What We Learned From Clemson Basketball's Strong Win Over Morehead State

The Clemson Tigers men’s basketball team left Littlejohn Coliseum with another win on Tuesday night, defeating the Morehead State Eagles by a score of 83-56.

With Clemson having its biggest game of the season coming up this weekend against Georgetown, here is what we learned from the Tigers’ third straight win of the season.

Frontcourt must stay out of foul trouble for success

Foul trouble to forwards RJ Godfrey and Carter Welling saw Clemson struggle to pick up momentum on the offensive glass, creating scoring runs for Morehead State throughout the game. The Eagles outrebounded the Tigers, 41-40, although the team rallied back from a bigger deficit before the end of the game.

Although the damage was mostly done in the first half, Godfrey recorded three fouls with about 17 minutes to go in the game, and the Eagles began to take over the paint with potential second chance points.

Welling picked up two in the first half and another with 15:53 remaining in the contest, having to be sidelined. This led the only big player on the court to be Nick Davidson, who Morehead State head coach Jonathan Mattox used to his advantage, recording eight offensive rebounds and nine second chance points in the half with his team.

“We need to rebound better,” head coach Brad Brownell said after the game. “That helped them, but all in all, good performance, solid on both ends and, you know, it’s been a good first three home games for us.”

In important games, the Tigers will need to keep the two out of foul trouble going forward for the sake of both sides of the ball. Godfrey himself had seven offensive rebounds in 26 minutes, helping Clemson score 13 second chance points.

2. Ball movement continues to benefit Clemson

Clemson’s early game success came from plenty of ball movement across the rotation, recording 19 assists to only five turnovers in the win.

Morehead State presented an interesting zone, making it difficult for the Tigers to break throughout the contest. However, smart movement to the baseline left players like Godfrey and Chase Thompson open, who hit important shots to help grow the lead to a 39-20 score after the first 20 minutes.

Love how we shared the ball again, took care of it, 19 assists, five turnovers,” Brownell said after the game. The team’s done a terrific job of really passing and taking care of the ball, and I think those possessions have been a really good force.

Similar to its wins over New Hampshire and Gardner-Webb, everybody shared the ball through that extra pass. Eight Tigers scored six points or more, and three players entered double digits in the win.

3. The bench continues to produce, regardless of minutes

Tuesday night was the first time viewers began to see Brownell’s rotation come to fruition, with four of the starters playing over 24 minutes in the win.

Off the bench, the Tigers added 36 points from the second unit, 20 more than Morehead State’s. Redshirt freshman Ace Buckner continues to produce, recording his third straight game in double-digits, scoring 12 points and recording five rebounds in 22 minutes of play time for the Tigers.

We’ve seen Brownell use a full switch during substitutions, and viewers saw it again, flipping five starters for five bench pieces in the first six minutes of the game. However, Clemson didn’t stop scoring and continued to grow the lead.

The Clemson head coach says that the use of the bench comes from the lack of depth of the talent on the team, also helping with foul trouble in key moments throughout the season.

“The other thing is, you know, we need to make sure that guys like RJ and Dillon [Hunter] and some of those guys don’t get in foul trouble, and so we want to keep a tempo, we want to keep pace, we want guys fresh,” Brownell said. “We want to get our young ugys into the game early, and get them a feel for the game, and it’s been good for how we’ve played and practiced.”

The Tigers will be back in action on Saturday, playing Georgetown in Washington D.C. at noon.