Del Jones drove into the lane and picked up his dribble. He was quickly surrounded by three McNeese State defenders, but moved the ball around his body, spun toward the basket, and threw up a layup. It bounced around before falling through. With that, the fifth-seeded Clemson Tigers trailed 12th-seeded McNeese State by four. It was halfway through the first half, and the Tigers would be trailing by a lot more by the time they hit another shot.
When Chauncey Wiggins hit a three about five minutes later, it cut the Cowboys’ lead to 12. Things did not get much better from there. Clemson managed just one more field goal in the first half, and had only four at halftime. After shooting 37.2 percent on threes during the season, Clemson proceeded to go 1-for-13 from distance in the first half. McNeese led 31-13 at the break, not merely doubling up Clemson but Going Palindromic on them. Per Kenpom, Clemson had the 24th-best offensive efficiency in the country coming into the tournament. And then the Cowboys put a lid on the bucket.
But a game has two halves, and McNeese struggled with Clemson’s press in the second. The Tigers also leaned on their massive height advantage—Viktor Lakhin is 6-11, Chauncey Wiggins is 6-10, Ian Schieffelin is 6-8, and they’re all taller than anyone on McNeese. The strategy was working before it actually started to deliver any results. The Cowboys kept getting trapped, but McNeese kept hitting shots, and they led 51-29 at the next-to-last media timeout with 7:47 left in the game.
Occasionally a double-digit seed comes in and just obliterates its opponent. Think 16-seed UMBC routing top-seeded Virginia by 20 in 2018, or 14th-seeded Ohio destroying 3-seed Georgetown in 2010. This looked like one of those virtually all game long, but Clemson’s defense stiffened down the stretch and McNeese finally started to show some strain. The Cowboys started turning the ball over and taking bad shots, and that 22-point lead shrunk. The Tigers scored nine straight coming out of the media timeout. Their shots got better against a McNeese team that suddenly looked tired and somewhat frazzled. Jaeden Zackery hit a three; Chase Hunter’s shot from distance made the score 60-52 with two minutes left.
From there, Clemson did almost everything it needed to do in an attempt to win the game. The Tigers hit four three pointers in the final minute. But it was just not enough. McNeese snuck past the trap for breakaway dunks from Christian Shumate and Sincere Parker. Hunter’s layup at the buzzer completed an incredible comeback attempt by the Tigers, but it was finally just an attempt. McNeese held on, 67-65.
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Building a 22-point lead and watching it vanish in the final eight minutes is not pretty, and has to be a little disappointing. For a long time it looked like McNeese would win this one going away, and for a little while it looked like they might actually cough it up. Clemson outscored McNeese 54-38 in the second half. If Lakhin hadn’t picked up his fifth foul on what looked like a bullshit technical in the second half, maybe Clemson wins it.
But none of that really matters. McNeese was the better team for 32 minutes, which is not an entire basketball game, but is pretty close. In the end, that was all the Cowboys needed.
