Clemson’s second-round game against Providence unfolded how I kind of figured it would. Sure, the Tigers could have scored five, but for whatever reason, the Friars don’t give up goals and after watching it live, I’m pretty sure it’s some magnetic force they use.
Anyway, Providence doesn’t score goals either, so it ended up being a fairly comfortable 2-0 win thanks to freshman Wahabu Musah’s brace.
The ninth-seeded Tigers (15-2-4) now turn their attention to – of course – Wake Forest (11-4-7) and their stolen eight seed in the Sweet 16 on Sunday at 6 p.m. from Winston-Salem. Clemson beat Wake Forest 1-0 in regular season, but the Deacons exacted revenge in the ACC Championship game with a draw, but won the trophy in penalty kicks.
The NCAA selection committee then put the Deacons ahead of Clemson in the seed placement.
Against the Friars, Clemson outshot their opponent 17-2 while the Tigers only forced Providence keeper Lukas Burns to make four saves on those 17 shots. Musah scored first in the 43’ with a skying header off a corner from Misei Yoshizawa, then completed the brace in the 78’ on a beautiful buildup down the left side from Antonio Illuminato and Tyler Trimnal.
Round won, not done.
Prick of the Game is referee Amin Hadzic. In four MLS games this year – this guy refs in the MLS??!!!? – he’s averaged 28.75 fouls called with 4.25 yellow cards given out per game. But it was impossible to tell what was a foul and what was clean with him.
Two two-hand shoves into Musah’s back? Perfectly fine. Running through Ransford Gyan multiple times? See nothing there. Trimnal taking every bit of contact all over the place? Play on in my eyes.
Wait, did Trimnal look at that defender wrong? Definitely a foul. Adam Lundegard winning a clean header over their forward? Hey, that looks like cheating to me. Musah getting thrown down in the box on our corner kick? Definitely Musah’s fault.
Just be consistent. You can be wrong, that’s fine. But you just have to be consistent.
Frankly, I’m tired of seeing Wake Forest – a formidable program, for sure. Since head coach Bobby Muuss took over the program in 2015, the Demon Deacons have more wins than any other team in the country. This will be the 17th (!!) matchup between Clemson and Wake in the last 10 years and 10th in the last five seasons.
Noonan is just 5-8-3 against Muuss. Two of Noonan’s losses in these matchups have been walk-offs in overtime or double-overtime. Both coaches are probably the best in the business at the moment.
The 2024 Deacons got off to a slow start, but certainly have found their groove. They are second in the country in shots per game at 18.05, but still just rank 80th in the country with 1.55 goals per game.
In the two games this year, Wake has had just 14 and 13 shots on Clemson with five on goal in each game. That shot accuracy of .370 against Clemson is well below their already pedestrian figure of .416 on the season, which ranks 115th.
Don’t think this is another Providence-style game. Wake has scored 12 goals in five postseason games this year. Sure, five were against UVA in the ACC semifinals and ¼ of the 12 goals have been via PK, but they have the capability.
This game will come down to Clemson finishing the opportunities presented. On the season, Clemson has a .456 shot accuracy (SOG/Shots). We touched on this issue that has been addressed and fixed since after Tigers’ last loss at Notre Dame on Sept. 27 – 12 games ago.
In the last 12 games, Clemson’s shot accuracy has been exactly .500, 5th best in the country. However, against Wake in the ACC Championship, we only had 5 of 17 on target (we’ve outshot Wake 36-27 in the two games this year). In the first game, it was only 7 of 19 shots on goal.
So, for those keeping track at home, our shot accuracy against Wake this year is .333 – which would rank 204 out of 205 teams in the country. Against Clemson, Wake keeper Trace Alphin – second-team All-ACC – has a .833 save percentage, which would be tied for second best in the country.
The opportunities will be there on Sunday, of that I am sure. It’s on Clemson to put a couple or three away.
