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CLEMSON -- The Clemson Tigers controlled Wednesday night's affair with Wake Forest every step of the way and in doing so walked away with their biggest victory of the season and most notable win since a 67-50 upset of Virginia in Charlottesville back on December 22.
The Tigers, who won 80-69, entered the evening having lost 10 of their last 12, but in one of its most impressive showings of the year downed a Wake Forest team that came in at fifth place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Tigers, which never trailed Wednesday, moved to 13-15 overall and 5-12 in league play, while Wake fell to 21-8 and 11-7 in the conference.
Sophomore guard Chase Hunter's 21 points on 10-of-12 shooting led the Tigers while Damari Monsanto's 17 points led the Demon Deacons.
Hunter scored the Tigers' first basket of the game. A Daivien Williamson three-pointer would tie the game at 3-3 with just over a minute and a half expired. It would mark the only occurrence in the contest where the Demon Deacons did not trail.
At the 10:06 minute mark Clemson held an 18-8 lead after an Alex Hemenway basket from long range. The Tigers would widen their lead to 23-12 just over two minutes later on another Hunter jumper. The Deacons would cut into the lead and entered intermission down 36-33 following two Jake LaRavia free throw conversions. LaRavia added 15 points and tied Clemson's David Collins for a game-high eight rebounds.
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The two teams would remain within four points of one another for much of the first 10 minutes of the second half before the Tigers would move out to a 61-51 lead with 7:06 to go after an Al-Amir Dawes jumper from long range. A basket from freshman forward Ian Schieffelin on Clemson's next possession gave the home team a 63-51 advantage, its largest lead of the game.
LaRavia's three-pointer with just over three minutes to go pulled the Deacons to within four at 66-62. LaRavia's two free throw conversions with 1:27 remaining would cut the Tigers' lead to 70-67. From there, the Deacons would not come any closer, as Dawes would score eight of the Tigers' final 10 points en route to an 80-69 victory.
Wake shot 41-percent from the floor, but hit just 9-of-32 (28.1%) from three-point range.
The Tigers were 53.7% from the floor and an impressive 8-of-18 (44.4%) from long range.
Dawes (19), Nick Honor (13) and Shieffelin joined Hunter in reaching double figures in scoring.
The Tigers, who have now won 14 of their last 16 in their series vs. Wake, were without starting forwards P.J. Hall (left foot injury) and Hunter Tyson (clavicle).
Clemson head coach Brad Brownell is now 14-3 all-time vs. Wake.
Wake will head back to Winston-Salem to host Louisville on Saturday while Clemson travels to Boston College on Saturday. The game is set for a 3:00 p.m. tipoff and will be televised by the ACC Network.
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