Brad Brownell didn’t want to talk about it much after Clemson’s most recent win.
Not because the Tigers’ men’s basketball coach wasn’t aware of what was looming. But because it wasn’t the next order of business for his team.
“We’ve got to be ready for Georgia Tech next,” Brownell said following Clemson’s win over Florida State on Wednesday. “They’re a feisty group.”
The victory over the Seminoles was not only a Quadrant 2 victory for Clemson – its fourth such win this season – but it was also the Tigers’ second victory in a three-game stretch that had seen their play improve, particularly on the defensive end. It started with a 27-point thrashing of Pittsburgh three Saturdays ago before Clemson traveled to Cameron Indoor Stadium and gave No. 9 Duke all it wanted in a two-point loss.
It seemingly gave Clemson (12-10, 4-7 ACC) some much-needed momentum at a critical time. Wednesday’s win began a stretch of four of five games at home for the Tigers, who have a rematch with Duke (Thursday) as well as matchups with North Carolina (Tuesday) and Notre Dame (Saturday) awaiting them at Littlejohn Coliseum next week. If Clemson had a chance to make a late push to get back in the bubble conversation for the NCAA Tournament, this was it.
That is, as long as the Tigers took care of business on the road Saturday against a Georgia Tech team that began the day looking up at everybody else in the ACC standings. But that didn’t happen.
In their first game without veteran forward Hunter Tyson, who’s out indefinitely after breaking his clavicle against FSU, the Tigers dropped a five-point decision in what was just Tech’s third conference win of the season. Fellow forward Naz Bohannon (nine points on 4 of 6 shooting, eight rebounds) helped pick up the slack in Tyson’s absence in his first start of the season. PJ Hall and Al-Amir Dawes chipped in 18 points apiece, but a sluggish start against the Yellow Jackets’ zone defense – Clemson shot just 36% in the first 20 minutes en route to a 33-20 deficit at the half – ultimately proved too much to overcome.
Brownell said Hall got even less practice time than usual leading into Saturday’s game. Clemson’s leading scorer, who scored all but two of his points after halftime, has been dealing with foot inflammation throughout the season.
“Lot of poor decisions and passing,” Brownell said. “I thought PJ Hall looked a little slow. He didn’t practice leading into the game, which isn’t good. We usually try to get him 30 minutes before a game, but the trainer said we couldn’t do that, so I didn’t think he was as good early.
“We played much better in the second half in terms of answering the zone, but their kids made enough plays to win. They were just better than us.”
Clemson made a run to get within a possession or two late, but the Tigers’ last poor decisions came from Dawes, who deflected a pass leading to a steal in a four-point game with 35 seconds left before giving it right back to the Yellow Jackets a few seconds later. Tech made three free throws in the final 25 seconds to salt away the win.
“An open-court, bad play that should’ve been a basket,” Brownell said. “We had an advantage. Again, we just didn’t make enough good basketball decisions today, and it cost us.”
Not only back-to-back wins, but likely any real chance to put together a resume strong enough to get to the NCAA Tournament.
Getting back in the at-large conversation was going to be difficult anyway in a watered-down ACC, particularly without Tyson. With just five weeks left until Selection Sunday, Clemson still doesn’t have a single Quad 1 win while the loss to Tech is another ugly blemish. Only the Tigers’ Quad 4 loss to Boston College has been worse from a NET perspective this season.
Only one of next week’s games (Duke) is a Quad 1 opportunity, but all three of them are against teams in the first two quadrants. Had Clemson won Saturday and avoided another bad loss in the process, it was shaping up to be a week where the Tigers could have at least made things interesting with a couple more wins on their home floor if not more.
Now, with more Quad 3 and Quad 4 losses (four combined) than Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins (three), Clemson is likely relegated to playing for pride and upsets rather than resume builders.
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