Brad Brownell opened his postgame remarks with the obvious after watching his Clemson men’s basketball team largely trade baskets with its opponent in its latest victory.

“We had to play terrific offense,” Brownell said.

PJ Hall’s 22 points were key in helping the Tigers rally from a couple of different seven-point deficits in the second half, but Clemson once again held the hot hand from deep in what eventually became an 80-75 win over Towson on Wednesday. Clemson shot a blistering 60.9% from long range, sinking a season-high 14 3-pointers in the comeback victory that ran the Tigers’ record to 8-2 and their longest win streak of the season to four games.

Chase Hunter, who came in shooting better than 51% from deep, made four more 3s. Hunter Tyson made 4 of 5 shots from deep. Alex Hemenway was 3 of 4, and redshirt freshman Josh Beadle connected on both of his long-range attempts. Even Hall, who shot 10 of 17 from the field in a season-high 28 minutes, stepped outside of the paint to knock down a triple.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that can really shoot the ball, so I think it’s been great that we are seeing it go in,” Tyson said.

It’s been a theme for Clemson early on. Roughly one-third of the way through the season, the Tigers are shooting the 3-ball at a 42% clip. That percentage leads the ACC and ranks sixth nationally.

Clemson has never shot better than 36.6% from 3-point range during the Brownell era, which began in 2012. The Tigers shot that during the 2017-18 season when they made their most recent Sweet Sixteen run.

Clemson, which will face Loyola Chicago on Saturday in Atlanta, has shot better than 40% from beyond the 3-point line in half of their games this season. Wednesday’s performance improved the Tigers to 5-0 when accomplishing that feat.

“It’s not something you can’t count on every night, but we’re good enough to have nights like that,” Brownell said. “We certainly talk about shooting the 3, and it helps things for PJ (on the inside) and puts pressure on teams defensively. It’s obviously stuff we work on a good bit.”

The Tigers’ clip from 3 so far is six percentage points higher than last season, and they’re doing it without their top perimeter shooter from a season ago, Al-Amir Dawes, who’s now at Seton Hall. But beyond knocking down open looks more consistently, Brownell and his players credited the unselfishness of this year’s team for helping create those in the first place.

Clemson returned Hunter and Hemenway as upperclassmen from last season’s backcourt as well as Tyson, a stretch forward who’s in his fifth year with the program. The Tigers added another fifth-year player to the mix in Boston College guard transfer Brevin Galloway, and Brownell said the group has shown its maturity when it comes to ball movement and shot selection.

“One of the first things you noticed this summer was how they pass and share it naturally, and that hasn’t always been the case,” Brownell said. “Some guys really like to shoot, so they’ll shoot some that are a little guarded. And our guys make the extra pass.”

Wednesday was the latest example. Clemson had 21 assists on 28 made field goals, one off of its season-high in that category. The Tigers’ 16.4 assists per game are also tops in the ACC.

Hunter dished out seven of them Wednesday to push his team-leading average to 5.1 per game. Tyson and Beadle combined for seven.

“It’s huge,” Tyson said. “Obviously Chase Hunter continues to be great at finding the open man, but we’re an unselfish team, and I think that’s a key to our offensive success.”

The hot hand from deep has also helped mask some of the Tigers’ deficiencies in the early part of the season, particularly rebounding. Clemson is grabbing just 33.5 boards a game, fifth-fewest in the ACC. Nobody other than Tyson (14) had more than five rebounds Wednesday as Clemson finished minus-3 in the rebounding margin.

Brownell said his team has to improve on the glass as the season goes on in order to help the Tigers win games when the shooting touch isn’t there. Brownell is counting on Hall to provide the biggest boost there once the 6-foot-10, 240-pounder works himself into better playing shape coming off his offseason knee surgery.

“He’s still not fully healthy, so it’s not fair to judge him on all of that,” Brownell said. “But when he’s at his best in January and February, we’re going to need him to up his defense.”

Said Tyson, “We don’t want to heavily rely on only our 3-point shooting. We’ve really got to get it done on the defensive end.”

But the Tigers will take it as long as it lasts.

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