Clemson Faces Major Issue in Georgetown Loss

One key flaw led to Clemson’s undoing in Friday night’s loss.

Clemson guard Cole Certa (1) hands the ball over to official Jeff Pon as time expired playing Stetson, in the Tigers season opener at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, S.C. Monday, November 2, 2026. Clemson won 85-72. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Clemson men’s basketball (3-1) suffered its first loss of the season on Friday night against Georgetown (4-0), 85-78 at Littlejohn Coliseum.

The team fought back to erase a 19-point deficit, but wasn’t able to close out the Hoyas in the final minutes. One issue came to the forefront again and again down the stretch: defensive rebounding.

Clemson took a 66-64 lead with Cole Certa’s layup at the 6:23 mark of the second half. From there, Georgetown outscored the Tigers 21-14 after that. The Hoyas out-muscled Clemson inside, tallying 11 offensive rebounds and 13 second-chance points in the game.

Brad Brownell made the decision to start Chase Thompson instead of mainstay Dylan Faulkner, which he described as a matchup-based call.

“I knew that they would go inside hard early and maybe try to get a foul on Dylan,” he said. “David [Fuchs] is bigger and stronger. We felt like that matchup to start the game would be good, and I think by and large he did okay at the beginning.”

That decision paid off for spurts, but didn’t yield positive results for the first 20 minutes. 7-foot-1 Georgetown center Vince Iwuchukwu piled up 16 points and 5 rebounds in the first half, and shot a perfect 7-for-7 from the field.

Iwuchukwu finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds – a double-double – for the night. He grabbed 4 of the Hoyas’ 11 offensive rebounds, which loomed large in the second half. Clemson opted to double-team him on the catch on post-ups more as the game went, which had more positive results than negative.

“We had to try to disrupt his rhythm as best we could,” Brownell said. “I thought that the most important thing was, we kept it out [of his hands] more in the second half. The guys in the post did a better job of fighting to keep it out. That [second] man helped us, but we did better defensively in the second half in that area.”

Clemson lost center Carter Welling to a torn ACL in last season’s ACC Tournament. The junior’s absence from the Tigers’ rotation has certainly been impactful. Because Welling is slated to miss all of non-conference play, that leaves Brownell with at least 10 games to figure out his rotations at the center spot.

He’s started Fuchs and Faulkner alongside each other, and sprinkled in minutes for sophomore Trent Steinour off the bench. The Steinour minutes haven’t been productive, though. Through four games, the team is minus-5 in those minutes.

Clemson will have one more tune-up to figure out that rotation inside before heading to the Maui Invitational in a week. They host The Citadel on Monday evening at 7:00 p.m. on the ACC Network.