CLEMSON – It took a while, but Clemson basketball snapped out of a first-half slump to forge a 12-point halftime lead, then held off Louisville late en route to a 70-64 victory against the Cardinals in an ACC game Tuesday night.

Clemson (14-6, 4-5 ACC), which entered the game having lost five of seven, including a one-point loss at Duke on Saturday, closed the first half on a 15-4 run for a 34-22 lead.

Chase Hunter and PJ Hall scored 11 and 10 points, respectively, in the opening half to spark Clemson’s surge, which included a pair of dunks by Hall.

After Louisville scored the first point of the second half, the Tigers went on a 9-0 spurt to create an 18-point advantage. The Cardinals eventually battled back to pull within four points, 66-62, with 29 seconds remaining, but that was as close as they'd get.

"That was harder than I would have liked," Clemson coach Brad Brownell said. "We didn't shoot the ball well again. We missed a lot of good shots. But the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half we played very well."

Louisville (6-15, 1-9) outrebounded Clemson by 19, which had Cardinals coach Kenny Payne feeling good about his team's effort.

"I saw five guys on the court fighting with everything they had to win the game," Payne said. "We outrebounded them and they're one of the most physical teams in this conference. We'd been bullied so much, we finally got tired of it."

Clemson improved to 8-2 this season at Littlejohn Coliseum.

A defeat would have been a substantial setback for the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament hopes as Louisville currently sits in last place in the ACC and ranks 231st in the NET rankings.

Chase Hunter joins Clemson's 1,000-point club

Hunter continued his recent sterling play of late with a near-perfect performance. He made his first four shots from the floor as well as the free throw line and finished 5-of-8 shooting from the floor, 2-of-4 from 3-point range and 4-of-5 from the free throw line.

The senior from Atlanta finished with 16 points – his fourth consecutive game in double figures. He’s averaging 14.8 points during that span and shooting 52% from the floor.

Included in his 16 points was the 1,000th point of his career in the first half. He became the 46th player in Clemson history to surpass 1,000 points.

“Scoring a thousand points is not something a lot of people do,” Hunter said. “It feels good. It feels good to be here and be on this great team with great teammates.”

Clemson's bench scoring goes missing vs. Louisville

Clemson’s bench, which had contributed 44 points over the previous two games, took a back seat against Louisville. Despite logging a combined 41 minutes, Clemson’s reserves totaled only five points.

Jack Clark and RJ Godfrey, who had seven points Saturday at Duke, scored two points apiece while Josh Beadle, who scored six points against the Blue Devils, had one. Dillon Hunter didn’t score.

"A couple of guys off our bench maybe didn't have as much juice as I would have liked," Brownell said.

Scott Keepfer covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at skeepfer@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ScottKeepfer

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: PJ Hall scores 25 points as Clemson posts ACC win vs. Louisville