And Clemson hasn’t been too shabby defensively against Wake Forest either. If you take out the anomaly of the 2022 game (6-1 Wake win – just one of those games like we had against Syracuse this year), it’s been seven games against Clemson that the Deacons have scored more than one goal.
Clemson has shut Wake out in two of the last four games. In a 1-0 loss last year, the lone goal for Wake came on a free kick. The Deacon’s goal in the championship game was, in fact, their first goal from the run-of-play (again, taking out 2022) since Oct. 30, 2020.
Wake will come out in some version of a 4-3-3 (or if you prefer to call it a 4-5-1, I won’t argue with you. Just depends on what you want to call their outside players). They played with two 6s against Maryland in the second round, but inverted that against Clemson in the ACC final.
They love to keep possession and will look to build up from the back. We affected them pretty good in first game – possession split evenly 50/50. Of our 19 shots, 10 came inside the box and we hit the post three times.
Two of Wake’s 13 shots came inside our box in that first matchup (according to the box score).
In the ACC Final, Wake had 56% possession, but still managed just 2 of 14 shots inside our box. However, we settled for longer shots as only three of ours were inside the box and 10 were off the frame.
Roster management-wise (Paddy D for Joseph Andema notwithstanding), we didn’t really use too much variation in the two games. Illuminato didn’t start the final for health reasons, by played 83 minutes still. Musah came off the bench in the first game and played just 28 minutes, but played all but eight minutes in the final – had three shots and one on goal there. Yoshizawa played just 43 minutes in the final and has averaged just over 37 minutes over the last three games – not sure if he has a knock or just Noonan’s style has changed.
Wake Forest – however – was almost a completely different team in the final.
The back line in the first game went: Bo Cummins, Daniel Krueger, Cristian Escibano and Prince Amponsah. In the final, that changed to Cummins, Travis Smith Jr., Amponsah and Amoni Thomas.
Midfield went from Jose Perez, Jeffrey White, Cooper Flax, Ryan Fessler and Colin Thomas to Dylan Borso, Perez, Flax, Basit Umar and Thomas.
Striker went from Pariss Mitchell to Julian Kennedy, who had six shots on Clemson in the final.
They have found the combination to surround Alphin in goal, Amponsah in the back and Flax in the midfield. And two keys to the new cog have been Umar and Borso.
Umar has started every game since the first Clemson game after starting none prior. He was responded with four goals and an assist in those 14 games. The All-ACC Freshman team member Borso has started the last six games and has a goal and two assists in those games.
Flax is the guy to hate, however. He has nine goals and an assist in 22 games, with four of those coming from the spot.
Both of these teams have had very similar seasons – Clemson had some figuring out to do as well. Since the loss at Notre Dame on Sept. 27, Clemson is 10-0-2. Since Wake’s loss to Clemson on Sept. 20, the Deacons are 11-1-4. Before those two respective games, the teams were a combined 7-5-5.
Musah now has two goals and two assists in the last three games – 6 and 4 overall. Gyan has two goals and four assists in the last six games, while Alex Meinhard continues to pace us with 11 goals and is a little unlucky to not have 15 or more after the last two games.
Clemson needs Meinhard and Trimnal (6g, 4a) to just finish. In the last two games against Wake and Providence, the two forwards' shot accuracy is just .273.
Again – Clemson’s opportunities will be there. Just have to put them in the net.
This should be a dandy of the game – as well it should be in the Sweet 16. It’ll come down to who can put away more of their limited opportunities.
Go Tigers! Beat Wake!
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Anyway, Providence doesn’t score goals either, so it ended up being a fairly comfortable 2-0 win thanks to freshman Wahabu Musah’s brace.
The ninth-seeded Tigers (15-2-4) now turn their attention to – of course – Wake Forest (11-4-7) and their stolen eight seed in the Sweet 16 on Sunday at 6 p.m. from Winston-Salem. Clemson beat Wake Forest 1-0 in regular season, but the Deacons exacted revenge in the ACC Championship game with a draw, but won the trophy in penalty kicks.
