For the Clemson basketball team, life has been all about taking care of business in recent weeks. The Tigers did so again against another inferior opponent on Saturday afternoon by topping NC State 68-58 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Getting to 10-1 in ACC play for just the second time in school history, the Tigers have set themselves up to be a true factor in the conference race now sitting alone in second place in the league standings thanks to a surprising 77-70 loss at Georgia Tech by Louisville on Saturday.
Clemson has climbed to these heights by beating teams that it should beat. Each of the opponents the Tigers have taken down during their six-game winning streak has been no better than .500 in ACC games at the time they played Brownell's team.
While this team will need to rack up a few more Quad-1 wins in order to earn a lofty seed in the NCAA Tournament, there is something to be said for taking care of the opponents that you are supposed to beat. After all, virtually every week in college basketball, there is a good team knocked off by an opponent that it should have easily taken care of.
Beating an NC State team that is now just 2-8 in ACC games wasn't as easy as some might have expected for Clemson. Coming off of a week-long break and with several players working their way back after dealing with an illness that spread throughout the team, the Tigers had to work through some early kinks. And certainly, they were not flawless in their showing in Raleigh.
However, when the game was on the line, it was Clemson who made the winning plays yet again to secure another double-digit ACC win. After the game, Brownell talked about the poise of his older players as a key factor in the win.
"Yeah, just really proud of the way our team competed today and showed great poise," he said. "I thought, especially in the second half of this game. Kevin's teams are always very good, defensively aggressive, hard to deal with and our guys only turned it over five times today, which I thought was a big key in the game.
"We did not do a very good job defensive rebounding. Got to keep working on that. But, you know, down the stretch, an older group, which we have, I thought, made a lot of really good decisions. Just showed good poise, got the ball to good places. Defense, I thought our defense continued to get better the longer the game went.
"Man. Dontrez Styles, love that dude. Try to recruit him out of high school. Really good player. He was. He was making all kinds of shots on us today. He's played great in the last couple of weeks, but pleased with our team. Our team really coming off the bye I thought was good for us. We had a chance to get a little bit healthy. Been battling some sickness and some bumps and bruises. And our guys came into this game with great energy."
Brownell was asked about the importance of Clemson's 10-1 start to conference play. He said that there is still a long way to go before the story of the season is written.
"Yeah, that's great," he said. "There's still nine games left. Doesn't, mean a lot right now, other than, you know, we have important games ahead because you've played well. You know, the games ahead give you a chance to do something special. So we'll, you know, get back tonight and then get focused on Georgia Tech for Tuesday night."
One flaw in Clemson's performance on Saturday was in the area of defensive rebounding. The Tigers allowed the Wolfpack to grab 13 offensive boards and Brownell talked about how to get better in that regard.
"Well, it's hard," he said. "Ian Scheffelin is not the best block-out guy. He's just a kind of a go-get guy. And so there are a couple times when he's a culprit. I don't say a lot to him, because he's such a good rebounder, but our guards got to continue to rebound better. Chauncey Wiggins has to rebound better. That's been an area that we've, you know, one of the few areas where he hasn't developed as much as I would like. And I don't know what he ended up with today, but I know at halftime he didn't have a defensive rebound, he didn't have a rebound. That's not good, and so our guards have to support our big guys.
"You know, Victor [Lakhin] and Ian usually do a decent job. Victor had nine and Ian had five defensive rebounds. Jaeden Zachary battled for five, Dylan [Hunter] ended up with three. So it just takes everybody rebounding the ball. You know, your defense is good. So you get teams to miss a lot. You know, I know what they shot, 37% maybe 38% so there's a lot of misses.
"And so there's going to be a few more naturally, because there's some long rebounds, and things are going to get away from you. But you know, the first half, we were really upset with our team because that's, that was the number one thing we talked about. We didn't do a good job with it, but you know, when that happens, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you to take care of the ball, otherwise, you're losing possessions in the game. And so we were able to keep our turnovers down, and I thought execute very well in the half court."
Next, Brownell was asked about the difficulty of winning on the road. He said that having an older team is a huge advantage in that regard.
"Yeah, it is," he said. "It's competitive. It helps when you have an older group like I do. I think that's the biggest advantage that older players bring to a team. Is just when buildings get loud, more guys on your team have probably played well at some point or another in some of these kinds of environments, and so they're not as panicky. They show poise, they execute, they do what you're supposed to do down the stretch and finish.
"You know, it's, I thought Kevin's team played incredibly well against Duke, and that environment, that situation, for however many 38 minutes of the game, that speaks to their team, you know, poise and playmaking but I've got an older group. Chase has been with me a long time. You know, Victor's an older player. Jaeden is an older player. Ian's a senior. We have an older team. And when you have older teams, you have a better chance of dealing with those environments."
Again, Chase Hunter was the closer for Clemson making two key buckets to put the game out of reach late. Brownell talked about his importance and how he and Zackery form one of the best guard combinations in the ACC.
"Yeah, he's very important. But a lot of guys on our team are," he said. "You know, his job is, you know, to score the basketball for us, make the decisions which he did. I think what was great about his play today is he also made some really good plays in the pick and roll. He can he can do that. He's obviously played primarily at the point last year. He's played a little bit of point this year, but also off his versatility with Jayden makes those two guys one of the better backcourts in our league. And you know, their competitiveness, their age, their poise, playmaking, and then obviously, Jaeden's ability to guard has taken some pressure off Chase where he's not guarding the point guard every possession like he was last year, and it's probably freed him up a little bit to be an even better offensive player."
Brownell knows that his team has a huge test coming up next Saturday when Clemson hosts No. 2 Duke but he didn't mention that. He said his team's job is to get ready for Tuesday's game at home against Georgia Tech. And if January was any indication, the Tigers will not overlook the Yellowjackets because Clemson is showing the maturity and poise needed to handle each game as it comes.