Clemson basketball will go dancing for just the 13th time in program history.
Of the 68 teams in the 2021 NCAA tournament, Clemson basketball got the most favorable draw of any team in the country. If this team can find a sense of urgency for the first time this season, they could make a run that most people didn’t see coming.
Clemson falling above the 8/9 line means that they were going to avoid any of the top four seeds until at least the elite eight and in this case, they avoid Gonzaga, Baylor, and Michigan until at the Final Four.
Getting put into the Midwestern quadrant could not have worked out any better.
That said, the Tigers season is going to end in one of two ways – with a disastrous loss to Rutgers or an unexpected run to the Elite 8 with a real chance at the program’s first Final Four appearance.
Sure, that may be extreme but this is also a team that has played extremely good basketball and extremely terrible basketball over the last four months. This is a team that early on beat 2-seed Alabama, 10-seed Maryland, 4-seed FSU, and 4-seed Purdue while also getting blown out by Georgia Tech, Virginia, Duke, Pittsburgh, and a six-man Miami team.
Unlike the ACC tournament, Clemson basketball has to find a sense of urgency.
The problem with this is that head coach Brad Brownell doesn’t coach with a sense of urgency nor does he make game-time adjustments with a sense of urgency and that all plays out on the floor.
This Clemson basketball has the talent to beat Rutgers, Houston, San Diego State, Syracuse, West Virginia, or Morehead State – all potential teams that they could face in the first three rounds of the NCAA tournament.
When Clemson basketball is locked in and ready to play, they are amazingly good on the floor – especially defensively. It will take the same effort and focus they had to start the year in order to make a run in the NCAA tournament.
They don’t have the talent to win a national title but they do have the talent to make a run to the Elite Eight given the break that they received with their seeding and bracket placement.
Brad Brownell could make a lot of his detractors, like me, eat crow with that type of run or the groaning will get louder should they lose to Rutgers.