The NCAA Tournament took a little while into Thursday to get the fireworks going, but Will Wade always brings the explosiveness. Wade’s McNeese State squad played a flawless game while No. 5 seed Clemson basketball put out one of its worst outings of the year in at the 69-67 upset for the Cowboys.
The final score is much, much closer than the game was on Thursday. McNeese State spent a majority of the afternoon with a massive lead after a masterful defensive first half in which it held Clemson to just 13 points. Wade mixed up his defenses, constantly confusing the Clemson offense and forcing it into bad shots and turnovers.
After the game, Brownell didn’t hold back on what the issue was when playing against this unique Cowboys squad, via Chapel Fowler of The State Newspaper.
“We weren’t really prepared for the zone to man,” Brownell said. “Haven’t seen a lot of that this year, maybe a little bit with Stanford and it bothered us.”
Wade and company started the game in a very unique matchup zone, which clogged all of Clemson’s driving lanes. The Cowboys were very active with their hands and the Clemson guards, especially star point guard Chase Hunter, seemed out of sorts for most of the day.
In the second half, McNeese State mixed in a little more man, which continued to confuse a Clemson basketball team that didn’t know what it was going to see on any given possession. Even though the Tigers found a little bit of a rhythm in the last few minutes — allowing them to close the gap and make the final score close — it was too little, too late.
Clemson finished this game with just nine assists and 13 turnovers while shooting under 37% from the field. Big man Ian Schieffelin, the second-leading scorer for Clemson, finished the game just 0-for-4 from the field with one point after struggling with foul trouble in the first half.
Clemson fans will certainly see this performance as a massive disappointment, especially after Brownell was given a six-year contract extension in the week leading up to the game. It’s clear that his Tigers squad was not ready for all of the different things that McNeese State can throw at you, and now Brownell and company are headed home as a result.
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