Clemson falters at B.C.

Freshman Joe Rahon scored a season-high 26 points and Boston College snapped a five-game losing streak with a 75-68 win over Clemson despite nearly blowing a 17-point lead in the closing 5 1/2 minutes Saturday.

BOX SCORE: Boston College 75 Clemson 68

The Eagles (10-11, 2-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) surpassed their victory total of last season, when they went 9-22.

Lonnie Jackson added 14 points and Ryan Anderson 12 for Boston College.

Devin Booker scored 20 points and became the 36th player in Clemson history to reach the 1,000-point plateau, joining older brother Trevor (2009) as the second brother combo in school history. Randy and Richie Mahaffey did it in the 1960s.

The Tigers (12-9, 4-5) were shooting near 30 percent until they started to hit from long range in the closing 7 minutes, but it came too late.

Milton Jennings had 13 points and Jordan Roper 11 for the Tigers, who had won their last two games.

Jackson's 3-pointer from the left wing gave BC a 65-48 lead, but the Tigers scored the next 13 points, slicing the deficit to four on Jennings' jumper with 2:32 left.

Adonis Filer's 3 cut it to 67-66 with 75 seconds left, but Anderson followed with a layup on the Eagles' ensuing possession.

Jennings' long 3-point attempt then went off the front rim before Jackson sealed it by hitting four free throws in the final 30 seconds.

The Tigers fell to 4-7 in games away from Littlejohn Coliseum.

BC jumped to a 15-6 edge in the opening 10 minutes, taking advantage of Clemson's horrible shooting. The Tigers missed 18 of their initial 22 shots, many from close range and a large number of those on put-back attempts.

The noon start had both teams looking like they were trying to get used to playing basketball in the opening 3 minutes, with a number of passes being bobbled or lost out of bounds.

Clemson sliced BC's lead to 18-14 on Booker's free throw before the Eagles closed the half with a 12-5 spree to pull to a 30-19 advantage at intermission.

The Tigers shot just 23.1 percent in the first half (6 of 26).

In the second half, BC pushed its lead to 44-27 on Rahon's free throw with 15:39 to play. The Tigers never seemed to get into a rhythm offensively, struggling to get decent looks against the smaller Eagles.

After BC opened its 17-point lead, Clemson tried some full-court pressure, but the Eagles responded with a wide-open 3 by Rahon from the right corner and an easy backdoor cut for a layup by Jackson.

Clemson's frustration on offense showed with just under 10 minutes to play when Booker missed an easy put-back and threw an elbow at Patrick Heckmann when he was fouled, drawing a technical for his excessive aggressiveness.

Anderson's foul-line jumper gave BC a 57-37 edge with 9 1/2 minutes to play.

With just under 10 minutes left in the game, the Tigers were still shooting 29 percent. But consecutive 3s by Roper cut it to 60-48 with just over 6 minutes left.