Clemson basketball will get back to the NCAA tournament under Brad Brownell.
After securing the fifth seed in the upcoming 2021 ACC basketball tournament, Clemson basketball has also stamped its place in the upcoming NCAA tournament that will be held entirely in Indianapolis.
There were a lot of unknowns coming into this year because of covid and the Tigers have absolutely been affected with two very long layoffs and three canceled away games. However, the Tigers seem to be playing decent basketball at this point.
That said, based on what was said about the expectations coming into 2021, short of winning two games and making it to the Sweet 16, this season was a bust and Brad Brownell should be replaced.
Harsh words? To some but that doesn’t make it any less true.
This was one of the worst seasons in ACC basketball history. While the conference has three teams ranked in the AP Top 25, there isn’t a single team that will go into the NCAA tournament as a national title favorite and there isn’t a single team that plays unbeatable basketball on either end of the floor.
This was a year that, according to the Clemson flagship personalities, Clemson basketball was going to have its best-ever team under Brad Brownell. What that led to was programs like Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech, who either fired their coach recently or had a coach on the verge of getting fired, finishing higher in the league and beating the Tigers at some point.
The Tigers went 10-6 in a down ACC and lost to all four teams that finished ahead of them by an average of 19.5 points per game.
We have seen Brad Brownell apologists blame covid layoffs for the team losing four of six games at one point by an average of 24 points and they love to point to beating Alabama and Purdue months ago as if it matters now.
Fact is, this team has not played up to its potential often in 2021 and that falls on coaching.
If this basketball team loses in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament that should be Brownell’s swan song and this program should finally look to bring in a basketball staff actually capable of recruiting and developing high-level talent.
This is something that Clemson basketball faithful have not seen in decades.