FSU basketball: RayQuan Evans leads Noles past Clemson

FSU basketball (14-11, 7-8 ACC) avenged a loss to Clemson behind a career-high from senior guard RayQuan Evans Tuesday night.

Evans made a jumper and the foul shot to give the Noles an 81-80 lead with 14 seconds remaining.

Clemson wasted some time inbounding the ball before calling a timeout with four seconds remaining.

After multiple timeouts, Clemson got a wide-open three-pointer from the corner that bricked as soon as the buzzer sounded to end the game.

The win snaps a six-game losing streak for the Noles. RayQuan Evans led the way with a career-high 28 points.

He was 7 of 13 overall and 2 of 3 from three-point land while making 12 of 13 free throws. I wrote about all of the injuries providing opportunities for players like Cam’Ron Fletcher and Matthew Cleveland to step up Monday.

Fletcher had 17 points, eight rebounds, and Cleveland had 13 points. The Noles shot 43.6 percent overall and 8 of 19 from three. The story of the game was FSU finishing 25 of 30 from the free-throw line (83.3 percent) and only turning the ball over eight times.

Clemson dominated on the boards, holding a 14-7 edge on the offensive end, and had an 11-1 edge at halftime.

The Tigers made 30 of 36 free throws but only shot 38.6 percent overall and were 6 of 27 from three-point land. The big game from Evans, complimented by Fletcher and Cleveland, is what this FSU basketball team needed to get back on track.

It was promising to see the Noles show some life offensively even though John Butler only had four points as he played with early foul trouble. FSU had a nine-point lead with 8:34 remaining, but Clemson surged to take the lead late before the Evans scored the last seven points for FSU. The Noles will travel to Cameron Indoor Stadium to take on Duke at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday.

The Blue Devils nearly blew a 20-point second-half lead against Wake Forest Tuesday night and will look to avenge a previous loss against the Noles.