Clemson WBB falls to Duke in ACC Tournament. Tigers now await NCAA fate
Less than two weeks after Clemson women’s basketball upset Duke for its signature regular-season win, the formula did not repeat itself in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals.
Top-seeded Duke cruised past No. 9 seed Clemson 60-46 at Gas South Arena on Friday, advancing to the semifinals against Notre Dame while the Tigers will await their fate on Selection Sunday next week.
“Hats off to Duke,” Clemson head coach Shawn Poppie said. “They were the conference regular season champs for a reason. We knew we had our hands full coming into today obviously playing yesterday. We were tired, banged up, but I’m really proud of our kids. I thought we really competed, especially the last 20 minutes.”
The Tigers escaped the opening 10 minutes trailing by just six, but there were warning signs of what was to come. Clemson had five turnovers in the first quarter and struggled to contain the star duo of All-ACC First Team players Taina Mair and Toby Fournier, who combined for 14 quick points and started 4-4 on threes.
They were in the game, but already up against it facing a rested opponent hungry for revenge.
“I feel like I came out in the first half and wasn’t really myself,” Clemson guard and leading scorer Mia Moore said. “That’s just a lesson for me. I need to be able to play every minute of the game.”
Everything fell apart in the second quarter, a period that Duke, led by ACC Coach of the Year Kara Lawson, won 18-5. Clemson (21-11) had more turnovers than points offensively and suffered a six-minute scoring drought, during which Duke (22-8) went on a 10-0 run. Fournier, Mair and Delaney Thomas all scored in double figures, and the Blue Devils led by as many as 25 as they overran the Tigers at both ends.
“Candidly, they switched some stuff up,” Poppie said. “Their ball screen coverage really messed with us. They did a lot of hedging and showing a little bit at our place (in Clemson’s Feb. 22 home win vs. Duke). Today, they switched a lot.”
“It really affected us. When we see that coverage we’re supposed to go to what we call ‘Boomerang,’ and we did it three times for the whole 40 minutes. We scored all three possessions we did that, but we just didn’t adjust to their coverages.”
Even with small inroads and an improved second half performance, Clemson never mounted a serious charge. An 8-0 run in the fourth quarter briefly trimmed the deficit as low as 13 with under four minutes to go, but the Blue Devils restored order by scoring the next five points.
Clemson’s 46 points were its second fewest in an ACC game this year and third fewest in a gamet his season, with Moore (17 points) and guard Taylor Johnson-Matthews (12 points) registering as the only Tigers to score more than seven.
“We’ll take this one back home to Clemson and try to learn from it,” Poppie said. “I think there’s no doubt we should be an NCAA Tournament team. Hopefully we can look back at this here in a couple weeks and use this to our advantage.”
With his team’s résumé now locked in for the NCAA selection committee at a final record of 21-11 and a NET ranking of 41 entering play Friday, Poppie made his final pitch for his team to earn its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2019.
“We won 21 games and won 11 conference games, 12 if you count yesterday,” he said. “We have zero bad losses on our résumé, we’re as competitive as anybody and we’ve got the best scoring defense (third in the ACC entering the tournament) — we held them (Duke) to 60 today. I think we can compete with anybody in the country.”
The full NCAA women’s bracket reveal is next Sunday, March 15, with first-round games scheduled to tip off March 20 and March 21 at campus host sites.
This story was originally published March 6, 2026 at 1:17 PM.