Trending Down: No. 15 Clemson falls at Virginia Tech 65-58 for third straight loss

BLACKSBURG -- Marcquise Reed did his best to try and carry Clemson to a much-needed ACC road victory in Blacksburg after two straight losses.

The only problem was it looked like Reed was the only player who stepped off the bus.

No. 15 Clemson’s offensive woes continued as the Tigers fell to Virginia Tech 65-58 in a battle for fourth place in the ACC.

Reed led the Tigers with a new career-high 28 points. Elijah Thomas did his best to contribute with his eighth double-double of the season. He finished with 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting and ten rebounds, but that was about it for Clemson from an offensive standpoint.

Thomas and Reed combined to shoot 15-of-29 from the field. The rest of the team: 7-of-28.

The Tigers are trending in the wrong direction at the worst possible time after their third consecutive loss. The defensive intensity is still enough for Clemson to hang in any game it takes the floor, but the Tigers lack the scoring to push them over the hump.

One of those scorers is Shelton Mitchell, who missed his second consecutive game due to a concussion and didn’t make the trip. Clemson is really starting to miss its starting point guard because Clemson hasn’t been able to do a good enough job of distributing the ball when it wants to drive and kick out for a three-pointer.

“There’s no doubt we’re not the same team we were when we had Donte (Grantham) and Shelton,” Brownell said. “You had to adjust to life without Donte and now we are trying to do it without Shelton for a while. Hopefully, that ends this week and we can get Mitchell back, but it’s just not the same team. It hasn’t been good enough to beat some of the best teams in our league.”

With Mitchell out again, Clemson needed a big scoring night from its guards. For the second straight game, that didn’t happen.

The Hokies put a watchful eye on Reed and Gabe DeVoe, just as Duke did. With the ball in Reed’s hands, defenders collapsed on him as he drove and the only threat for him to kick it out to was DeVoe, who had another off night.

DeVoe barely scratched the surface of what he had been doing for the second straight game. As hot as he’s been over the past couple of weeks, he has suddenly crashed back down to Earth. The shooting guard finished with eight points while shooting 3-of-9 from the field, 1-of-6 from three-point range.

DeVoe is 2-for-14 from behind the arc in his last two games, 4-for-19 from the field overall. An off night is okay every now and then, but the regression from him with Mitchell not on the floor can’t continue if Clemson wants to get back to its winning ways.

“He just couldn’t quite get it going,” Brownell added.

As for Clemson’s bench players, they would have been better off if they had not gotten on the plane. Clyde Trapp, Mark Donnal, and Scott Spencer combined for a goose egg in 41 minutes of combined play. Brownell was not pleased with the contributions he got from his three bench players.

“We obviously didn’t get much out of our bench today,” Brownell said. “We played some guys and they couldn’t make shots. It puts a lot of pressure on your older guys. We had three guys that almost played double-figure minutes and didn’t scratch. That just puts too much pressure on your starters.”

The pressure was felt all night as Virginia Tech’s defense turned Clemson over 11 times and scored 17 points off those turnovers.

Clemson was up 38-34 in the second half before the Hokies went on a 20-5 run to give them a lead they would not relinquish.

During that stretch, Brownell took Reed out of the game when it was just a 5-0 run, but after Virginia Tech scored five more points which the Tigers couldn’t answer, Clemson’s only consistent offensive threat had to get back on the floor.

Reed needed an offensive sidekick to help him carry the load, but no one else could step up and contribute enough points on his career-high night.

“He probably has to do too much right now,” Brownell said. “There’s a lot being asked of him and our other guys got to help him offensively to spread things out a little bit.”

Clemson missed some opportunities to get back in the game from the free-throw line as well. Elijah Thomas made Clemson’s first two of the game, but then the Tigers missed seven straight in the second half, which kept a comeback run from gaining any momentum. The Tigers cut Virginia Tech’s lead to five with 41 seconds left, but that’s as close as it got as the Hokies closed things out at home.

Clemson went from battling Duke for second place in the ACC on Sunday to now being behind Virginia Tech in fifth place in just a few short days. The Tigers have to do their best to stop the skid before it costs them further. Even with the struggles, Brownell is proud of the way his team has competed.

“We have prepared very well, we’ve played hard, and we guarded the heck out of these guys as good as you can,” Brownell said. “We held them to decent shooting and a decent number of points in their building. I told our guys off the bench, ‘you have to be able to play better. You got to make more shots. We got to have it.’ But I’m proud of the way our guys have competed.”

A double-bye at the ACC tournament is still in reach, but the Tigers have to get back on the right track against Georgia Tech this Saturday, hopefully with Mitchell back on the court.