D.J. Vasiljevic drained a step-back three-pointer with 59 seconds to play in overtime which turned out to be the game winner in Miami’s 73-68 win over Clemson Tuesday afternoon at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson.

Clemson had taken a 68-66 lead with 1:56 to play on a nice backdoor pass from Aamir Simms to John Newman. But Chris Lykes made two free throws and then Vasiljevic knocked down the game winner. for the Canes.

“Heartbreaker today,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “That was tough in a lot of ways.”

The Tigers had two opportunities to tie the game but Clyde Trapp missed a three from the top of the key with 41 seconds to play. After a defensive stop, Curran Scott missed his attempt from behind the arc with 2.5 seconds to go.

“In a lot of stretches of the game, we played well enough to win, but there were still some parts where we are not very smart. We did not execute down the stretch and it seemed to rear its head a little bit on a couple of plays,” Brownell said. “It is hard for us, offensively, at times when you just don’t have an easy advantage situation and we have to create and execute off of our offense really well and when we don’t, we have a hard time scoring.

“When we make mistakes in our execution, it just puts too much pressure on our team.”

Aamir Simms led the Tigers (6-7, 0-3 ACC) with 21 points and 8 rebounds, while Miami was led by Lykes’ game-high 27 points and Vasiljevic 15 points. Trapp finished the game with 13 points, while Scott added 10 for Clemson.

Simms scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half and overtime, where he was 6-9 from the field and grabbed all eight of his rebounds. It was arguably his best half of the season.

“Efficient wise, yeah, but at the end of the day, if we don’t have a W in that column than the half does not really matter to me,” Simms said.

Clemson had an opportunity to take lead in the final seconds of regulation, but Trapp fell down and turned the ball over with 25.1 seconds to play to give Miami a chance to win it in regulation.

The Hurricanes (9-3, 1-1 ACC) got two shots at it in the final seconds. Lykes shot was short and then Sam Waardenburg missed the follow as time expired.

Hunter Tyson gave the Tigers the lead back with a layup and then completed the three-point play with 1:59 to play for a 62-60 advantage.

Lykes followed a few moments later and tied the game, again, with a layup with 49 seconds to play.

With Simms playing his best half of the season, the Tigers took a 55-45 lead with 8:48 to play. But the Canes rallied behind Lykes, who helped his team go on a 9-0 to cut the lead to 55-54 with 6:21 to play.

Lykes later hit a second three to tie the game at 57-57 with 4:46 to go. Waardenburg had his three roll in and up and off the back of the board for a three-pointer to give the Hurricanes the lead 60-57 with 3:25 to play, completing the 15-2 run.

“We had a 10-point lead, and we lose in about a minute and a half,” Brownell said. “Then the rest of the game is back-and-forth fighting and we had a couple of blunders there and they were able to capitalize.

“Vasiljevic’s three was high level. It was high level, a step-back left three from 23 feet or whatever it was to give them the three-point lead and that really ended up being too much for us to overcome.”

Before all of that went went down, things were going well for Clemson. Simms hit a three and then got a steal and laid it up to give the Tigers a 40-32 lead with 15:22 to play. The Simms’ three followed four straight points scored by Lykes, which had cut the Clemson lead to 35-32.

Clemson led by as many as nine points in the opening half. The Tigers took a 17-8 lead on a Simms’ layup with 10:18 to go. But they managed just nine points over the final 10 minutes as the Hurricanes tied the game at 26-26 at the break.

At one point in the first half, the Tigers went 5:13 without any points.

Clemson shot 11-26 in the opening 20 minutes and was 4-11 from 3-point range. Clemson had just 6 first half turnovers. Miami had 8 and was 11-28 from the field.

The Tigers will be back on the floor Saturday when they host NC State at noon at Littlejohn Coliseum.