Folks, the NCAA Tournament is almost here and your Clemson basketball team is one of the best and hottest in the country heading into the Big Dance.
That's usually a good sign of a team that could make a deep run.
While there is still one more regular season game and the ACC Tournament to take care of, the Tigers are probably wondering where they'll be seeded and what line they'll be on. As of Thursday, it sounds like they're sitting somewhere in the 4-5-seed range which is far exceeding preseason expectations.
The Tigers have been solid on both ends of the court and that is evident when you look at the offensive and defensive efficiency in the analytics realm.
College hoops analytics expert Evan Miyakawa (great source for hoops analytics, by the way) formulated this into a chart and he divided it into five different categories: title favorites, Final Four potential, hit-or-miss, happy to be here, and the rest.
Clemson fell into the Final Four potential category.
Less than 2 weeks from Selection Sunday, here is the current predicted efficiency landscape in college basketball from https://t.co/cegyfz96ax, split into tiers.
— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) March 5, 2025
There's a big gap between the Duke, Houston, Auburn, and the rest of the country 👇 pic.twitter.com/KLcoeaJ05J
As you can see, the offensive efficiency rating is on the y-axis and defensive is on the x-axis, showing that Clemson has a slightly better offense than defense but both are good enough to be in the "Final Four potential" category.
The Tigers are one of 13 teams to be full in the Final Four potential -- or higher -- category, per Miyakawa, and that should have fans excited about the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Analytics are usually a good measure of which teams will be around when the season winds down and Clemson being in that Final Four potential category is a good sign that a deep run could happen.
Buckle up, Clemson fans, March is going to be a wild ride.