Much to the chagrin of head coach Brad Brownell, Clemson’s men’s basketball will have to wait a little longer than usual to play its next game.
It’s routine for college basketball teams to play a couple of games a week – usually one midweek and another on the weekend – once conference play starts. Outside of a coronavirus-related postponement of its home game against Duke on Dec. 29, it’s been the norm for Clemson over the last month.
But that will be disrupted this weekend with an open date on the schedule. Clemson pushed the ninth-ranked Blue Devils to the brink in a narrow loss Tuesday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but the Tigers won’t play again until Wednesday when they welcome Florida State to Littlejohn Coliseum.
It’s unfortunate timing for Clemson (11-9, 3-6 ACC), which has responded to what was its longest losing streak of the season with two of its better performances. Before putting together a well-rounded effort against Duke – one in which Clemson sank 11 3-pointers, finished plus-8 on the glass and forced the Blue Devils into 12 turnovers – the Tigers notched their largest margin of victory in an ACC game so far with their weekend pummeling of a Pittsburgh team that turned around and beat Syracuse its last time out.
“This time of year, we just don’t want to lose our momentum,” Brownell said. “It’s always hard.”
Brownell cited his team’s longest layoff of the season as a prime example. Because of the Duke postponement, Clemson went 12 days between games against Virginia. The Tigers’ 17-point win in Charlottesville on Dec. 22 ran their longest winning streak of the season to four games. When they faced the Cavaliers again in Littlejohn on Jan. 4, Virginia handed Clemson a 10-point loss to start a stretch in which the Tigers lost four out of five games, including three straight before the win over Pitt last week.
“We came back from Christmas, we’d just won at Virginia, we were on a roll, and we felt really good,” Brownell said. “We were excited about the Dec. 29 game, and then we kind of got put on hold for a while. Now the last two games, Pittsburgh we won, and we played well (Tuesday). We’d rather be playing Saturday, but we’ve got some time.”
But not everything about the long layoff is a negative, Brownell said.
Clemson continues to deal with injuries in its frontcourt to forward Hunter Tyson (ankle sprain) and sophomore big PJ Hall (foot), though it’s been hard to tell given the way they have continued to perform. Tyson, with both ankles heavily taped, scored 13 points on 6 of 12 shooting and added eight rebounds against Duke while Hall paced Clemson with a 14-point, 10-board double-double.
Hall, who also had three assists Tuesday, has scored in double figures in all but one game this season and still leads the Tigers in scoring at 14.8 points per game. But Brownell said the extra down time gives both a chance to heal injuries they’ve been dealing with for the better part of the season.
“PJ and Hunter Tyson for us need rest,” Brownell said. “Both guys are playing through some physical ailments.”
As for Clemson’s next opponent, Florida State (13-6, 6-3) will host Virginia Tech on Saturday before making the trip to Clemson for Wednesday’s game, which is set for a 7 p.m. tip.
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