Grinding it out: UNC basketball outlasts Clemson for perfect home record
With tough buckets and timely shots, Clemson men’s basketball showed up at the Smith Center and tried its hardest to hand UNC its first home loss of the season.
Luka Bogavac and Derek Dixon had other plans.
Bogavac, the junior guard from Montenegro, had a season-high 20 points and six 3-pointers and Dixon, the freshman point guard, had a big shot of his own to lead No. 17 UNC to a 67-63 win over a gritty Clemson team Tuesday night.
With the win, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels finished a perfect 18-0 at home. It’s the 24th time UNC has finished undefeated at home but the first time they’ve done so at that volume. The 18 wins are a home record for UNC across 116 seasons of basketball.
Brad Brownell’s Tigers, seeking only their third win ever in Chapel Hill — and their third in their last four trips — had the ball trailing 66-63 with 10 seconds left. Guard Dillon Hunter drove into the paint, picked up his dribble, couldn’t find an open player on the wing and tried for a layup with about five seconds left.
The shot missed, as did Hunter’s subsequent tip-back attempt, and UNC guard Seth Trimble grabbed the rebound and iced the game with a free throw to put the Tar Heels up four points on his senior night.
Clemson (21-9, 11-6 ACC) dropped to 2-61 in road games against UNC all-time and 2-30 in road games against UNC played in the Smith Center.
UNC is now 24-6 and 12-5 in the ACC and improved its chances of earning a top four seed and a double-bye into the quarterfinal round of next week’s conference tournament in Charlotte.
“There’s just one or two possessions here or there,” Brownell said postgame. “... Just disappointed. We had a chance to win one here and just had a couple bad possessions and weren’t able to steal a win.”
Game recap
Clemson snapped a four-game ACC losing streak with a home win over then-No. 24 Louisville on Saturday. The Tigers carried that momentum into Tuesday’s game, which had a near-sellout crowd of 20,753 on hand.
Neither team led by more than six points in the first half, and Clemson took a 30-27 lead into the break.
UNC – down star freshman forward Caleb Wilson for a sixth straight game – shot just 36% in the first half and had to deal with some early foul trouble, as starting big man Henri Veesaar played a large chunk of the first half with two fouls.
Big plays from Bogavac and forward Jarin Stevenson (nine points, and a career-high 10 rebounds) fueled a 12-0 UNC run early in the second half that put UNC up a game-best seven points – 44-37 – with 16 minutes left. But Clemson promptly erased that deficit.
And the teams kept on trading baskets. With eight minutes left and Clemson leading 50-49, there had been two ties and seven lead changes.
Then Bogavac took over with a run of increasingly tough 3-pointers. His sixth, a sideways-angled heat check, put UNC up 59-55 on Clemson, sent the crowd into hysterics and prompted Brownell to call a “stop the momentum” timeout.
Brownell had to call another after timeout after Trimble put the Tar Heels up six points, 61-55, with 2:21 left. But Clemson methodically clawed its way back into the game against a UNC team that’s struggled recently to finish off opponents.
Clemson forward RJ Godfrey (season-high 21 points) missed two free throws (one after a lane violation) that could’ve cut UNC’s lead to 61-60 with 1:25 remaining.
On the ensuing possession, Dixon hit a tough 3-pointer to put the Tar Heels up 64-59 and potentially put the game away with 46 seconds left.
But Clemson’s Hunter responded with two free throws and made a layup to cut it to 64-63 after UNC’s Stevenson missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw trip. Clemson fouled after Hunter’s layup, and Bogavac (a decent free throw shooter at 72%) sank two free throws for a 66-63 lead with 12.2 seconds left.
After Clemson advanced the ball past midcourt and called another timeout, UNC opted not to foul and played straight up defense, covering up the Tigers’ shooting threats. Clemson’s last possession ended with a missed shot at the rim.
Brownell said the Tigers had “multiple three-point shots that we were trying to get to tie the game” on the possession, but UNC guarded them well. He said Hunter’s layup attempt with five seconds left was a “good play” since there was enough time for the Tigers to foul and get another shot if he’d made it.
Tuesday’s thriller featured three ties and 10 lead changes, and neither team lead by more than seven points at any point.
Clemson closes the regular season at home vs. Georgia Tech and UNC plays at rival and AP No. 1 Duke. Both games are Saturday.
Davis said he hopes the Tar Heels are “recognized” for the fact they went undefeated at home despite playing 15 games this season without at least one of their three leading scorers (Wilson, Veesaar and Trimble).
“Going undefeated at home and being able to do it while having to deal with all the things that they had to deal with even makes it even more special,” he said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2026 at 9:19 PM.
