As Wednesday’s matchup with the No. 5 North Carolina Tar Heels looms, the NC State men’s basketball team faces the Clemson Tigers Saturday as it looks for some sort of momentum heading into the rivalry matchup.
The Wolfpack (13-13, 3-10 ACC) is coming off its worst loss of the season in a 73-53 blowout to Virginia. The Tigers (15-10, 8-5 ACC) are one of the surprise teams in the ACC this season. Clemson started conference play with a 5-1 record including wins over Duke, Louisville and Miami (FL), who were all ranked at the time.
The last time these two teams met at PNC Arena, the Tigers dominated the Pack. Clemson left Raleigh with a 68-57 victory on Jan. 28, 2015.
Since their hot start to ACC play, the Tigers have cooled off mightily. Posting a 3-4 record over their next seven games following their incredible start, the rest of the ACC’s seemed to figure out how to contain this Clemson team. Junior Jaron Blossomgame leads the way for the Tigers on the offensive side of the ball as his 17.3 points per game is fifth best in the ACC.
Blossomgame trails only Syracuse’s Michael Gbinije, Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon, Duke’s Grayson Allen and NC State’s Cat Barber in scoring in the conference. The Alpharetta, Georgia native’s 7.0 rebounds per game is also tops for Clemson this season.
Senior Jordan Roper complements Blossomgame’s offense as he averages 10.1 points per game and leads the team in assists per game with 3.9. Sophomore Donte Grantham rounds out the Tigers’ scoring trio averaging 10.5 points per game.
Aside from Blossomgame’s rebounding ability, the Tigers lack a low-post scorer. Sophomore Abdul-Malik Abu and juniors BeeJay Anya and Lennard Freeman need to expose this weakness if they want to have a chance against the Tigers.
Barber’s play continues to skyrocket with each and every game he plays. He’s the ACC’s current scoring leader at 23.7 points per game and is fourth in assists, averaging 4.5 per game. Over his last eight games, Barber’s averaging 28.1 points per game. He also scored a career-high 38 points in Saturday’s win over Wake Forest. Barber has seven 30-point games this season, five within the last month.
Monday against Virginia, Barber has a quiet 14 points against a Wahoo scoring defense that ranks third in points allowed per game. Clemson doesn’t fall far behind Virginia, as it allows 63.5 points per game to opponents, good for 17th in the country. While the Pack won’t see a scoring outburst like it did against Wake Forest, it should score more than it did against the Cavaliers.
Including Saturday’s game against the Tigers, the Pack only has five regular-season games left before it heads to Washington, DC for the annual ACC Tournament. While the Pack can’t finish with a winning conference record, there is still hope for the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by way of winning the conference tournament. Although a longshot, stranger things have happened in college basketball, especially in a win-or-go-home tournament.
After the Pack takes on the Tigers, it resumes action Wednesday at PNC Arena to take on the arch-rival Tar Heels.
