Collapse in the Garden: Clemson basketball blows lead, drops game to No. 10 BYU
The exposure was great. The result was brutal.
Clemson men’s basketball blew a huge lead and dropped a 67-64 heartbreaker to No. 10 BYU in a marquee game at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.
Clemson led by as many as 22 points early in the second half before the Tigers went cold and Cougars star freshman forward AJ Dybantsa took over and willed his team back into the game. BYU led by six points, 62-56, with 1:10 remaining.
But Clemson guard Butta Johnson sank a 3-pointer (62-59) and Tigers guard Dillon Hunter scored five straight points in a 12-second span — a 3-pointer to cut BYU’s lead to 64-62 after two made free throws, and a layup after BYU missed the front end of another one-and-one — to tie the game with 5.5 seconds left.
BYU advanced the ball past midcourt and called another timeout with 1.3 seconds left. Clemson double-teamed Dybantsa (28 points, nine rebounds, six assists) on the inbounds, so the ball made its way to guard Robert Wright III instead.
Wright caught the ball drifting right and launched a soft 3-pointer over two Clemson defenders that dropped after the horn to give BYU a thrilling three-point win in the first leg of the 2025 Jimmy V Classic event at MSG.
BYU moved to 8-1 with the win. Clemson (7-3) was outscored 45-21 in the second half and outscored 22-21 by Dybantsa alone in the second half of a deflating loss.
It’s Clemson’s second loss to a ranked team in as many weeks after the Tigers lost at then-No. 8 Alabama last week in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Tuesday’s result was worse: A meltdown in front of thousands at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“My guys kept playing,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said postgame. “But we have to play better basketball against elite teams.”
Game recap
The final result stung that much more for Clemson because the Tigers were lights out in the first half and appeared all but set for a signature win.
After BYU tied the game 22-22 with 6:43 to go until halftime, Clemson went on a head-turning 21-0 run and seized a 43-22 lead at the break. Six different players scored in the run, and guard Jestin Porter hit three 3-pointers in a span of 6:19.
Clemson shot 45% in the first half, scored 11 points off turnovers and had 14 bench points, and limited BYU to 28% shooting and three free-throw attempts.
“I thought we were just kind of blank and a little lifeless in the first half, honestly,” BYU coach Kevin Young said.
BYU shook out of that slump and outscored Clemson 16-4 over the first eight minutes of the second half. That run ended with a thunderous dunk by Cougars center Keba Keita — so thunderous it knocked the backboard off kilter.
MSG staff spent about 15 minutes repairing and straightening BYU’s goal. It took so long Clemson and BYU were given an impromptu three-minute warmup period to get loose before the game restarted with 11:40 to go and Clemson leading 47-38.
The Cougars didn’t slow down from there. Clemson’s lead dwindled as the Tigers kept shooting blanks and BYU kept cutting into its deficit, almost exclusively through Dybantsa and/or Keita (10 points, seven rebounds).
“They decided not to double the second half,” Dybantsa said.
Essentially every Clemson defensive strategy backfired against Dybantsa, who had 22 points on 7 of 11 shooting and 8 of 8 free-throw shooting in 22 second-half minutes. When he wasn’t scoring, he was dishing it (five second-half assists).
“There’s some plays that he just makes because he’s an elite player,” Brownell said.
Before Hunter scored five late points to tie the game 64-64, BYU had outscored Clemson 40-15 over the previous 18:03 of game time. Porter, the team’s leading scorer, had three points in the second half after pouring in 14 in the first. Clemson only scored on nine of 29 second-half possessions. The Tigers were 9 of 19 on layups.
The final dagger was Wright’s game-winning 3-pointer, which came after Clemson defended BYU’s initial game-winning play well enough for the Cougars to call a rushed timeout with 1.5 seconds to go, and successfully kept the ball away from Dybantsa, only for Wright (17 points) to sink a buzzer-beater.
Clemson was No. 26 in the NCAA’s NET rankings before Tuesday and won’t be hurt too much by the BYU loss. The Tigers, though, will drop to 1-2 overall in Quadrant 1 games (key evaluation points for NCAA Tournament résumés) and 1-3 in Quad 1/2 games. They are 0-2 vs. ranked teams and 2-3 vs. power conference teams.
A gutsy comeback win over Georgia in overtime to win the Charleston Classic was a high point. Clemson hasn’t had any since, and enters the final month of non-conference still trying to figure out its best five ... and find its true identity.
“This week, we played Alabama and BYU, two top 15 teams in the country, and we just haven’t quite played well enough for 40 minutes to beat them,” Brownell said, placing some of the blame on himself and his coaching staff. “We’ve got to get back to drawing board and improve on a couple things.”
Next four Clemson basketball games
- Saturday: vs. Mercer, 3 p.m. (ACCNX)
- Dec. 16: vs. South Carolina, 7 p.m. (ESPN2)
- Dec. 21: vs. Cincinnati in Greenville, 3 p.m. (ESPN)
- Dec. 31: at Syracuse, 2 p.m. (ESPN2)
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 9:05 PM.
