Marcquise Reed and the Clemson basketball team look to rise in the rankings.
The Clemson basketball team is on the verge of breaking into the AP top 25 and a win tonight against (14)North Carolina and at (23)Notre Dame on Saturday could seal the deal.
The(11-2) Tigers are on a 9 game winning streak and should be pretty confident after road wins over rival South Carolina and Wake Forest and a home win over UNC-Wilmington.
One of the key factors in those wins was the play of sophomore guard Marcquise Reed who averaged 13.6 points, 3 assists, 2.3 steals, and 4.3 rebounds a game. He has shown in his short time as a Clemson Tiger that he is a closer. Against South Carolina and Wake Forest, his mix of jump shots, drives to the basket, assists, steals, and excellent free throw shooting in the closing minutes helped turn those games around.
Reed is a scorer, and the Robert Brown University transfer has displayed that since the first game of the season, when he scored 19 points in the 74-64 win over Georgia.
In following games, Reed continued to score but struggled at times with his decision making especially on drives to the basket. During games you could see coach
having conversations with him after a turnover or having his shot blocked. Reed has improved his decision making and now instead of trying to finish every drive at the rim, he has found teammates and uses floaters and pull-up jumpers more often to score.
His subtle offensive improvement and aggressiveness on defense has helped propel Clemson from a projected bubble team to a possible at-large team. As a non-starter, he averages 10.4 points per game which is fourth on the team. He is also 4th in free throw percentage(.880), 8th in three point percentage(.455), and 11th in steals(1.62) in the ACC.
Reed and his teammates will look to continue their winning ways tonight at 7:00pm on ESPN2.