An inside look at the crazy ending to Clemson’s basketball season
After Clemson beat Miami in the ACC tournament on Wednesday afternoon, likely clinching a spot in the NIT, Tigers senior guard Curran Scott expected it would be a while before he returned to his home state of Oklahoma.
The best-case scenario? Clemson would upset No. 1 seed Florida State for the second time in two weeks during the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament on Thursday and make a run to the NCAA tournament.
The worst-case scenario? The Tigers would reach the NIT and have a strong chance to make some noise after earning wins over No. 3 Duke, No. 5 Louisville and No. 6 Florida State in the regular season.
But instead of spending Monday at Clemson’s Littlejohn Coliseum preparing for an NCAA tournament game or NIT matchup, Scott was at the arena cleaning out his locker after seeing his Clemson career suddenly come to an end because of the coronavirus outbreak. He would soon get in his black 2017 Audi A7 and begin the more than 14-hour drive from Clemson to his home in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with a stop in Memphis on Monday night to rest.
“When I left the locker room after the game got canceled, I wasn’t sure would they postpone the NIT or would they still have games coming up? Obviously, a couple of hours later they said, ‘No, we’re not going to do any of it,’ ” Scott told The State. “Obviously, I was hoping we’d be playing now.”
ACC tournament shock
Clemson arrived for the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament fully expecting to play Florida State early in the afternoon on Thursday, March 12. The night before, the NBA had postponed its season after Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19, but college hoops tournaments were still on, just with no fans allowed to attend.
“It was kind of just like business as usual,” Scott said.
ACC commissioner John Swofford met with reporters Thursday morning and announced that the games would go on as planned.
“We want to provide an opportunity to continue to compete in this tournament for our players. Our understanding and belief is that is what they would want,” he said.
The Tigers ran out for warmups about an hour before tip-off and were in the locker room receiving last-minute instructions from head coach Brad Brownell about 25 minutes before tip when Clemson Athletic Director Dan Radakovich came in and pulled Brownell to the side.
“We all kind of knew it was going to be not good,” Scott recalled. “One of the assistants said, ‘Yea, they probably just canceled.’ Everybody was real disappointed, obviously.”
Soon, Brownell would make it official. The ACC tournament was canceled.
Clemson was allowed out onto the floor, but only to watch Florida State receive its ACC tournament championship trophy, before heading back to the team hotel, showering and heading home.
“It was just weird, honestly,” Scott said. “It was just disappointing to not be able to play and to go out with not even a game, just something that you can’t really control. That was the biggest thing for all of us.”
Back in Clemson
The team had about a 3 1/2-hour bus ride back to Clemson from Greensboro, and news continued to break the entire way home.
“The TVs were on in the bus so we could see everything as it was happening with the spring sports getting canceled and everything,” Scott said.
The NCAA tournament and NIT were also canceled, meaning that Scott’s college career was suddenly over. In one day Scott and the rest of the Tigers went from having visions of making an ACC tournament run and then playing in the NCAA tournament or NIT to having seasons and careers suddenly finished.
Scott said it still hasn’t hit him that he will almost certainly never play college basketball again.
“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands the last couple of days, so I’m sure it’ll hit me eventually in the next couple of days or next weeks. It’s still pretty fresh,” he said. “You see the NIT projected brackets come out. We would’ve had a chance to play for potentially an NCAA bid. But you see it and you see what we could’ve had, depending on if you keep winning, four or five more games even. It’s disappointing, obviously. You don’t want to end your season like that.”
Once the bus arrived back at Clemson, Brownell met with the team and did his best to put into perspective the unusual situation.
“I don’t even think he knew how to put it into words,” Scott said. “He just kind of thanked the seniors, thanked us for our time. We all were able to bring things to the team in different ways.”
What’s next?
Scott was the last one of his teammates remaining in Clemson before leaving for Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon. The University is on spring break this week, and classes will be online through at least April 5.
All sports activities have been canceled through the rest of the spring, and it is unknown if Clemson will hold classes on campus again this semester.
“It’s pretty dead right now. I was up at the basketball arena earlier trying to get my locker cleaned out and grab some last-minute things before I head out, and one of our staff members told me they’re not even gonna be allowed in the office for the next week or so,” Scott said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how they handle it, but right now there’s not much going on here at all.”
Scott is unsure when he will be back on Clemson’s campus, even if classes do resume.
His classes are all online this semester after he transferred in from Tulsa as a grad transfer for his final year. Scott ended his senior season averaging six points, two rebounds and one assist per game. He played in all 31 games, with eight starts.
“It was a good experience for me to play basketball in the ACC, the highest level of college basketball, and have some good games. Just be able to help the team anyway I can. That was my biggest thing,” Scott said. “Last year at Tulsa I scored a little bit more. This year I was just trying to do whatever I could to help the team and bring leadership and experience first. It was something I’m glad I did because of the relationships with my teammates and experiences from going to USA and playing and winning a gold medal, to playing Duke and (North) Carolina, those are things that I’ll never forget.”
The NCAA has already announced that seniors in spring sports who lost their final year of eligibility will have the opportunity to play an extra year, and there is talk the same rule could pass for winter sports, meaning Scott and other seniors could get an extra year of eligibility.
Scott has aspirations of playing professionally next year but said he would consider taking advantage of the extra year if it becomes an option.
“The next step for me since I want to continue to play would be to hire an agent, start working out and try to go pro and try to figure out what I’m going to do next season,” Scott said. “I’m not saying I would 100 percent do another year of college. Five years is a lot. Six years is even more. But it would be nice to have the option if that were a possibility, just because of the way it ended.
“I guess right now it’s kind of just a waiting game.”
One that college and pro athletes around the world are currently experiencing.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 7:56 PM.
