Notre Dame men's basketball coasts past Clemson in fourth straight ACC win
Clemson scored the first two points in Purcell Pavilion on Wednesday night.
It never led again. Notre Dame cruised to its sixth consecutive win with a lopsided 72-56 outcome against the Tigers.
After the Irish (10-5, 4-1 ACC) took a 24-14 lead with 9:07 remaining in the first half, Clemson (10-6, 2-3) was unable to cut the deficit to fewer than 10 points for the rest of the game. Notre Dame led by as many 23 points twice in the second half.
The Irish started a good night of shooting by hitting 50 percent of their field goals in the first half (13-of-26). Senior guard Dane Goodwin led Notre Dame with 15 points in the first half.
Clemson started in the complete opposite fashion. The Tigers made just eight of their first 31 shots (25.8%) including 2-of-16 from 3 (12.5%).
Notre Dame didn’t let the positive momentum slip in the second half in front of a home crowd featuring students back on campus for the first time since winter break. Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey spent time Tuesday in the campus dining halls imploring students to attend Wednesday night’s game.
Brey’s crew gave the crowd of 7,618 (9,149 capacity) a performance worth supporting. Goodwin led the Irish with a season-high 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting and hitting all three of his 3s. He added seven rebounds in 27 minutes.
Freshman guard Blake Wesley scored 20 points in his fourth 20-point performance of the season. Wesley’s 220 points in his first 15 games at Notre Dame are fifth in program history behind Troy Murphy (285), Chris Thomas (244), Adrian Dantley (228) and LaPhonso Ellis (227).
Forward PJ Hall led all Clemson scorers with 14 points. Only forward Hunter Tyson joined him in double digits with 12. The Tigers finished the night 21-of-61 shooting (34.4%) and only 6-of-32 from 3 (18.8%).
Notre Dame shot 25-of-55 from the field (45.5%) and hit 10 of its 26 attempts from 3 (38.5%). That was more than enough to secure a fourth straight conference victory, keep the Irish undefeated in seven home games and extend the team’s winning streak to six games for the first time since November 2019.
Notre Dame should have a pretty good shot at extending its winning streak to eight games. The Irish will hit the road to play at Virginia Tech (8-7, 0-4) on Saturday before visiting Howard (6-6) on Monday.
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