the game’s final media timeout, with Louisville leading Clemson by 15 points (67-52) at the 3:37 mark of the second half.
And Louisville’s party was on when forward James Scott slammed home an alley-oop dunk, giving the Cardinals an 11-point lead (74-63) with 1:53 left in the game.
A recap from there:
- Clemson’s Jaeden Zackery makes a 3-pointer (74-66 Louisville, 1:40 left)
- Louisville goes 1-2 on free throws (75-66, 1:29 left)
- Clemson’s Chase Hunter makes a three (75-69, 1:18 left)
- Clemson full-court presses Louisville and forces a turnover
- Zackery makes two free throws (75-71, 1:14 left)
- Clemson gets another steal out of a full-court press
- Hunter makes a twisting layup in the paint (75-73, 54 seconds left)
Improbably, Clemson wound up with the ball and a chance to tie the game after Louisville missed a jumper on its next possession. After Hunter missed a layup, UL’s Hepburn went 1-2 on free throws to put his team’s lead at three points (76-73).
Hunter’s desperation three fell short at the buzzer, sending Clemson packing but with a less bitter taste in its mouth from a short but competitive tournament stay.
The new challenge: Flush that, and get ready for the rest of the month.
“At the end of the day, we still lost,” Schieffelin said. “A loss is a loss. But I think just being in situations like that, we know that we can come back, just giving full effort no matter what until the clock hits zero.”
Added Hunter: “We’re ready for our next battle.”
2025 ACC Tournament scores, schedule
Friday’s semifinal games
Duke 74, North Carolina 71
Louisville 76, Clemson 73
Saturday’s championship game
Duke vs. Louisville, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
This story was originally published March 15, 2025 at 12:18 AM.