The NCAA selection committee then put the Deacons ahead of Clemson in the seed placement.
Against the Friars, Clemson outshot their opponent 17-2 while the Tigers only forced Providence keeper Lukas Burns to make four saves on those 17 shots. Musah scored first in the 43’ with a skying header off a corner from Misei Yoshizawa, then completed the brace in the 78’ on a beautiful buildup down the left side from Antonio Illuminato and Tyler Trimnal.
Round won, not done.
Prick of the Game is referee Amin Hadzic. In four MLS games this year – this guy refs in the MLS??!!!? – he’s averaged 28.75 fouls called with 4.25 yellow cards given out per game. But it was impossible to tell what was a foul and what was clean with him.
Two two-hand shoves into Musah’s back? Perfectly fine. Running through Ransford Gyan multiple times? See nothing there. Trimnal taking every bit of contact all over the place? Play on in my eyes.
Wait, did Trimnal look at that defender wrong? Definitely a foul. Adam Lundegard winning a clean header over their forward? Hey, that looks like cheating to me. Musah getting thrown down in the box on our corner kick? Definitely Musah’s fault.
Just be consistent. You can be wrong, that’s fine. But you just have to be consistent.
Frankly, I’m tired of seeing Wake Forest – a formidable program, for sure. Since head coach Bobby Muuss took over the program in 2015, the Demon Deacons have more wins than any other team in the country. This will be the 17th (!!) matchup between Clemson and Wake in the last 10 years and 10th in the last five seasons.
Noonan is just 5-8-3 against Muuss. Two of Noonan’s losses in these matchups have been walk-offs in overtime or double-overtime. Both coaches are probably the best in the business at the moment.
The 2024 Deacons got off to a slow start, but certainly have found their groove. They are second in the country in shots per game at 18.05, but still just rank 80th in the country with 1.55 goals per game.
In the two games this year, Wake has had just 14 and 13 shots on Clemson with five on goal in each game. That shot accuracy of .370 against Clemson is well below their already pedestrian figure of .416 on the season, which ranks 115th.
Don’t think this is another Providence-style game. Wake has scored 12 goals in five postseason games this year. Sure, five were against UVA in the ACC semifinals and ¼ of the 12 goals have been via PK, but they have the capability.
This game will come down to Clemson finishing the opportunities presented. On the season, Clemson has a .456 shot accuracy (SOG/Shots). We touched on this issue that has been addressed and fixed since after Tigers’ last loss at Notre Dame on Sept. 27 – 12 games ago.
In the last 12 games, Clemson’s shot accuracy has been exactly .500, 5th best in the country. However, against Wake in the ACC Championship, we only had 5 of 17 on target (we’ve outshot Wake 36-27 in the two games this year). In the first game, it was only 7 of 19 shots on goal.
So, for those keeping track at home, our shot accuracy against Wake this year is .333 – which would rank 204 out of 205 teams in the country. Against Clemson, Wake keeper Trace Alphin – second-team All-ACC – has a .833 save percentage, which would be tied for second best in the country.
The opportunities will be there on Sunday, of that I am sure. It’s on Clemson to put a couple or three away.
And Clemson hasn’t been too shabby defensively against Wake Forest either. If you take out the anomaly of the 2022 game (6-1 Wake win – just one of those games like we had against Syracuse this year), it’s been seven games against Clemson that the Deacons have scored more than one goal.
Clemson has shut Wake out in two of the last four games. In a 1-0 loss last year, the lone goal for Wake came on a free kick. The Deacon’s goal in the championship game was, in fact, their first goal from the run-of-play (again, taking out 2022) since Oct. 30, 2020.
Wake will come out in some version of a 4-3-3 (or if you prefer to call it a 4-5-1, I won’t argue with you. Just depends on what you want to call their outside players). They played with two 6s against Maryland in the second round, but inverted that against Clemson in the ACC final.
