Throughout the 2024-25 season, anyone who has watched the Clemson basketball team could see that the Tigers are one of the more talented and complete teams in the nation. However, it took until Monday for Clemson to crack the Top 25 in both of the major national polls for the second time this season.
This week, the Tigers jumped up two spots to No. 19 in the Coaches Poll. Meanwhile, they cracked the Associated Press Poll for the first time since December by checking in at No. 23 in that poll.
Fans had grown frustrated by Clemson's inability to jump back into the A.P. poll despite having a solid record and strong NCAA Tournament resume.
The first time that the Tigers received a national ranking was after they beat No. 4 Kentucky in early December. After that 70-66 win in Littlejohn, the Tigers sat at No. 16 in both polls.
Unfortunately, those rankings would be short-lived. The same week that Clemson cracked the Top 25, the team suffered overtime losses to Memphis at home and South Carolina on the road to fall back out of the polls.
Since that time, the Tigers had gone 9-2 prior to playing Duke on Saturday. However, they weren't able to jump back into the A.P. poll and were only able to rise to No. 21 in the Coaches poll.
Now, though, because of Saturday's impressive victory over the No. 2 team in the nation, Clemson is back in both rankings. That is what a win over a blue-blood program on ESPN will do.
The other reason that Clemson has found it so tough to earn a lofty national ranking is because the perception of the ACC is not positive this year. Thus, most of the wins the Tigers have racked up in the conference have been considered mediocre at best.
This week's polls show just how little the voters actually think of the ACC. Duke, which fell one spot to No. 3 in the A.P. poll and three spots to No. 5 in the Coaches poll, is the only other team in the conference that has a Top-25 ranking. Taking it a step further, Louisville is the only other ACC team that even received a vote in either poll.
Alabama is at No. 1 in both polls. Meanwhile, Auburn sits at No. 2 in each. Then, in the A.P. poll, the Florida Gators are tied with Duke at No. 3 followed by No. 5 Tennessee. In the Coaches poll, Florida, Tennessee, and Duke round out the top 5.
Hopefully, the Tigers will be able to stay in the polls for an extended period this time around. The upcoming schedule is extremely manageable and doesn't feature another ranked opponent in the regular season. So from here on, the intrigue each week should not be whether Clemson is ranked but rather, how high the Tigers have been able to climb.