Watch Insane Chase Hunter Up-And-Under in Sweet 16 Upset

The 24-11 Clemson Tigers, the West region’s No. 6 seed, stunned No. 2-seeded Arizona Wildcats (27-9) in a Thursday night Sweet Sixteen matchup, 77-72, in Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, normally home to the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings (the latter being the hockey team, not the NBA club). Although Arizona actually (marginally) outscored Clemson in the second half, 41-38, the Wildcats couldn’t ultimately close the gap, thanks to a strong first half from the Tigers, 39-31.

Now, Clemson moves on to face off against Alabama on Saturday in the Elite Eight. The team has only gotten this far in March Madness once before, in the history of the school.

Senior guard Chase Hunter was the star of the show. He scored a team-most 18 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting from the foul line, plus seven rebounds, five assists, one steal, and one block.

But offense wasn’t all he brought to the table. After the contest, Hunter reflected on how the team’s defensive effort was designed to limit the opposition’s three-point shooting, writes Michelle Gardner of The Arizona Republic.

Arizona converted just 5-of-28 of its three point shots Thursday (17.9%), compared to the Tigers’ 8-of-25 (32%) night. All three NCAA Tournament foes have shot worse than 40% from the floor overall, while two of the three have been limited below 20% from long range.

“We weren’t surprised,” Hunter said of the Wildcats’ shooting woes. “We knew their guys like to get up shots. A few players are volume scorers. We wanted to make it hard for them. When they don’t make it easy, when you don’t see it going in, your confidence gets down. That’s what we wanted to do to them.”

Early into the second half, Arizona went on an 8-0 tear to shrink the Tigers’ edge, and then eventually tied the game 43-43. Buckets were exchanged until a 9-2 Tigers run helped give Clemson some breathing room.

A late triple from sophomore guard Jaden Bradley helped put the Wildcats within just a possession, 72-70. But Hunter essentially sealed the late victory by drawing a foul on the other end in this spectacular and-one play, on an impressive up-and-under that drew cheers from the Crypto.com crowd. Those three points put Clemson up by five total, 75-70, with just 25 seconds remaining in the contest.

“We talked about [Arizona likely making a run] at halftime.” Clemson head coach Brad Bromwell conceded. “We have confidence in our team. We’ve won some big-time road games this year. We’ve played a very challenging schedule — again, my point that the ACC is much better than everybody maybe assumes is bearing fruit again. And I just think the league prepares us for these kinds of games. And I’ve got an older team. These guys have seen a lot, done a lot and experienced success. So just really happy that they were able to withstand it, and we executed some things really well down the stretch.”

The rest of the Sweet Sixteen festivities kick off later tonight. Things tip off at 4:09 p.m. PT/7:09 p.m ET, in a battle between No. 2-seeded Marquette and No. 11-seeded North Carolina State, and can be viewed on CBS. Gonzaga-Purdue, Duke-Houston, and finally Creighton-Tennessee all tip off later.