 pulled away with a 20-0 first-half run and shot 66% before halftime. Louisville hit 10 of 21 from long range for the game, including Perry's two 3s before the big spurt ended in a 31-9 lead. That advantage held easily even as Louisville shot 28% in the second half.Perry finished 7 of 12 from the field and 5 of 6 from deep to surpass his previous high of 17 points last reached against Vermont on Nov. 16, 2018. The junior also had five rebounds.“I feel like I've always shot the ball really well,” said Perry, who entered with a career average of four attempts per game. "I had one game in high school where I scored 30 points on 10 3s, so I've never been shy shooting the ball.“I just hadn't been shooting it well up to this point. Tonight, I shot the ball really well.”Freshman Samuell Williamson scored 14 points off the bench, Steven Enoch had 11 points with seven rebounds, and Nwora scored 10 points as Louisville avoided becoming the Tigers' latest upset victim. Clemson (10-9, 4-5) had won four of five, including victories at North Carolina and over then-No. 3 Duke.“Obviously, we're putting a lot of attention on (Louisville leading scorer Jordan) Nwora, and we're guarding Perry,” said Clemson coach Brad Brownell, who recruited Perry in high school. “That's the hard part when you're playing teams of this amount of talent. It's hard to guard them all.”The Cardinals scored more points on the fastbreak (8-0), in the paint (28-12) and on second chances (14-7). Though the Tigers outscored them 36-33 after halftime, the outcome was settled for the final 28 minutes.“We had a little bit of a lull on offense, which has happened to us down the stretch,” Louisville coach Chris Mack said. “You sort of get that weird feeling, but I really think the story of the game was our ability to play with that much for 40 minutes.”Clyde Trapp had 11 points for the Tigers, who shot just 34.4% and were outrebounded 41-29. They made 11 of a season-high 38 3-point attempts.OFF TARGETClemson's top scorers, forward Aamir Simms and guard Tevin Mack, combined to shoot 4 of 20 for just 10 points after entering with averages of 14.4 and 11.9 points per game, respectively. That included 0 for 8 from long range.GOING BACKLouisville wore throwback uniforms from the 1974-75 Final Four squad that lost 75-74 in overtime to top-ranked and eventual NCAA champion UCLA. That team was honored at halftime.BIG PICTUREClemson: The Tigers missed seven consecutive shots during the frustrating 20-0 run and struggled to keep pace from there. The Cardinals' 47 points were the most in a half by a Clemson opponent this season, surpassing the 39 posted by North Carolina two weeks ago.Louisville: The Cardinals broke out of their month-long pattern of struggling to close out opponents at home with an energetic effort in all phases. Perry's perimeter shooting was a welcome surprise and provided a good start offensively before others joined in from beyond the arc. They dominated the Tigers in nearly every other category, which hadn't been easy for Louisville this month. Forward Dwayne Sutton had 11 rebounds, eight points and three assists.POLL IMPLICATIONSLouisville's lopsided victory could provide a boost into the top five.UP NEXTClemson hosts Syracuse on Tuesday night.Louisville visits Boston College on Wednesday night.---More college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/-Top25)
Jan 24, 2020Louisville will honor members of the school's 1975 Final Four team at halftime of Saturday's home game against Clemson at the Cardinals' KFC Yum! Center.Now if Louisville coach Chris Mack could get his No. 6-ranked team to play with the consistency displayed by that 1975 team, he might be on to something."It's funny how success can change your mindset sometimes," Mack said. "At some point I've got to get some older guys resembling being older." Complaints about inconsistent play from veterans may fall on deaf ears for a team that has won five games in a row, is 16-3 overall and sits alone atop the Atlantic Coast Conference standings at 7-1, but Mack knows that the Cardinals have been playing with fire of late.Since sandwiching losses to Kentucky and Florida State around the New Year, Louisville has mounted a five-game winning streak, albeit winning the last four by an average margin of 4.5 points.The Cardinals' latest close call came Wednesday night when they had to rally from an 11-point deficit to slip past Georgia Tech 68-64 at the Yum! Center, where they're 11-1 this season. The Yellow Jackets, who led by six at the half, were within a single point with 1:20 remaining."I'd like to think that our kids really care about winning and we have a lot of pride," Mack said. "But it shouldn't take a deficit to figure that out." The Cardinals will face another scratch-and-claw team Saturday in Clemson (10-8, 4-4). The Tigers have played several close games and have been on a roll of late, winning four of their last five contests, including a win against North Carolina -- the first victory in program history in Chapel Hill, N. C. -- and a home upset against then-No. 3 Duke.Clemson is coming off a 71-68 win against Wake Forest Tuesday night, a game in which leading scorer Aamir Simms was conspicuously absent but saw sophomore forward Hunter Tyson come through with a career-high 21 points."We don't have a lot of prolific scoring," Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. "So it's hard for our team sometimes; we've got to kind of use everybody."That's our team right now. It would be nice to have three guys with 15 (points) or more and we've had that a couple of times -- that's how we beat Duke -- and that's probably what we're going to need if we're going to beat teams like Louisville and Florida State, but that's not easy for our team." With the exception of Louisville's 32-point victory against Clemson in 2017, nothing has come easy for either team in this series.Last season, Clemson rallied from seven points down in the final 17 seconds before coming up short, 56-55. In 2018, Louisville escaped Clemson's Littlejohn Coliseum with a five-point win, and Clemson prevailed 66-62 in 2016.Whatever unfolds Saturday, neither team may be fond of seeing the result hinge on making free throws. Clemson is shooting just 39 percent from the free-throw line over its last two games while Louisville converted only 14 of 23 (61 percent) against Georgia Tech."We've had times where our funk is to start the game or at the end of either half," Mack said. "If I knew and could wave a magic wand, I would do this. We'll figure this thing out, but we're not this juggernaut, just so everybody's clear on that. We're just trying to get there." --Field Level Media
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