It was simple — and painful — math.
Subtract 23 points from a team already scuffling through a season, and the numbers just don’t add up.
Not even a stylish 30-point performance from guard Markus Burton could help Notre Dame sniff an upset in an 83-68 loss to a special Clemson team in Clemson, S.C., on Wednesday night.
“He’s doing his part,” Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry said in the postgame press conference of his star sophomore guard. “We just need more.”
Minus two starters — 14-point scorer Braeden Shrewsberry, who, it was announced a hour before tipoff, will miss the rest of the season with a lower abdomen injury, and nine-point scorer and fellow starter Matt Allocco (wrist injury) — the Irish didn’t have nearly enough firepower to keep up with the balanced and seasoned No. 13-ranked Tigers.
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Not that there weren’t a few encouraging stretches for the 12-16 (6-11 ACC) Irish. But they were all short-lived because of the constant offensive pressure Clemson can, and did, apply from inside and out.
In front of 8,761 in Littlejohn Coliseum, the Tigers (23-5 overall) ran their ACC mark to 15-2, a school record for league wins that has them a game behind Duke in the league race.
Micah Shrewsberry got the level of energy he was looking for from his club, and it helped supply a couple of brief moments of hope.
With six-plus minutes left in the first half an offensive surge, that included a 10-0 run, gave the Irish a 22-21 lead following a layup by J.R. Konieczny.
It lasted just 1:10, because Ian Schieffelin, a 6-8 senior averaging 12 points and nine rebounds a game, took over, going on a personal 10-point run.
He finished with a career-high 24 points on 9-for-11 shooting with nine rebounds, including a stinging five on the offensive side.
“They have two really good offensive rebounders, and they do a great job of cleaning up on the backside,” Shrewsberry said of 6-11 Viktor Lakhin and Schieffelin. “But because of the pressure that (guards) Chase Hunter and Jaeden Zackery put on you in the pick and roll attacking the rim, you’ve got to stop the ball. You’ve got to commit to the ball. So, you leave yourselves kind of open for things like that (offensive rebounds).
“So, they scored 18 points in the first six minutes. They scored 13 points in the last 3:19. We (had) held them to one point per minute. Right now being (out two starters), we just don't have the bodies to sustain that effort that we need to keep guarding in that way. And I thought … they just kind of wore us down.”
Thanks to the fearless Burton, whose drives into the teeth of the Tigers defense netted plenty of free throw opportunities, the Irish stayed close before Clemson closed the half on a 7-0 run to go up 39-31 at the break.
Burton, a 21.5 points-per-game scorer, went 8-for-19 from the field for the night, 2-for-4 on 3s, and the 85.5% free throw shooter coming into the game finished 12-for-13. His night pushed him over the 1,000-point career mark at the seventh-fastest pace in ND history, at 54 games.
Burton’s Wednesday total was two shy of his career high and the third 30-point game of his career.
Shrewsberry explained how special Burton is by describing what he’s up against.
“We’ve got two starters out right?” he said. “Two dudes that shoot 40% from 3. I think about the amount of pressure that's on him right now. He's driving his ball, and there's a dude guarding him and there's four other people standing around him, and he continues to keep scoring, to keep going, to keep playing, playing major minutes.”
Burton, who needed a midgame back massage to keep going, played 36 minutes without a turnover and had five assists with four rebounds. The bulk of his offensive help came from 6-9 Tae Davis, who was 6-for-12 for 15 points. He came in averaging 15.8.
Konieczny, averaging four points a game, added eight, going 4-for-6 from the field.
The Irish held Clemson’s leading scorer, Hunter (17.0 points a game). to eight, but there are plenty of other weapons.
The Tigers, 11th in the country from 3-point range at 38.8%, hit their average with nine 3, four coming from non-starter Jake Heidbreder, in seven tries. Schieffelin, who also went over 1,000 points for his career during the game, was 2-for-2 from the arc, and Clemson finished 9-for-23 from there.
“He deserves multiple votes for all-league because he's a problem,” Shrewsberry said of Schieffelin. “He's a problem for us and he’s a problem for everybody that's playing him.”
Lakhin had 18 points, seven over his average.
Notre Dame battled its way to a 32-31 edge on the glass, Konieczny leading with seven. But the Irish offense just couldn’t keep pace against the 45th-ranked scoring defense in the country at 66.5 points yielded a game coming in.
Notre Dame got the deficit down to six at 43-37 on a layup by Konieczny three minutes into the second half, but Clemson took off from there. And less than five minutes later, the Tigers were up 54-40 and on their way to its 13th double-digit ACC win.
With the season winding down, Shrewsberry is getting a good look at three of his freshmen.
Sir Mohammed got a start and had a bucket and four rebounds in 17 minutes. Garrett Sundra was on the floor for 17 minutes and had two points and three rebounds. And Cole Certa, coming off a 12-point performance in last Saturday’s win over Pittsburgh, had two points from the line. He was 0-for-3 on 3s.
ND, in a tie for 13th in the ACC, is at Wake Forest on Saturday at 5:15 p.m. EST.
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