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Syracuse and Clemson meet for the first, and only, time this season on Tuesday night, with the Tigers traveling to the Carrier Dome for the Orange’s third consecutive home game. Both teams lost their last game — SU fell by five points to FSU, and the Tigers lost to Boston College by two — and sit 11th and 10th in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings, respectively, as the 2021-22 season enters its final six weeks.

Here’s what to know about the Tigers (10-7, 2-4 ACC) before Tuesday’s matchup with Syracuse (8-9, 2-4).

All-time series

Clemson leads 7-5.

Last time they played

Behind 22 points from Alan Griffin, Syracuse picked up a 64-54 win over Clemson to close its regular season with back-to-back wins that solidified an NCAA Tournament position pending conference tournament results. The Orange led by three points at halftime despite shooting only 25% in the opening frame, and their defense limited Clemson to 33.9% shooting from the field.

In the second half, SU’s offense — and, specifically, Griffin — started clicking to the tune of 51.9% shooting, including a 150-second stretch after the break where Griffin made three consecutive 3s. Marek Dolezaj was held scoreless for just the second time all season, but he still contributed eight rebounds and a block while anchoring the center of the 2-3 zone. It was the first time the Orange emerged with a victory against Clemson since January 2019, and they closed the regular season with eight wins in 12 games.

“We woke up in the second half,” Griffin said. “We started a little shaky, and we started to get things rolling in the second.”

KenPom odds

Syracuse has a 56% chance to win, with a projected score of 78-76.

The Tigers report

Clemson’s defense, which ranked 19th nationally in adjusted efficiency last year, per KenPom, has dropped to 86th this season, but the Tigers still rank seven slots higher than SU in the conference’s ranking for points allowed per game. Aamir Simms graduated, Clyde Trapp transferred to Charlotte and that left players like PJ Hall, Nick Honor, Al-Amir Dawes and Hunter Tyson forced to step into expanded roles.

Hall leads the Tigers in scoring with 14.5 points per game, one of four players to average double-digits, and his percentage of shots taken — 30.5%, per KenPom — ranks 89th in the country. 

Early in the season, Clemson surged to a 9-4 start behind consistent 3-point makes and a balanced offense. It converted nine or more 3-pointers in eight of those games, and its 3-point percentage (38.4) still ranks 15th in the country despite struggling in recent games. The Tigers endured a 13-day break between games against Virginia on Dec. 22 and Jan. 4, and since returning, have only hit 24-of-81 shots from 3 and managed 70 or more points just once.

How Syracuse beats Clemson

It’s been a weakness of the Orange’s throughout the entire season, but they’ll need to ensure that Clemson’s recent stretch of shooting struggles from beyond the arc extends at least one more game. Honor torched Syracuse with five 3s in their first meeting last year, but the sophomore hasn’t replicated that performance since and has only hit three 3-pointers in his last seven games. SU needs to ensure that those same shooting windows from February 2021 don’t open once again, while also taking away Hall’s ability to maneuver inside the paint.

Offensively, Cole Swider has started to find a bit of a rhythm over recent games, and SU will need him to continue his emergence as a viable option to not only make the open looks but also aggressively create his own. The Tigers held Buddy Boeheim to a combined 9-for-28 shooting in the two meetings last season, and the Orange managed to pull away with a win in the second meeting because of secondary scoring — an area where they’ve struggled this season, especially with inconsistency from Joe Girard III at times and recurring foul trouble from Jesse Edwards.

Stat to know: 2 fouls

Clemson averages more personal fouls committed per game and has committed more total fouls this season than Syracuse — 15.9 compared to 14.6 and 270 compared to 248, respectively — but the Tigers have only had a player foul out twice this season. SU, on the other hand, has had a player foul out 12 times, with nine coming from Edwards, two from Swider and one from Buddy. Only Prairie View (15) and Montana (13) have had players foul out more times than SU this season, while Mississippi Valley and Illinois State sit tied with the Orange at 12.

Player to watch: Al-Amir Dawes, guard, No. 2

Dawes ranks fifth in the ACC with an average of 2.4 made 3-point field goals per game, and he also leads the Tigers by converting 40.2% of his shots from behind the arc of players with at least 50 attempts. Dawes, who’s in his third season with Clemson, started in 15 of 24 games last year before sliding into the starting rotation for all 17 games so far during the 2021-22 campaign.

The guard notched a season-high 21 points in the opener against Presbyterian, though he’s been limited to single-digit outputs in eight of his last 14 games. Dawes has attempted 40 more 3-pointers than Honor, who’s launched the second-most 3s on the Tigers, and he’ll need to find a rhythm for Clemson to take advantage of Syracuse’s porous defense.

Published on January 17, 2022 at 4:45 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew