In college basketball, the “eye test” matters, but it is the math that will determine your seed in March. For the Clemson Tigers, the numbers have been moving in the wrong direction. Clemson (20-8, 10-5 ACC) have hit a wall after just a blistering 10-1 opening to ACC play, with four consecutive losses and falling out of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. While these losses alone are painful, their impact on the Tigers' analytical profile (those figures being the NET rankings and KenPom ratings) can have huge seeding implications.
After losing against Wake Forest and Florida State, Clemson slid seven spots in the NET rankings to No. 38. The slide is felt even more sharply in the KenPom ratings, where the Tigers tumbled to No. 40—a 12-spot decrease from where they were two weeks ago. The main reason lies in a missing offense. In a 70-65 loss to Florida State on Saturday, Clemson shot only 38% from the field and missed its final six shots in the game.
“Clemson has gotten ice-cold at the wrong time,” said ESPN’s Neil Paine. “The Tigers were an ACC ‘lock’ since Bubble Watch first got going on Feb. 3... they are now being downgraded accordingly, trending lower in the pecking order of the conference.”
The Quadrant Conundrum. Clemson’s resume is also suffering the pinch of those “Quadrant” changes as of late. On Dec. 31 the Tigers won their initial Quad 1 victory against Syracuse but got recently downgraded to Quad 2 as the Orange struggles.
Clemson’s Present Form of the Resume:
Quad 1: 3-5
Quad 2: 7-3
Quad 3: 3-0
Quad 4: 7-0
Adding a third loss to Florida State’s “Quad 2” column, though, made for only a narrower margin for error for Brad Brownell’s squad. Despite the slide, the Tigers’ defense is still shining, having placed 19th in the nation for KenPom’s adjusted efficiency as a whole.
This spiral parallels a program that had been programmed to challenge the Tigers’ mettle late in the season. After feasting on the front half of the ACC, Clemson now is deep in a gauntlet that stretches throughout the league’s heavy hitters. The Tigers dropped as many as 20 points in Winston-Salem last week, and had no answer for another defender, Florida State’s Robert McCray V, who blasted them for 22 second-half points on Saturday.
The good news for Clemson is that the same "backloaded" schedule that led to the slide offers the fastest route to recovery.
Still on the table, the Tigers have two enormous prospects coming down for Quad 1 wins:
Feb. 28: Against No. 20 Louisville (Quad 1 opportunity)
March 3: at No. 19 North Carolina (Quad 1 opportunity)
If Clemson splits these matchups or sweeps them, then it’s likely they’ll recapture their “lock” status. And if the slide continues into March, the Tigers could be sweating Selection Sunday in a way no one expected three weeks earlier.