No doubt: Clemson opens March Madness with convincing win over New Mexico
Well, that was easy.
A lot easier than most expected.
This Clemson men’s basketball team entered the NCAA Tournament as a betting underdog and one of the trendier choices to get upset in the first round.
But in a 77-56 win over No. 11 seed New Mexico in Memphis, the No. 6 seed Tigers took care of business and reminded the country how they dangerous they can be when they’re firing on all cylinders, as they were Friday at the FedExForum.
Guard Chase Hunter had a team-high 21 points in a bounce-back game, and big men PJ Hall (14) and Ian Schieffelin (16) also scored in double digits as Clemson cruised past UNM by 21 points for its first March Madness win since 2018.
The Tigers advance to a second-round game Sunday against No. 3 Baylor, which defeated No. 14 Colgate, 92-67, earlier Friday in Memphis. Clemson-Baylor is set for a 6:10 p.m. ET tip-off on TNT.
Sorry if you chose the upset pic.twitter.com/271Vph62H8
— Clemson Basketball (@ClemsonMBB) March 22, 2024
Game recap
Clemson (22-11) and coach Brad Brownell entered the game as a 1.5-point betting underdog and one of the top picks nationally to get upset by a lower seed.
But the Tigers on Friday looked like the team that went 10-2 in non-conference play, ranked as high as No. 13 in The Associated Press Top 25 and earned the NCAA Tournament’s No. 22 overall seed last week. Not the team that entered the Big Dance 1-3 in its last four games and smarting from a 21-point loss in its ACC Tournament opener.
Even with Hall, Clemson’s first team All-ACC center, spending a good portion of the afternoon in foul trouble, the Tigers took care of business. They didn’t trail once past the opening 30 seconds of the game and led by as many as 23 points.
“We had the momentum the whole game,” Hunter said. “It was just about us staying calm, staying poised.”
In a bracket pairing that’s proven pesky so far this tournament — No. 6 seeds were 0-3 against No. 11 seeds before Clemson’s game, with South Carolina, BYU and Texas Tech all losing Thursday — the Tigers struck the perfect note against a Lobos team that entered having won four conference tournament games in four days to secure the Mountain West auto-bid but came up flat in its first NCAA appearance since 2014.
Clemson, just over a week removed from a 76-55 loss to Boston College in the ACC Tournament (funny enough, also in a 6/11 seeding matchup), shot a strong 44% from the field and 33% on 3-pointers and had 16 assists on its 28 made field goals (a 57% assist rate) and a muscly 38 points in the paint.
“Going into this tournament we knew that wasn’t a goal of ours to get to the tournament,” Hall said. “That was an expectation. Especially the talent, the experience and the veterans on this team that we have, we were very excited to obviously get here. But now it’s time to continue to work.”
As for UNM? Mountain West conference tournament MVP Jaelen House had just 12 points on 4-14 shooting and fouled out, and Jamal Mashburn Jr., the team’s leading scorer, had 6 points on 1-11 shooting. The Lobos, who finished their season 26-10, shot a season-worst 19-64 from the field (29.6%) and were 3-23 on 3-pointers.
Clemson led 42-28 at halftime at the FedExForum and withstood a few second-half pushes from New Mexico, including an early 8-0 run to cut its deficit to 51-38 with 13:29 remaining in the game.
But the Tigers didn’t blink, even as leading scorer Hall played just seven second-half minutes, and never allowed the Lobos to even get within even single digits in the second half.
The final result: the second-largest margin of victory in program history for Clemson (+31 against Auburn in 2018), and a season low in points for New Mexico.
“Certainly this team, I think we felt like if we get into the tournament, we can advance,” Brownell said. “We feel good about ourselves. We know we played very poorly in our last game. But I think oftentimes people look too much into one or two games.”
Clemson, making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2021, won its first game in March Madness since the 2018 second round against Auburn.
Next up is Baylor (24-10), with a spot in a West Region semifinal Sweet 16 game in Los Angeles on the line.
“Scott Drew is an incredible coach, won the national championship (in 2021) and has a very talented team,” Brownell said. “So we’ll have to be on the top of our game to win.”
Clemson’s next NCAA Tournament game
Who: No. 3 Baylor (24-10) vs. No. 6 Clemson (22-11)
Where: FedExForum in Memphis Tennessee
When: 6:10 p.m. Sunday
Channel: TNT
Streaming: Via tntdrama.com
Next up: The winner of Clemson-Baylor will face either No. 2 Arizona or No. 7 Dayton in a West Region semifinal (Sweet 16) game in Los Angeles on March 28.
