Marcquise Reed, 'Clemson Grit' leads Clemson to Dominant 64-48 win over South Carolina

Clemson basketball used a gritty performance to dominate archrival South Carolina 64-48 to move to 10-1 on the season.

It’s a storyline that has gotten all too familiar to Clemson fans at this time of year when facing the Gamecocks.

Marcquise Reed led the way for the Tigers as he poured in a career-high 25 points, 16 of them coming in the second half.

Shelton Mitchell and Gabe DeVoe each reached double-figures with 10 and 12 points to contribute to the win.

The Tigers led the entire game.

The term “Clemson Grit” has been a slogan for Brownell and his crew the past couple of seasons. It wasn’t pretty, but Clemson lived up to its defensive identity. 

Clemson held the Gamecocks to 35-percent shooting from the field (19-of-54).

“It was really kind of a workman-like performance,” Brownell said after his team’s sixth win in a row. “When you play against South Carolina, you know it is going to be physical, and you know they are going to get after you defensively. I thought our guys matched their intensity.”

In the first half, the Tigers came out making five of their first eight shots and jumped out to an early 15-8 lead.

Clemson’s defense stifled the Gamecocks early as South Carolina started 2-of-12 (17-percent) from the floor. But South Carolina was able to respond with an 11-2 run to tie the game at 19 with 5:42 left in the first half.

Clemson held a 31-26 lead at the half, and South Carolina was hanging around. Clemson cooled off a bit after jumping out to a good start and finished the half 3-of-11 from the field.

Clemson turned it on in the second half and started to execute better offensively as Brownell and his defense wore the Gamecocks down on the other end.

“I thought our execution got better the longer the game went,” Brownell said. “I think early we were a little bit hyped up and probably tried a couple of things that maybe weren’t as good. The longer the game went I thought we settled in as coaches and players.”

Brownell also noted that his team spent a lot of time talking about guarding without fouling the last couple of days. South Carolina didn’t shoot one free throw the entire second half.

The Gamecocks did not shoot well at all. They didn’t make a three-pointer until there was 6:40 left in the game (2-of-16).

For every basket South Carolina did score in the second half, Clemson answered emphatically in front of its home crowd with one of its own.

“We couldn’t make a shot. We couldn’t score in the second half,” South Carolina head coach Frank Martin said. “They made theirs; we didn’t make ours.”

With South Carolina holding on for life down seven, Elijah Thomas secured an offensive rebound over three South Carolina defenders. Thomas kicked it out to Reed for a wide-open three-pointer and Clemson grabbed its largest lead of the game at that point with 13:30 remaining in the game.

From there, Reed took over, and a Clemson team that had struggled closing out games in the past again played its best down the stretch.

The Tigers pushed their lead to 62-43 with 2:13 to go and had made their last seven field goal attempts up to that point, three of them coming from Reed. Chants of “little brother” rained down from the student section as South Carolina fans headed towards the exit.

“I guess I am playing pretty good basketball right now,” Reed said after his career-night. “I feel like I am playing a bigger role this year, playing more minutes and stepping up as a starter.”

Brownell was impressed with his team’s ability to close out the game against the team that went to the Final Four last year.

“We still have a lot of these guys that were a part of (last year’s struggles),” Brownell added. “We talk about a growth mindset and learning from success as well as failure. Everybody always wants to talk about failure. We are learning from successes."

"Really good teams can win in the 80s and the 50s. I think we can win both ways.”

Clemson now has three crucial victories in the non-conference over Ohio State, Florida, and now 8-3 South Carolina. Brownell channeled his inner Dabo Swinney when he was asked if he feels that he has an impressive NCAA Tournament résumé so far.

“It doesn’t matter,” Brownell quickly replied. “That was a great win. Significant. We are going to enjoy this one tonight, and we also play a team on Friday that is 9-2 and has a bunch of really good players."

The Tigers look to continue their impressive start on Friday, December 22nd, against Louisiana-Lafayette in Littlejohn.