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No. 25 Iowa moves to 5-0 after holding off Clemson

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery reacts during a NCAA men's basketball game against Bethune-Cookman, Monday, Nov. 7, 2022, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa.

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Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK

Patrick McCaffery scored a team-high 21 points as the No. 25 Iowa Hawkeyes held off a furious rally by the Clemson Tigers to win 74-71 Friday night in the semfinals of the Emerald Coast Classic.

Unbeaten Iowa (5-0) will move on to the championship game to face the winner of the Cal-TCU game on Saturday while Clemson (4-2) will face the loser in a consolation matchup.

After trailing by 14 with just under eight minutes to play, Clemson would battle back to tie it up at 64-64 with 2:54 remaining. The Hawkeyes would push that lead back to three at 68-65, but with a chance to tie it up with under 30 seconds left, Brevin Galloway’s 3-point shot rimmed out.

Tony Perkins made a pair of free throws to make it 70-65, but Chase Hunter’s 3 would eventually pull the Tigers back to within one at 72-71 with under five seconds remaining. Perkins would again sink two foul shots, this time with 1.5 seconds left to seal the win for Iowa.

Nine of Perkins’ 11 points came from the charity stripe.

Clemson held the red-hot Kris Murray to just 10 points and 0-for-5 from beyond the arc, but it wasn’t enough as McCaffery picked up the slack, hitting on 7-of-14 from the field.

Hunter led the Tigers with 21 points, hitting on 2 of 5 from behind the 3-point line while adding six assists. Hunter Tyson ended the night with 13 points, pulling down eight rebounds in the losing effort. Beadle added eight points off the bench as the Tigers’ three-game win streak came to a halt.

Iowa was held to a season-low 38.3-percent shooting as the Hawkeyes made only 4 of 19 attempts from 3-point range.

After starting the game 1-for-7 from the field, Clemson shot 40.6 percent on the night and 30.8 percent (8-for-26) from deep.

Despite Hunter being limited to just 10 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, Clemson was able to keep it close, trailing just 34-27 at the break. Redshirt freshman Josh Beadle helped keep Clemson in it with six points off the bench in place of Hunter.

McCaffery would score five consecutive points coming out of the half, though, pushing the Iowa lead to 39-27. The Tigers would immediately respond by going on a 10-2 run to cut the lead to four at 41-37, fueled by two Tyson 3-point shots.

The Hawkeyes would quickly push the lead back out to double digits at 51-41 with 12:44 to play. Iowa would then amp up the defensive pressure, holding the Tigers without a bucket for more than three minutes, while pushing the lead to 60-46 with 7:58 remaining in the game.

–Field Level Media

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