Clemson has reeled off wins in six of its last seven games, including a 69-62 victory over Pitt earlier this week at Littlejohn Coliseum.
Last week, long-time ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi moved Clemson (20-8 overall, 10-7 conference) up to a projected No. 5 seed in his latest March Madness projections. The Tigers had consistently been in the 6-8 seed range after dropping six of their first nine games to start the year.
In his latest projections Friday, Lunardi has Clemson facing the Richmond Spiders in a 5 vs. 12 seed battle.
Richmond resides in the Atlantic 10 conference, where they currently sit atop league standings at 13-2 (21-7 overall), one game above Dayton. Richmond last made the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
The projected Clemson vs. Richmond matchup would take place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Lunardi forecasts. In the same Brooklyn region of Lunardi’s projected bracket are No. 4 seed Auburn and No. 13 seed Louisiana Tech. Bruce Pearl’s Auburn team fell to a 4 seed in Lunardi’s projections this week after a 92-84 road loss to Tennessee.
Lunardi sees five ACC schools reaching the Dance. In addition to ACC leader North Carolina, Duke, Clemson and Virginia, Wake Forest helped its résumé recently with an 83-79 upset of Duke last Saturday. Lunardi projects the Demon Deacons as a No. 10 seed in his latest projections.
Lunardi awards the most NCAA tournament bids by conference to the Big 12 with nine. The SEC is second with seven. His projected No. 1 seeds are Purdue, UConn, Houston, and Arizona.
Clemson will take on Notre Dame Saturday at Joyce Center. Tipoff against the Fighting Irish is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. EST. The game will be televised by the CW Network.