Clemson’s men’s basketball team was coming off its largest margin of defeat following its midweek loss at Notre Dame. But given the caliber of opponent the Tigers faced Saturday — and the way it happened — they’re now fresh off their worst loss of the season.

Clemson watched most of its sizable early lead evaporate before coughing up all of it in a 70-68 loss to the Eagles at Littlejohn Coliseum. Al-Amir Dawes led the Tigers (10-7, 2-4 ACC) with 17 points while David Collins and PJ Hall chipped in 15 and 12 points, respectively, for Clemson, which looked like it might cruise with a 23-point lead toward the latter stages of the first half against a Boston College team that came in having lost five straight games.

Ultimately, though, it wasn’t enough to keep the Tigers away from their first Quadrant 4 loss of the season. By the time it was over, Clemson had blown one of the largest leads in the history of its program.

“I’ve got to take responsibility,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. “I couldn’t get my team to get back the spirt and the fight that we started with. That’s on me. That’s my job.”

The Eagles, who shot better than 48% from the field, outscored Clemson 37-15 from the 7:10 mark of the first until the early part of the second to get within a possession. Boston College (7-8, 2-3) eventually caught up on T.J. Bickerstaff’s layup to tie it at 66 with 1 minutes, 8 seconds left.

Clemson forced one of the Eagles’ 11 turnovers on their ensuing possession and regained the lead on Collins’ ensuing jumper from the top of the key, but Brevin Galloway answered with a 3-pointer to give Boston College its first lead at 69-68 with 26 ticks left.

Galloway, who finished 5 of 10 from 3-point range, was left open on the wing after what Brownell described as miscommunication by his defense.

“I was saying, ‘No 3s,’ and Hunter Tyson thought I was saying 3, which is our zone call,” Brownell said. “So we had half the team in zone and a couple of guys in man, and we leave their best shooter wide open when we’re up two. That put the pressure on us, and then we weren’t able to score.

“But beyond that play, Boston College was just tougher than we were, and I didn’t do a good enough job of getting our guys back.”

Collins missed a runner on Clemson’s next possession, forcing the Tigers to foul. After Makai Ashton-Lanford split a pair of free throws, Collins was fouled with just 2 ticks left trying to put back Alex Hemenway’s missed 3-pointer.

But Collins, who finished 0-for-5 from the charity stripe, missed the first free throw and clanked the second one on purpose to try to get an offensive rebound for Clemson, but the Tigers were called for a lane violation. That gave possession back to the Eagles in a two-point game and ultimately sealed Clemson’s fate while matching the largest blown lead in program history.

It hadn’t happened since December 2009 when the Tigers also coughed up a 23-point advantage in a 76-74 loss to Illinois that season.

Ashton-Langford led all scorers with 19 points while Galloway added 18 for Boston College, which began the day at 198th in the NET rankings.

“We’ve had some blown leads. We’ve kept some leads,” Brownell said. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’re just not as good as we need to be to finish the games. Defensively, we’re not getting some stops when we really, really need them.”

After having one of its worst shooting performances of the season against the Fighting Irish, Clemson came out firing and connecting far more often than it did against Notre Dame. The Tiger led 39-32 at the break after shooting 44% from the floor in the first 20 minutes.

Dawes got the Tigers going early with a bounceback performance of his own. After finishing with just six points on 2 of 11 shooting against the Fighting Irish, the junior guard knocked down seven shots, including three 3s, to score all of his 17 points in the first half.

Dawes went nearly coast to coast for a layup to give Clemson a 32-11 lead before Hall followed with two free throws to give the Tigers their largest lead of the game with 7:11 left in the half.

Clemson cooled off a bit after that, making just three of its final 11 shots of the half. Boston College, behind 11 first-half points from Galloway, heated up and outscored the Tigers 21-5 the remainder of the half. The Eagles’ 8-0 run to end it got them within single digits going to the locker room.

“I think we got a little complacent with the lead,” senior forward Naz Bohannon said. “Early on, everything we through up was going in the basket. And when that happens, your edge tends to fall off.

“We talked about it in a couple of timeouts. Coach said, ‘Don’t play the score. Continue to keep playing.’ Obviously they made a run before the half and gained some confidence.”

Boston College continued that momentum after halftime, going blow for blow with the Tigers down the stretch before making one more play for a win that left Clemson and many of the 7,443 fans looking on stunned at what they’d just witnessed.

“I don’t think we feel too good,” Brownell said.