Miami @ Clemson preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 13, 2019 ) Clemson 64, Miami-Florida 65

While the school's football team continues its dominance of that sport and eyes a second consecutive national title, the Clemson basketball squad has dug itself a big hole. The struggling Tigers will try to hit the reset button when they return to ACC play Tuesday against Miami.

Clemson has lost five of its last six games and its beleaguered offense looked lost the last time out in a 54-45 loss to Yale on Sunday. "We're having trouble scoring," Tigers head coach Brad Brownell told reporters after his team shot 31.9 percent two games after hitting on 28 percent of its shots in a loss to South Carolina. "It's something we've got to figure out." The Hurricanes are trending in the other direction, averaging 84.5 points during a four-game winning streak. Junior guard Kameron McGusty scored a career-high 28 points in a 91-60 win over Coppin State on Dec. 21.

TV: 4 p.m. ET, ACC Network

ABOUT MIAMI (8-3, 0-1 ACC): McGusty is averaging 20.3 points and seven rebounds over his last three games and leads the Hurricanes in scoring at 15.2 per contest. He was 9-for-11 from the floor - including 5-of-7 from 3-point range - in the most recent contest, but his coach knows there will be more difficult defenses to face during the ACC slate. "We won four in a row, but the challenge in the ACC is teams we're going to play now are really a whole lot more talented," coach Jim Larranaga told reporters after the Coppin State win. "They got really good players and they're more familiar with us; we're more familiar with them. The challenges are greater. We open the season on the road against Clemson where it's very tough to play and then we come back home to play Duke, who's top five in the country and we're already 0-1, having lost to the No. 1 team in the country Louisville back then."

ABOUT CLEMSON (6-6, 0-2): Junior forward Aamir Simms leads the Tigers in scoring (12.6) and rebounding (7.7) after notching 10 and seven, respectively, against the Bulldogs. He was 4-of-14 from the floor in that game as the Clemson starting five combined for a woeful 7-of-33 effort to drop the team's overall field-goal percentage to 41.8. Senior guard Tevin Mack is the only other Tiger averaging in double digits at 11.2 points per game, but he was held scoreless versus Yale and has just 10 total points on 4-of-20 shooting over his last three games.

TIP-INS

1. Hurricanes senior G Dejan Vasiljevic is averaging 15.1 points and is 17-of-17 from the foul line.

2. Tigers sophomore F Hunter Tyson scored a team-high 11 points against Yale after producing a total of five on 2-of-10 shooting over his previous three games.

3. Miami won last season's only meeting 65-64 on a basket in the final second.

PREDICTION: Miami 67, Clemson 63