The bracket is out, the chips are down, the "Littlejohn South" vibes are coming down to the Sunshine State. For the third consecutive season, Brad Brownella has his Clemson Tigers dancing on a single-digit seed and with lunch-pail mentality to a Friday night showdown at Benchmark International Stadium.
This isn’t just 8-vs-9 basketball, it’s a statement. But despite losing top players Zac Foster and Carter Welling to ACL injuries, this Tiger group has refused to back down. They enter Tampa with 98 wins over the last four seasons– one of the highest win lists of any team since we first moved on from the old game of hockey.
"Don’t take these for granted", Brownell said. “There is a lot work you do in it, I am so proud of the fact our team has worked so hard out over so many years. So I am just so proud of them right now, they've had a lot of adversity, now our second ACL [injury] and guys had kind of kept their head down and tried to stick together.
The match-up: Tigers vs. Big Ten winners.
Clemson (24-10) faces an Iowa team (21-12) entering a new era under Ben McCollum. The Tigers’ best chance at success is Bennett Stirtz, a 20-point-per-game scorer who has followed McCollum down the ladder. Brownell knows that the hill is steep, but he still sees in his team the identity that is emerging from the ACC’s fire behind them.
"They're a little bit like us," Brownell said. “They’re a team. They’ve got one elite [I don’t want to say just one– but they’ll get an elite guy whom they’re going to draft… Stirtz is a very good player and they really have to defend you. It’s very, very interesting.”
The Tigers will be looking to RJ Godfrey (12 PPG) and Jestin Porter Jr. (9.6 PPG) in the lead. After the heartbreaking first-round exit from last year, the mantra for 2026 will be no regrets.
We've had great momentum and I think that’s part of why we were able to recruit the guys that we have on this year’s team, some of the belief that came with it, he said.
Consistency is King
Though the “experts” love to doubt the orange and white, the numbers won’t lie. Clemson’s 55-23 record in ACC play over the last four years is second only to Duke. This college program is one of them.
It speaks to the consistency we’ve had here the last several years. It’s not easy to do," Brownell said. “It’s not easy to make it, not easy to make it a couple years in a row... it’s still pretty dadgum hard now at this level, too.