Clemson Basketball Analysis: Road to NCAA Tournament is open
The Clemson basketball team will play the North Carolina Tarheels tonight in a revenge game. Here’s a look at the Tigers’ second half of ACC play.
Believe it or not, we’re already halfway through the conference slate of the 2018 Clemson basketball season.
And guess what. Your Clemson Tigers are still projected as a top-five seed in the NCAA Tournament by all major bracketology websites.
Who would’ve thought that’s where we would today this time last year?
The Tigers take on North Carolina tonight in a huge home tilt, but there’s so much more left even outside of the bigtime game tonight. Here’s a look at a few storylines heading into the second half of Clemson basketball’s ACC schedule.
Grantham’s injury:
Losing Donte Grantham was huge. The Tigers, in my opinion, looked like a top-15 team with Grantham.
Now, they have taken a small step back. Getting the win at Georgia Tech this past weekend was really important for the confidence of the team as they look to move forward without their senior leader.
I think losing Grantham may cost Clemson a couple of wins.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the Tigers perform without him down the stretch.
A huge home game:
This game against North Carolina tonight is one of the biggest home games in the past decade for Clemson basketball.
The students have been waiting outside for tickets and Littlejohn is going to be absolutely electric. If the Tigers are going to beat North Carolina, it’s going to be tonight.
If Clemson can pick up a win tonight, they would almost all-but-guarantee themselves a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
Hold serve and you’re in:
The road to the NCAA Tournament is clear for Clemson: Don’t fall apart.
The Tigers were 6-3 in the first half of the ACC season. If they can duplicate that in the second half, they will be 12-6 and that would be good enough for a No. 4 seed in the tourney. We will take an in-depth look at the remaining basketball schedule later this week after the North Carolina game, but the schedule certainly should favor Clemson.
The Tigers have a road game against Wake Forest. They have Pitt at home before traveling to Florida State and then taking on Duke at home.
They will close the season out with a road tilt against Virginia Tech before having two games against Georgia Tech and Florida State and then Syracuse on the road.
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When you look at those games, there’s no reason to think that they won’t go at least 5-4 and finish 11-7 in conference.
We certainly will see, but it will be interesting to watch tonight.