Notre Dame Men’s Basketball: Clemson prediction

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be taking on the Clemson Tigers at Littlejohn Coliseum today at 7 pm ET on the ACC Network. The Tigers come in as 2.5 point favorites (I had to check three or four times to make sure that was correct).

Notre Dame was able to fend off a Louisville comeback on Wednesday to win 63-57 and the Tigers fell to Duke on Thursday 82-64. Clemson will be without forward Hunter Tyson due to a broken clavicle. They will also be without guard David Collins due to an incredibly dangerous flagrant foul on Duke’s Wendell Moore Thursday night. He was ejected from the game with a flagrant two and on Friday was given a one-game suspension from the ACC. He is expected to return for the matchup on Tuesday against Florida State.

At this time Notre Dame will be without Nate Laszewski with the knee injury that kept him out of the Louisville game Wednesday night. This is subject to change as we have not been given any confirmation on if he will play or not. There was a chance he was going to be ready for Louisville so there’s a good chance he’s ready today.

In this final stretch of games before the ACC tournament, these are the ones the Irish need to come in and take care of business. Clemson is shorthanded and one of the bottom four teams in the ACC. If Notre Dame can stay out of their own way - they should be able to come in and do what they need to do. The droughts this team loves to go on still make me nervous. As we saw on Wednesday it can give any team confidence to make a game interesting. It will be much easier if Laszewski can return but if not - I still expect the Irish to come out of Clemson with a W.

PREDICTION

Notre Dame 78, Clemson 65