Brownell excited for his players and staff as Tigers go dancing

Clemson found out the good news Sunday evening of a return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2020-21 season (Merrell Mann photo).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Mar 18 07:00:04 GMT-04:00 2024

CLEMSON – The Tigers are going dancing, and head coach Brad Brownell is happy for himself, his players, and his staff.

Clemson University men’s basketball earned an at-large bid into the 2024 NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed. The team will face No. 11 seed New Mexico in the first round on Friday in Memphis, Tenn. (3:10 pm EDT tipoff/TruTV).

This marks the fourth time under Brownell that the Tigers have advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers will be making their 14th tournament appearance overall. All have taken place since 1980. Clemson enters the tournament with a 21-11 record, including an 11-9 mark in regular-season ACC games.

“It’s a great day for Clemson basketball. Just really happy for my players and proud of them. Reward for a lot of hard work starting last off-season,” Brownell said. “Certainly last year at this time was heartbreaking, and it's ironic, one of the first texts I get is from Hunter Tyson, who's super excited for his teammates and I told him my heart still hurts for him that last year's team was left out. But I'm grateful for this year's team and the way they played this year.

“Just some outstanding performances, and again, thankfully, Virginia got in the tournament, or it was going to be four ACC teams. Even to be one of five is, I mean it just is really hard. It shows you how hard it is to make this tournament, and to think that that's not an accomplishment is a problem. This is really hard. There's a lot of people that have really good basketball teams now, a lot of really good coaching and it's a very challenging long season.”

The No. 6 seed shows how much the committee thought of the Tigers’ resume.

“When your guys are able to do what our guys were able to do this year and to play as well as they did and be rewarded with a six seed and certainly to be looked at by the committee as one of the top 24 teams in the country, we're proud of that performance and looking forward to playing a very good New Mexico team,” Brownell said. “(New Mexico's) Richard Pitino, I've coached against him when he was at Minnesota. He's an outstanding coach. I don't know a lot about them.

“I really haven't seen them much this year. Obviously, it seems like this is a year where every time it seems we play somebody, they're on a three to four-game win streak, 5, 6, 7, 8, whatever it's been this year, and obviously, they just won the Mountain West Tournament, so they're playing with great confidence. They've got terrific guards, older players, no surprise that they were able to do something like that.”

Brownell said he was also excited for himself and his staff.

“Oh, I'm excited. Obviously, this is what you want to be in, right? You want to be involved in these kinds of games, these opportunities and so yeah, I'm super excited and happy for my staff,” he said. “Our staff works tirelessly. I don't think people realize the amount of hours that we work and obviously we love the game, but we love being in big games and so being a part of this tournament is significant and doesn't get old.”