CLEMSON — No. 20 Clemson survived a late-night contest at Stanford, 66-64, to begin a West Coast road swing.

The Tigers (19-4, 9-1 ACC) were led by 16 points off the bench from Nick Davidson, along with 11 from reserve guard Ace Buckner. Both hit pairs of free throws to help seal the victory over the Cardinal (14-9, 3-7) in a 10 p.m. ET tipoff.

It was Clemson’s 13th consecutive ACC road win.

Key stats

• Clemson went nearly five minutes without a field goal toward the end of the first half, while Stanford hit a trio of 3s and a jumper at the buzzer to take a 32-30 lead. Cardinal leading scorer Ebuka Okorie hit two of those 3s to score 12 first-half points.

• Freshman forward Chase Thompson had scored nine total points in Clemson’s previous nine games. He scored 10 at Stanford.

• Aidan Cammann, who averaged 4.8 points per game for Stanford, scored a game-high 19 points for the Cardinal. Okorie, who averages 21.8, finished with 18, missing a 3-pointer down the stretch that allowed the Tigers to pull ahead with free throws.

Turning point

Clemson was fading early in the second half, falling behind by six points.

But a three-point play from RJ Godfrey off of an offensive rebound cut the deficit in half. On the very next possession, Buckner stepped back for a 3-pointer to tie it up 41-41.

That was the forerunner to an 12-3 Clemson run that included a Thompson 3 sandwiched between three-point plays from Thompson and Davidson to reclaim a 53-46 lead with 9:18 left.

That wasn’t enough to subdue Stanford, which would tie things back up at 58-58, but those runs kept the Tigers from falling behind. And they’d eventually pull ahead.

Quotable

“I thought both teams guarded extremely hard. And it was hard to get in a good rhythm. It was hard to get really good shots. Both teams, I thought, were aggressive in trying to drive the ball and make plays. Because of some of that, there’s gonna be some fouls and some free throws … We put Nick in because we thought he can make plays like that for us. And we were just in a good situation where he got fouled and was able to make two big ones (to push the lead to 64-62).” — Clemson coach Brad Brownell

Next game

Clemson remains in the Pacific Time Zone for a Feb. 7 matchup at Cal.

The Golden Bears (17-6, 5-5) just beat Georgia Tech 90-85 to claim a second straight ACC win. They will tip with the Tigers at 5 p.m. local time, 8 p.m. E.T.