Clemson comes up short in Chapel Hill with 67-63 loss to No. 17 North Carolina
The final possession will be remembered. The larger lesson probably should be what came before it in Clemson’s 67-63 loss to No. 17 North Carolina Tuesday night in Chapel Hill.
Down 66-63 with 10 seconds left, Clemson had one more chance to preserve its hopes of a double-bye in the ACC Tournament.
Senior guard Dillon Hunter drove downhill against a set defense as North Carolina (24-6, 12-5) chose not to foul. Hunter picked up his dribble in traffic, forced a contested layup that missed and then couldn’t convert the tip-in.
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The ball fell harmlessly away, and with it Clemson’s path to the top four of the league standings.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was abrupt.
The loss at the Dean Smith Center eliminated Clemson (21-9, 11-6) from double-bye contention and underscored a theme that lingered all night: Clemson was good enough in stretches, but not precise enough in the margins.
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Start with the strategy.
North Carolina played drop coverage on ball screens, just as it has all season. Bigs stayed home in the paint. Guards went under. The message was clear: beat us over the top.
Clemson accepted the invitation early, attempting 14 3-pointers in the first half and making only three.
Carter Welling and Nick Davidson combined to open 0-for-8 from deep.
Many of the looks were clean, generated by pick-and-pop action designed to exploit that coverage. But when those shots didn’t fall, possessions stalled.
What makes the outcome more frustrating for Clemson is that it found consistent success elsewhere.
The Tigers outscored the Tar Heels 34-18 in the paint and shot 10-of-17 on 2-point attempts in the first half. When Clemson committed to driving the ball or feeding the interior, it dictated terms.
RJ Godfrey was the clearest example.
He finished with a career-high 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting, adding nine rebounds, a block and a steal in 33 minutes. His work wasn’t complicated. It was forceful.
He attacked one-on-one, particularly after Henri Veesaar picked up two early fouls, and finished through contact. Even his banked-in 3 – one of Clemson’s seven makes from beyond the arc – felt incidental to the larger point: North Carolina did not have an answer for him inside.
The question late was why Clemson didn’t lean into that advantage more.
With the game tightening over the final five minutes, Godfrey’s touches became less frequent. Clemson’s guards initiated, probed and, at times, settled. In a four-point game with under a minute to play, that shift mattered.
Clemson led 55-53 after Welling knocked down his third 3-pointer of the night from the right wing with 5:38 remaining. Then came a 3:36 scoring drought.
North Carolina responded with an 8-0 run, building a 61-55 cushion that forced Clemson to chase.
Derek Dixon’s deep 3 with under a minute left pushed the Tar Heels ahead 64-59 and felt decisive in the moment.
It wasn’t, at least not immediately.
Hunter calmly hit two free throws after Veesaar fouled out. Moments later, he converted a layup to trim the deficit to 64-63 after Jarin Stevenson missed the front end of a one-and-one.
Clemson kept giving itself chances. But Luka Bogavac kept taking them away. The freshman guard delivered the decisive stretch of the game, finishing with a career-high 20 points. Eighteen of them came from beyond the arc. He scored 17 in the second half, including three consecutive 3-pointers that flipped a 52-49 Clemson lead into a 59-55 North Carolina advantage midway through the period. Some were catch-and-shoot. Others came off movement. All of them felt timely.
He also knocked down two free throws in the closing seconds to push the lead to 66-63, setting up Clemson’s final possession.
Bogavac’s shot-making masked a relatively modest overall night from North Carolina, which shot just 37.9% from the field but 12-of-27 from 3-point range. Clemson, by contrast, shot 43.3% overall but only 7-of-20 from deep.
The math from the perimeter ultimately favored the home team.
Welling’s second half deserves mention.
After a quiet start, he found rhythm from two specific spots from beyond the arc knocking down three triples, the right slot and the top of the key, finishing with 13 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.
His shot selection adjusted within the same drop coverage that initially tempted Clemson into rushed attempts.
Butta Johnson helped Clemson build its halftime lead with eight points, including a 3 at the horn to send the Tigers into the break up 30-27 in a building where North Carolina had been undefeated this season.
His energy on the glass and on the defensive end stood out. But after halftime he did not score.
The supporting numbers tell part of the story.
Clemson received just 11 bench points compared to North Carolina’s 27, largely fueled by Bogavac.
Hunter finished with just four points on 1-of-9 shooting. Jestin Porter and Ace Buckner combined for just 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting. In a four-point game, those margins matter.
There were 10 lead changes. The rebounding battle was nearly even, 37-36 in North Carolina’s favor. Free throws were not lopsided. This wasn’t about whistles or one glaring statistical disparity.
It was about sequencing.
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Clemson controlled the paint and had the best player on the floor for much of the night in Godfrey. North Carolina controlled the arc when it mattered most. And in the final 10 seconds, the Tigers couldn’t manufacture the clean look they needed.
With the loss, Clemson shifts its focus to securing fifth place in the ACC standings and closing the regular season at home against Georgia Tech on Saturday in Littlejohn Coliseum at noon airing on ACCN.
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The margin for error in March is thinner now. Tuesday night was proof of that.
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