Clemson’s first loss of the season came with a familiar problem attached to it.
The Tigers fell 85-78 to Georgetown on Friday night at Littlejohn Coliseum, dropping to 3-1 after letting a 19-point deficit slip away and then failing to finish the job in the closing minutes. The game turned, as so many do, on the glass. Georgetown kept coming inside, and Clemson couldn’t consistently keep the Hoyas off second chances.
The decisive stretch started after Cole Certa’s layup gave Clemson a 66-64 lead with 6:23 left in the second half. Georgetown answered from there and outscored the Tigers 21-14 the rest of the way. The Hoyas finished with 11 offensive rebounds and 13 second-chance points, both numbers that told the same story: they were the tougher team around the rim when it mattered most.
That battle inside was part of the reason Brad Brownell made a lineup change before tipoff, starting Chase Thompson over regular starter Dylan Faulkner in what he called a matchup-based decision.
“I knew that they would go inside hard early and maybe try to get a foul on Dylan,” he said. “David [Fuchs] is bigger and stronger. We felt like that matchup to start the game would be good, and I think by and large he did okay at the beginning.”
The move had some payoff in stretches, but it didn’t solve Clemson’s early issues. Georgetown center Vince Iwuchukwu was a load from the start, scoring 16 points and grabbing 5 rebounds in the first half while going a perfect 7-for-7 from the field.
Iwuchukwu finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, and four of Georgetown’s 11 offensive boards came from him alone. Clemson adjusted by sending more help on post catches as the game went on, and Brownell said that approach brought better results later.
“We had to try to disrupt his rhythm as best we could,” Brownell said. “I thought that the most important thing was, we kept it out [of his hands] more in the second half.
The guys in the post did a better job of fighting to keep it out. That [second] man helped us, but we did better defensively in the second half in that area.”
Clemson’s frontcourt situation is still a work in progress after Carter Welling tore his ACL in last season’s ACC Tournament. The junior is expected to miss all of non-conference play, giving Brownell at least 10 games to sort out the center rotation.
So far, he’s mixed and matched with Fuchs and Faulkner together and has also given sophomore Trent Steinour minutes off the bench. Those Steinour minutes haven’t produced much yet, with Clemson minus-5 in those possessions through four games.
The Tigers have one more chance to tighten things up before the Maui Invitational arrives in a week. They’ll host The Citadel on Monday at 7:00 p.m. on the ACC Network.
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