Clemson’s men’s basketball team had its five-game winning streak stopped in heartbreaking fashion this week at the ACC Tournament this week. The Tigers’ recent string of postseason appearances is in jeopardy, too.
The Tigers on Wednesday looked primed to advance to the quarterfinals at the Barclays Center before Virginia Tech’s Darius Maddox abruptly ended Clemson’s time in Brooklyn with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer in overtime. Now all Clemson can do is wait to find out if that’s a wrap on its season.
With Selection Sunday just two days away, one thing is certain: Clemson won’t be playing in the NCAA Tournament. Brad Brownell’s team has been a part of the last four postseasons (the 2020 postseason was canceled in response to the coronavirus pandemic), including two of the last three NCAA Tournaments. But the Tigers needed their recent late-season surge just to, at least for now, avoid their first losing season since the 2012-13 campaign, Brownell’s third at the helm.
Whether or not Clemson gets a chance to improve on its 17-16 overall record remains to be seen, but the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) could come calling. The Tigers last played in the NIT to end the 2018-19 season, and Brownell said Clemson would likely accept an invite to this year’s tournament if one is extended.
The NIT, largely played on college campuses, consists of 32 teams, but the field is smaller for teams such as Clemson hoping for an at-large invite. Each regular-season conference champion that doesn’t make the NCAA Tournament automatically qualifies for the NIT while the first four teams left out of the tournament also get sent to the NIT as automatic No. 1 seeds.
There are technically no thresholds that postseason-eligible teams have to meet in order to be invited to the NIT. Clemson was six games above. 500 when it was invited to the 2019 tournament but was just 17-15 when it got an NIT invite two years earlier.
Clemson also had two less ACC wins during that 2016-17 season than it has this season, but the Tigers enter the weekend at No. 84 in the NET rankings, much lower than the ACC teams ahead of them in the pecking order. Miami (10 seed), Wake Forest (last four in), Virginia (first four out) and Virginia Tech (next four out) are all squarely on the bubble, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, and would be selected before Clemson for the NIT if they’re left out of the NCAA Tournament.
If the Tigers don’t get invited to the NIT, the College Basketball Invitational is another postseason option, though whether Clemson would play in the 16-team event given the chance is unclear. The Tigers have passed on the CBI in the past.
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