The Irish dominated essentially the entire game and pushed their win streak to 6 behind another great game from Dane Goodwin and Blake Wesley
Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s basketball team dominated the Clemson Tigers this evening, winning by a final score of 72 to 56 in a match-up at Purcell Pavilion.
The Irish were paced in scoring on the evening by Dane Goodwin, who scored 21 points (on 8-of-10 shooting) and added 7 rebounds on the evening.
Blake Wesley (20 points, 6 rebounds), Nate Laszewski (8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists), Cormac Ryan (6 points, 6 rebounds), and Paul Atkinson Jr. (7 points, 4 rebounds) also made solid contributions to the overall Notre Dame performance, as the team shot 46% from the field and 39% from deep while winning the turnover battle 8 to 10 in a pretty clean effort by both teams.
The Tigers were led on the night by P.J. Hall (14 points, 7 rebounds), while Hunter Tyson (12 points, 6 rebounds), Chase Hunter (7 points, 3 rebounds), and Alex Hemenway (9 points) chipped in as well. Clemson shot horribly in this one, making 35% from the floor overall and 19% (6-for-31) from long range.
The game began with the Irish absolutely ON FIRE from everywhere, as Notre Dame began the contest by making their first 6 shots from the field en route to jumping out to a 15-6 lead in the first four minutes.
Clemson then made a bit of a run to cut the Irish lead to 4, but Notre Dame weathered that storm and counter-punched behind Dane Goodwin, who led all scorers in the first half with 15 points by making 5-of-7 from the field, including going 3-for-3 from long range.
The Irish finished the half up 17 on the Tigers, fueled by an effort that saw 6 of the 7 players who played scoring points in a 50% shooting effort that was driven by 6-of-14 shooting from three-point range.
In the second half, the Irish picked up where they left off, extending their lead to as much as 23 through the first 8 minutes of the period as Goodwin continued his hot shooting while playing with 3 fouls. Clemson chipped away at the lead a bit over the next few minutes of play, whittling their deficit down to 16 at one point.
Goodwin then picked up his 4th foul and had to go to the bench, but the Irish managed to crank it back up offensively thanks to Wesley, Hubb, and others, building their lead back up to 23 again at the 7:05 mark.
From there, the Irish maintained approximately an 18-20 point lead for the remainder of the half, only relenting a little bit when Clemson began to knock down some threes in the final minutes, cutting the Irish lead down to 15 with 2:36 to play. ND coasted from there, though, ultimately walking away with a comfortable 72 to 56 victory.
With the win, the Irish improved to 10-5 overall and 4-1 in ACC play on the season, having now won 6 in a row and 7 of their last 8 games. They’re scheduled to play next on Saturday evening at 6 pm ET, when they will travel to Blacksburg to take on the Virginia Tech Hokies.
