DeVoe leads No. 16 Clemson to 72-48 win over Pitt

CLEMSON, S.C. -- Gabe DeVoe wants the ball if he is open. Especially these days.

DeVoe matched his career high with 25 points, helping No. 16 Clemson beat Pittsburgh 72-48 on Thursday night.

DeVoe was 7 for 11 from 3-point range. The senior is shooting 65 percent (22 of 34) from behind the arc during the Tigers' four-game win streak.

"I feel no pressure. I'm shooting without a conscious," he said.

DeVoe has led Clemson in scoring in four of five games since the Tigers lost forward Donte Grantham to a knee injury.

Shelton Mitchell made three 3s on his way to 12 points, and Elijah Thomas had 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Tigers (20-4, 9-3 Atlantic Coast Conference).

Clemson led 32-22 at halftime and then put Pitt away with an impressive stretch on offense. The Tigers scored on nine of their first 10 second-half possessions.

Mitchell hit back-to-back 3s to make it 56-28 with 14:21 left. Clemson shot 12 for 27 from beyond the arc.

"When they start making shots, they are hard to beat," Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said.

Terrell Brown led Pitt with 19 points on 9-of-15 shooting. No other Panther made more than two shots.

Pitt (8-17, 0-12) shot 39.1 percent (18 for 46) from the field. It also committed 15 turnovers, leading to 22 points for Clemson.

It was Clemson's second double-digit victory in nine ACC wins this season. Pitt has lost all but two of its ACC games by at least 10 points and is losing its league games by an average of more than 18 points.

PANTHERS' WOES

Stallings didn't like the way his team practiced this week and he really didn't like the way they played, either.

"I didn't think our performance was really good on either end, to be honest with you," Stallings said.

When things get tough, Stallings said the Panthers panic and try to make plays on their own like they did in high school.

"At some point, they're going to realize that life is over with because this is the ACC and you can't go solo in this league and beat anybody," he said.

FLU SEASON

Marcquise Reed, Clemson's leading scorer at nearly 16 points a game, had just four points in 23 minutes. He is recovering from the flu.

BIG PICTURE

Pitt: The Panthers are two-thirds of the way through the ACC schedule without a win. Since joining the Big East in 1983, Pitt has never won fewer than four conference games, which happened in its inaugural ACC season last year. There is hope. The Panthers have three of the other four worst ACC teams left on their schedule. The ACC's most recent winless team was Boston College two years ago. Before that, there hadn't been a winless team since Maryland in the old eight-team league 1987.

Clemson: The win keeps Clemson in second place in the ACC behind just Virginia. The Tigers might have been the ACC appetizer Thursday night to Duke-North Carolina, but those teams are at least percentage points behind the Tigers in the standings. The only time Clemson has finished above the Blue Devils and Tar Heels was in 1990, which remains its only regular-season ACC title. The Tigers also reached 20 wins faster than all but two other Clemson teams.

UP NEXT

Pitt hosts Louisville on Sunday.

Clemson heads to Florida State on Wednesday.

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