Tigers taking a one game at a time approach while jockeying for tourney position

Clemson looks to make it three ACC wins in a row with Pitt coming to town.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Feb 26 13:28:40 GMT-05:00 2024

It sounds cliché, but it truly is one game at a time for the Clemson men's basketball team as it enters the home stretch looking for a top-four seed in the ACC Tournament and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Clemson (19-8 overall and 9-7 in the ACC) has four ACC games remaining in the regular season, and that starts with a home game against Pitt (18-9, 9-7) Tuesday at 7 pm in Littlejohn Coliseum.

Clemson and Pitt are two of three teams (NC State is the other) tied at 9-7 and in fifth place in the ACC standings. Wake Forest is fourth with a 10-6 record in league play as teams vie for a top-four spot and a double-bye in the ACC Tournament.

Duke and North Carolina have separated themselves atop the league standings, but there is still a chance for a handful of ACC teams to reach as high as third place by the end of the regular season. Virginia, who's lost two in a row and three of their last four, is losing their grip on third place and has 11 conference wins.

Clemson defeated Pitt 79-70 back in December in the first league game for both teams, but the Panthers have won six of their last seven to vault themselves into contention for the double bye.

Clemson head coach Brad Brownell told TigerNet Monday that his players understand what’s at stake.

“Yeah. I think our guys, our older guys especially, I mean PJ (Hall) and Joe (Girard) and Chase (Hunter) and those guys, they know what it's like to have that finish in the top four,” Brownell said. “At the end of the day, we're just trying to do the best we can. We want to finish as high in the league as we can. So that kind of goes without saying. So yeah, I think your job as the coach is to just get your guys ready for the next week, next game.

“And we talk about that every Sunday or Monday, whenever we get together, here's our week, here's our plan, here's where we are, here's what's happened, transpired in the last week, what have we learned from it and how do we go forward accordingly? Obviously, Pitt, playing great. Jeff's (head coach Jeff Capel) has done a terrific job there, not just this year, but kind of resurrecting the program. I've coached against Jeff a long time, so I have a lot of respect for him. Certainly our guys' full attention is going to be on Pitt. They're playing exceptionally well.”

The Panthers defeated Wake Forest to begin the current run and ran off wins over Notre Dame, NC State, Louisville, and Virginia before losing the rematch to Wake Forest last week. The Panthers responded to that loss with a 79-64 victory over Virginia Tech last weekend.

“I think you just see a really tough, tough-minded group. A group playing with a lot of urgency, very connected,” Brownell said of the Panthers. “Offensively, they moved Jaland Lowe to the point sometime after our first game and probably allowed Carlton Carrington a little more freedom to just be a scorer and just take some pressure off of them.

“Now they have two guys that are very good in the pick and roll consistently. And then defensively, as you mentioned, I mean (Federiko) Federiko and then the other big kid, Guillermo Diaz Graham, those guys are long, athletic, very good defensively. Jeff's got a really good group. He's recruited well, the pieces fit, and I think they're playing great basketball.”