One and done: Clemson basketball falls to McNeese State in NCAA Tournament upset
Clemson grit? More like Clemson whiffed.
After recording the best regular season in program history, the Tigers’ men’s basketball team got outcoached, outplayed and outhustled most of the afternoon in their opening NCAA Tournament game Thursday afternoon.
The end result, after a late rally: A 69-67 loss to McNeese State in Providence, Rhode Island that sent a No. 12 seed with an outgoing coach into the round of 32 and a No. 5 seed considered a dark-horse national title contender back home very early.
“We picked a tough day to not play our best,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said.
The Tigers trailed by as many as 24 points in the second half and cut their deficit to three points with 12 seconds left before ultimately losing and becoming the first top 5 seed to fall in the opening round of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Clemson forward Chauncey Wiggins’ 3-pointer cut the score to 68-65 McNeese in the final seconds before the Cowboys went 1-2 on free throws to go up four (69-65) with 10 seconds remaining and more or less shut the door on a comeback.
On the Tigers’ final possession, guard Jaeden Zackery missed a good look from 3, which would’ve cut the score to 69-68 with about four seconds left.
Clemson guard Chase Hunter got the offensive rebound and laid in the ball at the horn, trying to draw a foul, but there was no whistle. The upset was on.
“It don’t got nothing to do with Clemson,” McNeese guard Quadir Copeland said postgame at Amica Mutual Pavilion. “We could have beat any team in here.”
Game recap
Clemson (27-7) was the No. 18 overall seed in the field according to the NCAA selection committee. The Tigers entered having set single-season records for total wins (27), ACC wins (18) and double-digit ACC wins (15). They handed Duke their only conference loss all year. They were a 7.5-point betting favorite on Thursday.
None of that showed up at Amica Mutual Pavilion against McNeese State (28-6), which had not beaten a power conference school all year, had never won an NCAA game, had never beaten a ranked opponent, starts one player taller than 6-foot-6 and will reportedly lose its coach, Will Wade, to N.C. State after the tournament.
Clemson trailed 31-13 at halftime. Per ESPN, the Tigers became only the third team seeded No. 5 or higher in the NCAA Tournament to score 13 or fewer points in a half of a game since 1979, joining 1984 Kentucky (11) and 1999 Wisconsin (12).
And they narrowly dodged another unsightly record: Fewest points in the first game of an NCAA Tournament game (10, by Wake Forest in 2001 and Kent State in 2008).
The Tigers, one of the ACC’s top 3-point shooting teams, entered Thursday having shot 12 for 57 (21%) on 3s in their last three games. Improving from deep was a focus point in Clemson practice ... then the Tigers shot 1-15 on 3s in the first half.
Forced out of the paint by a pesky McNeese 2-3 zone and unable to capitalize on the height and physicality of starting forwards Ian Schieffelin and Viktor Lakhin, Clemson looked nothing like the team that entered averaging 76.3 points per game.
“They were more physical and just wanted the ball more,” Schieffelin said.
Added Brownell: “We weren’t really prepared for the zone to man. Haven’t seen a lot of that this year, maybe a little bit with Stanford and it bothered us.”
Turning the tide
The Cowboys led by as many as 24 points (40-16) early in the second half before guard Zackery got hot and made the game somewhat competitive. The Tigers got their deficit within 13 points (51-38) at the six-minute mark.
Lakhin fouled out shortly afterward after getting called for a shooting foul and an ensuing technical foul, and the Tigers (already short on depth after guard Dillon Hunter’s season-ending injury) were in big trouble.
Then, something finally clicked. The Tigers’ offense started clicking and they kept chipping into the daunting deficit. McNeese was leading by 17 points (57-40) with 4:30 to go. Then its lead was 16 points. Twelve points. Ten points. Eight.
Thursday’s game wound up lasting 2 hours, 22 minutes of actual time. A big part of that was Clemson’s relentlessness down the stretch. The Tigers outscored McNeese 27-12 in the final 4:30 of the game and 14-4 in the game’s final minute, forcing fouls and timeouts as they fought for their tournament lives.
Clemson ended up scoring 54 second-half points, more than four times its first half total (13). Zackery had 20 points on 7-12 shooting (4-5 on 3s) in the second half alone, and Hunter added 21 points in the second half after zero points in the first.
And the Tigers shot 8-15 on 3-pointers in the second half, with Wiggins’ final make at the 12-second mark cutting the game to three points. At that point, Clemson needed one more lucky break —a turnover, an 0-2 free throw trip — to have a chance.
But McNeese refused to completely fold, hitting one of two free throws to go up four points and close out a signature win in front of a crowd of 11,441.
What’s next for Tigers?
Clemson went one and done in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021 and suffered its second worst upset (in terms of seeding) in NCAA history.
The Tigers’ 2008 team also lost its opening NCAA game to a No. 12 seed (Villanova). Clemson’s 1987 team lost to No. 13 Southwest Missouri State as a No. 4 seed.
This year’s first round loss stings a little harder for Clemson, given its timing. The McNeese loss came one year after the Tigers advanced to only the second Elite Eight in program history as a No. 6 seed, and one day after news leaked that Clemson and Brownell were finalizing a contract extension after Indiana showed interest in him.
The best three-year stretch in Clemson basketball history — the Tigers went 74-29 from 2022-25, passing the previous three-year wins record of 72 from 2006-08 — is going to end with three total NCAA wins, all during the 2024 season.
“I hate that it had to end the way it did today,” Brownell said.
The Tigers also face an uncertain future in 2025-26. Clemson’s top three leading scorers (Hunter, Schieffelin and Lakhin) are out of eligibility. Zackery, the team’s fourth-leading scorer, could have a final year of eligibility remaining after recent NCAA rulings regarding JUCO players, but that’s up in the air.
Clemson has nailed the portal in recent seasons and will need to do that again this offseason. Its top two returning scorers, at this moment, would be Wiggins (8.3 points per game) and senior guard Dillon Hunter, Chase’s younger brother (5.4 ppg).
After a historic season and historic stretch ended Thursday, Chase Hunter emphasized neither he nor Clemson fans should lose sight of the bigger picture.
“We wanted to do some big things to end the year, but I’m proud of this team and the whole season,” Hunter said. “We did great. We had 27 wins, set school records.”
But a loss like this one to McNeese?
“That’s something that will probably hurt us for the rest of our lives,” Hunter said.
This story was originally published March 20, 2025 at 5:52 PM.
