CLEMSON BASKETBALL

DeVoe, Reed stay hot as Clemson defeats Wake Forest for another road win
DeVoe scored 24 points to lead Clemson

DeVoe, Reed stay hot as Clemson defeats Wake Forest for another road win


by - Senior Writer -

WINSTON-SALEM, NC – Gabe DeVoe and Marcquise Reed are getting hot at the right time.

DeVoe scored 24 points and Reed added 22 as No. 20 Clemson won its third game in a row and second on the road in defeating Wake Forest 75-67 Saturday afternoon in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

DeVoe was 5-7 from 3-point range, while Reed’s seven rebounds tied Elijah Thomas for the team-high. DeVoe added five rebounds of his own. The Tigers committed just eight turnovers and out-rebounded Wake Forest 37-34. Clemson shot 43% from the field (24-56). Clemson was also 17-20 from the free throw line.

The win improved Clemson to 19-4 overall and 8-3 in the ACC. Wake Forest fell to 9-14 overall and 2-9 in the ACC. Clemson trails the all-time series 99-62, but the Tigers have won five in a row and ten of the last 11 in the series.

DeVoe has notched at least five 3-pointers in three consecutive games. He is the first player since 2008 to make at least five threes in back-to-back games - tying Terrence Oglesby. Clemson SID Tim Bourret thinks DeVoe is the first player in Clemson history to have at least five 3-pointers in three consecutive games.

"Just a good win for our team. I thought Wake played well. We had a hard time guarding them for a long time," head coach Brad Brownell said. "We did a better job and went to some zone late, which we don't do very often. Obviously, some of it was to protect our players because we had two guys with four fouls - Marcquiese and Elijah. I thought that maybe helped us a little bit. Offensively, I thought we played okay today, not great, but we made 10 threes again. Turnovers were low, which was good. I thought both teams offensively were executing pretty well. We just happened to have the late run is really all the game was. I thought the Wake kids played well. We had that lead in the second half and then they fought back and took the lead and we just made a couple of plays down the stretch and that was really the only difference in the game."

Wake head coach Danny Manning said Clemson's guards were too much down the stretch.

"I thought Clemson did a very good job of executing their offense. Reed and DeVoe and Mitchell, their very talented trio of guards," Manning said. "Reed and DeVoe go for 22 and 24. They made some tough shots, but we've got to do a better job of being there on the catch and contesting shots. I thought we did some pretty good things in the second half in terms of taking care of the basketball. When they threw their zone at us, I don't know if we got stagnant. We got some looks, we just didn't knock down some shots. I thought for us, in the first half, we broke down defensively too many times and that really hurt us. We got the ball where we wanted to a lot of times in that first half and we had at least five missed layups and that came back to haunt us as well."

The first half featured six ties, the last time at 26-26 with 3:59 remaining on the clock after an Elijah Thomas free throw. After Wake went ahead 28-26, DeVoe nailed 3-pointer from the wing to put Clemson back in front at 29-28 and Mitchell followed with a 3-pointer a few seconds later and Clemson was out in front 32-28.

The Deacs didn’t hit a field goal the last 3:46 of the half, and DeVoe hit a long-range 3-pointer with 10 seconds remaining on the clock and the Tigers led 35-30 at intermission.

A 3-point basket by Reed early in the second gave the Tigers their biggest lead of the game at 41-33, but back-to-back 3-pointers and an alley-oop fueled an 8-0 run by the Demon Deacons, forcing a timeout with the game tied at 41-41 with 15:53 to play in the game. The run eventually reached 11-0, but Reed stopped the bleeding with another trey, tying the game at 44-44.

The 10 minutes that followed had the teams trading baskets, unable to pull away from each other. Reed picked up his fourth foul with just over seven minutes to play, and Brownell elected to leave him on the court. With the Tigers trailing 61-58, DeVoe hit his fifth 3-pointer to tie the game at 61-61, and thirty seconds later the Tigers went back in front at 63-61 as Reed drove the lane for a layup.

Wake nailed another 3-pointer to go up 64-63, and then both teams found field goals hard to come by. The Demon Deacons went almost four minutes without scoring, while Clemson went almost four minutes without a field goal. However, Reed and Skara each hit two free throws and Clemson led 67-64 with just over two minutes to play.

Wake hit one free throw with just under two minutes to play and Reed calmly drained a basket from the free throw line to put Clemson ahead 69-65 with 1:40 to play. Both teams failed to score on their next possession, and Wake’s Bryant Crawford missed a 3-pointer with 44 seconds remaining. Reed collected the missed shot and was fouled with 40.1 seconds remaining.

Reed hit both free throws for a 71-65, but the Deacons got a jumper from Crawford with 32 seconds remaining that made it 71-67. Reed was quickly fouled on the inbounds pass and he hit both free throws to put Clemson ahead 73-67 with 28 seconds on the game clock.

Brandon Childress missed a jumper from the elbow with 19 seconds to play and Mitchell gathered in the rebound and was fouled with 17 seconds left. He hit both free throws for a 75-67 lead and the Demon Deacons missed their final shot for the final score.

Clemson returns to action next Thursday, hosting Pitt at 7 p.m. in Littlejohn Coliseum.


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