The Clemson basketball team appears to be peaking at the right time. Winners of nine of their last ten games, the Tigers are rounding into top form just as March appears on the horizon.
That run of strong play continued on Saturday in the form of a 72-46 dismantling of Florida State in Tallahassee. It was arguably Clemson's best road performance of the season and it kept the Tigers in the ACC regular-season title race.
Sitting at 13-2 in conference play, Clemson trails only 14-1 Duke in the league standings. Meanwhile, Louisville is right on Clemson's heels at 12-2.
After his team's wire-to-wire win, head coach Brad Brownell met with the media to discuss the victory. But before he talked about his team, he paid tribute to Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton who is retiring after this season.
"Yeah, my opening statement is just going to be just, really, thank Coach Hamilton for all he's done for our profession," he said. You know, he's a legend. I hope he becomes a Hall of Famer. He's just done so much for so many, certainly for a lot of black coaches growing up. He's been a mentor and a leader. You know, I've had the good fortune of competing against his teams every year twice, and seen some of their great Florida State teams over the years. He does an unbelievable job. Probably doesn't get enough credit for the way he recruits to his style and their style of play throughout the course of his career."
Hamilton has been at Florida State since 2002 as head coach. During that time, he's amassed a 658-502 record and taken the Seminoles to 11 NCAA Tournaments. Along the way, he's been one of the most respected men in his profession and his absence will be felt in the ACC.
One similarity between Brownell and Hamilton is that both have built successful basketball programs at schools that usually put football first. Brownell talked about how he has found basketball success at Clemson.
"I think some of this is cyclical, right?" he said. "It's, I mean, that's why, what you know Duke does, North Carolina has done when you're the standard bearer every year. You know, it's pretty incredible. Now, certainly, some schools have more resources and all those things and devote to it, like Clemson football, we're the same. And obviously what Dabo has done is remarkable in our school, but most of the schools you're battling most years, and you find really good pockets of three and four-year periods, if you're lucky, as a coach, where you ride a couple of really good players build on that momentum, and you put together four or five, six years of really high-level play, maybe above your norm, right?
"And you know, hopefully, we're, in that point right now. We're raising our level. And that's, you know, certainly, that's what Leonard has done here, is he's raised the level. And you know, all those teams, all those years, the Elite Eight, Sweet Sixteens and all the things, you know, ACC tournament championships, regular season championships, that's high-level stuff. Now in the league we're in, especially in that time period we've, we've had a good run here the last, you know, several years, and I'm very proud of that, and it's coincided with us having some very good players that are very committed to how we do things."
Saturday, Clemson won by 27 points on a day when leading scorer Chase Hunter scored only four points and made no field goals. Brownell explained how that was possible and said that his star guard only cares about winning games.
"Well, some of that is the way they guarded him, right?" he said. "I mean, they face-guarded him a lot. Really didn't let him have very many touches. So he, you know, he had tough shots when he did. I thought he did a lot of good things, not forcing it, just kind of accepting that there were times we told him, Hey, that's fine. They're going to face guard you, you know, we're going to do some things without you. Underneath you, there's more space. Anytime you face guard a player like that, there's more space for other players to make plays.
"I thought our guys did a good job of attacking that. And it's you know, as a good player, you just got to understand that and not be selfish. And Chase certainly wasn't that. You know, you had four steals, three or four rebounds. He just, he's smart enough that he's about our team winning and our team having a good day, instead of him having to score 17 points. He's done that many times this year. Today, he didn't have to do that."
Meanwhile, the other Hunter brother, Dillon, did have a huge game against Florida State with 17 points to lead the team. Since being inserted into the starting lineup, he's elevated his level of play and Brownell talked about how Dillion Hunter has changed the makeup of the team since taking over as a starter.
"Yeah, just, I think we're a little faster," he said," certainly a little more speed on the perimeter when you have a third guard versus Chauncey [Wiggins}, and I think Chauncey has done a really good job of coming off the bench and playing well. He had eight rebounds, I think again tonight and then gives us a good scoring punch. Chauncey does. He can come in at a couple of different positions, so that makes him more valuable, even that way, coming off the bench.
"But you know, Dillon's a confident player. Our staff has seen his growth from his freshman year to his junior year, and obviously, we saw a lot of progress this summer with his shooting. So we knew that, hey, he's going to shoot the ball at a high level this year. We felt that, and certainly, certainly have encouraged him to stay aggressive. He made a couple again today, two or three today, I think maybe three. So I don't think we're surprised by it at all, and it's been a good, good move for us right now."
The Tigers now have a week off before returning to the floor Saturday in Dallas against a sneaky-good SMU team. Hopefully, this time away from competition won't cool the Tigers off because they are peaking right now and if they play as well in March as they have thus far in February, then they could make some serious noise in the Big Dance once again.