They love to keep possession and will look to build up from the back. We affected them pretty good in first game – possession split evenly 50/50. Of our 19 shots, 10 came inside the box and we hit the post three times.
Two of Wake’s 13 shots came inside our box in that first matchup (according to the box score).
In the ACC Final, Wake had 56% possession, but still managed just 2 of 14 shots inside our box. However, we settled for longer shots as only three of ours were inside the box and 10 were off the frame.
Roster management-wise (Paddy D for Joseph Andema notwithstanding), we didn’t really use too much variation in the two games. Illuminato didn’t start the final for health reasons, by played 83 minutes still. Musah came off the bench in the first game and played just 28 minutes, but played all but eight minutes in the final – had three shots and one on goal there. Yoshizawa played just 43 minutes in the final and has averaged just over 37 minutes over the last three games – not sure if he has a knock or just Noonan’s style has changed.
Wake Forest – however – was almost a completely different team in the final.
The back line in the first game went: Bo Cummins, Daniel Krueger, Cristian Escibano and Prince Amponsah. In the final, that changed to Cummins, Travis Smith Jr., Amponsah and Amoni Thomas.
Midfield went from Jose Perez, Jeffrey White, Cooper Flax, Ryan Fessler and Colin Thomas to Dylan Borso, Perez, Flax, Basit Umar and Thomas.
Striker went from Pariss Mitchell to Julian Kennedy, who had six shots on Clemson in the final.
They have found the combination to surround Alphin in goal, Amponsah in the back and Flax in the midfield. And two keys to the new cog have been Umar and Borso.
Umar has started every game since the first Clemson game after starting none prior. He was responded with four goals and an assist in those 14 games. The All-ACC Freshman team member Borso has started the last six games and has a goal and two assists in those games.
Flax is the guy to hate, however. He has nine goals and an assist in 22 games, with four of those coming from the spot.
Both of these teams have had very similar seasons – Clemson had some figuring out to do as well. Since the loss at Notre Dame on Sept. 27, Clemson is 10-0-2. Since Wake’s loss to Clemson on Sept. 20, the Deacons are 11-1-4. Before those two respective games, the teams were a combined 7-5-5.
Musah now has two goals and two assists in the last three games – 6 and 4 overall. Gyan has two goals and four assists in the last six games, while Alex Meinhard continues to pace us with 11 goals and is a little unlucky to not have 15 or more after the last two games.
Clemson needs Meinhard and Trimnal (6g, 4a) to just finish. In the last two games against Wake and Providence, the two forwards' shot accuracy is just .273.
Again – Clemson’s opportunities will be there. Just have to put them in the net.
This should be a dandy of the game – as well it should be in the Sweet 16. It’ll come down to who can put away more of their limited opportunities.
Go Tigers! Beat Wake!
@JTJohnston @UrHuckleberry @jbf1981 @leetp @Clem'sSon @Clemson Rag @TigerFlow @CoffeeIsForClosers @BarnwellTiger @Paul Strelow @padtigers @1Clemson @toby_corriston @gooddogjudge @BoomBoom82 @False9 @doodog @Clemsonu90 @Tigerrag864 @ajpbnd @CAPT KIRK @Watson to Renfrow @acwill07 @rocky29670 @Rchitekt @MaxCalifornia @Smiling_Tiger @tiger1995 @moradatiger70 @charlestontiger417 @UNSWERVINGLY @JimTurkey @CU99 @The89Tiger @Spencer_York @Kbouch @JohnstoneF419 @BShealy13 @kingkyle1008 @4thAndSixteen @Hilton Head Tiger @CuTigers2020 @PAWrocka @bigREDDDDD @doodog @KNRTIGER @Beer & Bacon @B4him13 @ClemGuy1979 @MoneMan @XRP589 @rcalwho @WyoTiger @TopGun01 @TigerTC @padtigers @XTIGERK @Maverick369 @jeffcoat @letsgocu @petegroove
