Clemson tops Virginia Tech for fourth straight win

Clemson continues to play its best basketball of the season at the perfect time.

The Tigers topped Virginia Tech 63-59 Saturday afternoon at Littlejohn Coliseum, earning their fourth straight win to close out the regular season.

Clemson improved to 16-15 with the victory on Senior Day and snapped Virginia Tech’s three-game winning streak. The Hokies had won nine of their past 10 games before falling to Clemson on Saturday.

“Our guys hung in there and just kept battling, just like we’ve done here down the stretch, and walked away with a really good, tough win,” Tigers coach Brad Brownell said. “Happy for our seniors to win like this on a day when you’ve got a lot of emotion. I thought our seniors were good and nice to end it for them that way as well.”

Clemson used a balanced scoring attack to get by Virginia Tech. The Tigers had four players finish in double figures, led by forward PJ Hall, who finished with 12 points in 13 minutes.

Hall, who is Clemson’s leading scorer, missed the previous three games with an injured left foot.

Alex Hemenway added 11 points on 4-for-4 shooting, including 3-for-3 from 3-point range. Al-Amir Dawes and David Collins each had 10 points points.

“Today was hard. These guys are hard to play against. They run good motion, great plays. You’ve gotta be on point,” Brownell said. “I thought our kids played really hard. We tried to play a lot of people and wear them down a little bit. … I was very pleased.”

Clemson trailed 33-30 at the half but quickly took the lead to open the second half and led by six points with 10 minutes left.

The Tigers were clinging to a one-point lead with about 30 seconds left when senior Hunter Tyson knocked down a jump shot to push the lead to 3.

Virginia Tech then missed a 3-pointer, before Chase Hunter’s free throw with eight seconds left sealed the game.

This marked the first game that Clemson had all of its players available since early February. The Tigers had lost six straight games before going on their four-game winning streak. Now Clemson enters the ACC tournament with momentum.

“I hope it gives us confidence,” Brownell said. “It’s been great. For the last two weeks, just resilient, grit. We could’ve given in. We could’ve given in easily. … We’re good enough to go win some games up there, for sure.”