Talking heads are eating their words on Clemson Men’s Basketball

Clemson Men’s Basketball has reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament for only the second time in program history.

This has caught several Clemson fans by surprise. I’ve tried to be candid about losing faith in this team following the bad loss to Boston College in the ACC Tournament. Fret not, Clemson family: we weren’t the only ones who have been caught by surprise by this run in the Big Dance.

This morning on WFNZ radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, Travis ‘T-Bone’ Hancock (who tends to pull for the Gamecocks) claimed that he was ‘living the full Clemson experience’. Hancock picked the Tigers to win the ACC Tournament but was disheartened by the team’s lackluster effort against BC. As a result, he picked Clemson to lose to New Mexico.

I texted T-Bone and welcomed him to the family! At least he could admit he goofed. Some have a harder time with that.

Others on social media are similarly dealing with the receipts of the past week.

Before you judge Barstool Radio too harshly for this particular graphic, you should know that the Big Cat is on Clemson’s side.

Nonetheless, Pardon My Take is taking a bit of grief for the disrespect this morning.

ESPN’s Myron Medcalf decided to bust out the disrespect this week when challenged for marginalizing Clemson with respect to the other teams in the Sweet Sixteen. His response to criticism: putting down Clemson fans saying “This ain’t football.”

As a side note, while football school Clemson dispatched basketball school Arizona, football school Alabama eliminated basketball school North Carolina and will face Clemson for the chance to go to the Final Four.

Ouch. Then again, Medcalf went to Mankato State, which is a hockey school, so we probably shouldn’t pay attention to his opinion about basketball anyway.

Then there is Seth Davis, who I generally like as an analyst. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree but usually he makes logical points….until this week.

This is a bad take on so many levels. The fact that the 10-seed in the ACC Tournament won five games in five days means the league is the opposite of top-heavy - it’s deep.

Further, Davis falls prey to the folly of many talking heads who try to define the selection process instead of simply predicting it: being unwilling to acknowledge the process got it wrong.

The outcome of the NCAA’s is, in fact, the only justifiable way to judge the process because it’s the only results-based method. 

Yet, Davis doubled down in the face of being told how wrong he was.

Davis is now saying the results of the NCAA Tournament should be on par with the Saatva Empire Classic Benefitting Wounded Warrior Project Presented by Continental. Got it. Sleep this one off, Seth.