Spirited Zach LeDay Powers Hokies to 60-57 Victory Over Clemson

Zach LeDay finally missed, and he wasn't happy about it. His only missed free throw of the afternoon — the junior transfer went 9 for 10 from the charity stripe — had given Clemson one last chance, a final shot at a game-tying three-pointer with just 12 seconds left on the clock.

The Tigers never got a shot off.

It wasn't always pretty — Tech limped to a 27.6% clip from the field in the first half — but the Hokies battled back from an early deficit, once led by 12 in the second half, and, behind the fiery play of LeDay, survived a late Clemson scare to knock off the Tigers with a 60-57 victory in Blacksburg.

"Zach has some emotional issues," said head coach Buzz Williams of the passionate LeDay. "They're the same emotional issues that I struggle with. So we get along real well. I don't know if perfectionism is the right word, but I do think that he has an insatiable desire to be the best that he can be. And he is of the belief, raised by a single parent mom that raised three boys, that's had one job the last 34 years, he believes that there are things that he can control. One of those things is his work ethic."

But LeDay's unrelenting drive to succeed — one that Williams, of all people, can relate to — isn't confined to the time he and his coach spend together.

"He's the most humble kid you can be around. But he wants to do right so bad," said Williams. "He's texting me yesterday, 'Coach, I'm sorry for the free throws that I missed against (some team) like seven games ago. I don't even remember who the team was.' I was like 'Yeah, you should have made them.' Because that's what he responds to best. He doesn't want me to say, 'It's OK.' He doesn't respect people that are like that."

LeDay, at times, struggled with the inside presence of Clemson's Landry Nnoko, who finished with 17 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 blocks. But don't think for a second that LeDay backed down.

"6 foot 5, and playing the five in the best league in the country," said Williams. "That tells you how tough he is."

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that LeDay, who finished with 19 points and 12 boards himself, made what Williams called the "play of the game." It was late in the second half and the ball had squirted out near half court, so LeDay, knowing no other way to play the game of basketball, instinctively dove headfirst to grab it. The South Florida transfer pulled it in, found Seth Allen standing open in front of a frantic Williams, and Allen dished off to Jalen Hudson for an easy layup.

"It's the play of the game," Williams blurted out well before a reporter could even finish his question. "My immature...I'm on the floor trying to call a timeout. Zach's ten fingers, ten toes in the air for a loose ball, 50-50 ball...It was the play of the game. The first guy to the floor was Zach."

LeDay had help, sure, most notably from the aforementioned Hudson. The St. Vincent-St. Mary's product had just 4 first half points, but the dynamic wing flashed his boundless potential with 11 second half points, none more spectacular than his Top-10 worthy two-handed slam that brought Cassell to a fever pitch.

Justin Bibbs pitched in 12 points as well, surprisingly more efficient from inside the arc than behind it. Allen managed to limp to double digit scoring for the seventh-straight game, but it was certainly not one of the Maryland transfer's finest performances.

Clemson's Jaron Blossomgame, who entered the day averaging 17.2 points per game for the Tigers, finished with just 8 on 3-10 shooting, largely limited by an unorthodox defensive game plan from Williams that featured point guard Devin Wilson checking the 6'7" Blossomgame.

"We've spent an incredible amount of time since Wednesday trying to figure out how to guard him," said Williams. "They put five (Blossomgame) in multiple positions on the floor. They play him in a variety of ways for him to get touches to score, to take advantage of your ball screen coverage, one, and who's guarding him, two. And all the analytics that I studied and all the synergy that I watch, in addition to the tape, I thought our best chance was to put a guard on him. And our toughest player is Devin Wilson. I thought Devin did a great job."

But for all the late-game intrigue, the Hokies and Tigers each started out ice-cold on the offensive end. Clemson managed to race out to a 7-3 lead through six minutes, and their lead hovered around five for much of the first half. But with the stagnant Hokies' offense facing an eight-point deficit with 4:52 left in the half, it appeared as if the news of 4-star defensive end TyJuan Garbutt's commitment might be the sole bright spot for the Hokie faithful. But Williams' bunch, as they're prone to do, clawed back and pulled within five with just under a minute to play. Coming out of a Clemson timeout at the 45 second mark, Williams switched to a 2-3 zone and forced the Tigers into an errant pass early in the shot clock that was picked off by Allen. Allen proceeded to go coast to coast and finished through contact at the rim to pull the Hokies within two heading into the break.

But for as ugly as the first half was, the Hokies came out firing in the second. LeDay, Bibbs and Allen each recorded buckets almost immediately after the break and forced Clemson head coach Brad Brownell into his second timeout with 17:28 to play. Brownell's talk did little to quell the Hokies' momentum as a triple from Allen and an old-fashioned three-point play from Kerry Blackshear extended the Tech advantage to 39-32 with 12:35 left on the clock. But before the Tigers could sneak into the under 12 media timeout to talk things over, Jalen Hudson brought the crowd to their feet with a thunderous two-handed slam that gave the Hokies a nine-point lead.

But despite a raucous road environment, Clemson inched back — albeit greatly aided by several sloppy possessions from the Hokies — and cut the Tech lead to 50-47 with 3:35 to play. The Tigers took a 52-51 lead courtesy of an Avry Holmes layup and a triple from Jordan Roper, but a pair of tough finishes inside from Blackshear and LeDay gave Tech a 55-52 lead at the 1:23 mark. The Tigers and Hokies traded empty possessions following the LeDay layup, but a controversial review on the ensuing Clemson possession resulted in a baseline out of bounds play for the Tigers. It appeared as if the Tech defense had forced a five-second call, but Clemson managed to get their last timeout before being whistled for what would have been a near game-ending violation. Much to the chagrin of the Cassell Coliseum crowd, Clemson found an open Nnoko immediately out of their timeout for an uncontested dunk that pulled the Tigers within one. But still clinging to a narrow one-point lead with 30 seconds to play, the Hokies simply needed to knock down their free throws and get a stop or two to pull off the mini-upset.

Zach LeDay did just that.

LeDay made five of six from the line in the game's final half-minute, just enough to have the Hokies up 60-57 with 12 seconds left on the clock. Sensing that it would be their final opportunity, Clemson raced up court and set up a double-screen, but Allen and LeDay pressured the Tigers into a possession that never saw a potential game-tying shot reach the air.

Williams' fifth conference win of the season represents significant progress on the court, no doubt. But for all the headway being made with his team, Williams is also starting to notice progress in the stands. Saturday's Maroon Monsoon themed game attracted a sold out crowd of 9,567 to Cassell — nearly every single one of them donning Chicago Maroon.

"All of those people, students, alumni, season ticket holders, they have a role in what we're trying to do...And I understand so much of this is, 'Is it the chicken or the egg, which one comes first?' 'Well if you win, we'll show up.' I understand. But the last three home games, how things have blossomed, is what we need. Because it's turning into a really hard place to play," said Williams, confident as ever that the rebuild in Blacksburg is well underway.