Where Clemson basketball stands in latest NCAA bracketology before ACC tournament
Welcome to the bubble, Clemson.
The Tigers men’s basketball team had a historic season, setting a program record with 14 ACC wins and snagging just its second Top 3 conference tournament seed over the past 33 years.
But thanks to a few bad losses and a poor strength of schedule, Clemson (22-9) still has some serious work to do in the ACC tournament if it wants to reach the NCAAs, according to Thursday’s latest round of bracketology predictions.
The Tigers — who play No. 6 seed N.C. State on Thursday night at the ACC tournament in Greensboro — are considered a “First Four Out” team in CBS Sports’ March Madness projections and a “Next Four Out” team in by ESPN.
As of Thursday morning, Clemson was included in zero of 99 updated NCAA tournament bracket projections collected and aggregated by the website BracketMatrix.com.
In other words: The Tigers can’t rest on their laurels after an impressive season that saw them exceed their preseason poll prediction for the ninth time in 13 years under coach Brad Brownell and finish third in the ACC behind tournament-bound Miami and Virginia teams.
They need to win in the ACC tournament — at least once and most likely twice — to maintain an outside shot at securing out of the NCAA tournament’s 36 at-large bids.
Of course, reaching and winning Saturday’s ACC tournament championship for an auto-bid is also on the table. But historically speaking, that’s a tall task.
Clemson, which has played in every ACC tournament since the first one in 1954, has never won a tournament championship.
Under Brownell, Clemson teams are also 6-11 all-time in ACC tournament games and have never won back-to-back games in a single ACC tournament.
Clemson’s bubble season
Back to the bubble: Clemson is currently the No. 61 team in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, a newer system that has replaced the Ratings Power Index (RPI) as one of the tournament selection committee’s top deciding factors — but not the deciding factor — in teams’ fates.
Clemson’s veteran team, which includes first-team All-ACC forward Hunter Tyson and third-team All-ACC center PJ Hall, has fared pretty well in the NET’s top metric: Quadrant 1 games, which are defined as home games against teams ranked 1-30 in the NET, neutral-site games against teams ranked 1-50 and road games against teams 1-75.
The Tigers are 3-3 in such contests, and two of their Quad 1 wins — Pittsburgh and N.C. State — have come on the road. Their third was a home win over Duke, which finished right behind Clemson at No. 4 in the ACC standings.
Illustrating how finicky this system can be, Clemson had a fourth Quad 1 win (at Virginia Tech in January), but that dropped to a Quad 2 win Thursday after VT lost in the ACC tournament second round and fell to No. 77 NET.
From there, Clemson is 3-2 in Quad 2 games, 7-2 in Quad 3 and 9-2 in Quad 4 . It’s those four combined Quad 3 and 4 losses — at South Carolina, vs. Loyola Chicago on a neutral court, at Boston College and at Louisville — that are really dragging the team down résumé-wise.
Sure, there are injury quibbles: Starting center Hall, who underwent two off-season surgeries, wasn’t himself early in the season when Clemson lost to rival USC and Loyola Chicago. Galloway, a starting guard, missed the BC loss with a freak injury of his own.
But that’s just one small consideration for the NCAA selection committee and far from the top one. Winning big games — and avoiding bad losses at all costs — take precedence.
Strength of schedule
Further hurting Clemson’s case: Those four Quad 3 and 4 losses came in the context of a strength of schedule that ranked No. 139 nationally and No. 336 for exclusively non-conference play. (There are 363 Division I men’s basketball teams.)
Working in Clemson’s favor is a 15-1 home record, nine ACC wins by 10-plus points (the most in the conference) and the conference’s No. 1 team free throw percentage, No. 1 team field goal percentage defense, No. 2 team field goal percentage and No. 2 conference scoring margin.
Perhaps those don’t sway the committee. But they do offer Clemson a season-wide body of work that indicates a chance at a deep ACC tournament run.
The Tigers are also 2-0 against N.C. State, their Thursday quarterfinal opponent, and would face another Quad 1 semifinal opponent if Virginia beats UNC. (UNC, at No. 44, would also qualify since Greensboro is a neutral site.)
But starting Thursday, it’s win — or (bubble) bust.
2023 ACC Tournament Thursday schedule
Conference quarterfinals. Rankings represent ACC Tournament seed.
No. 1 Miami vs. No. 9 Wake Forest, noon, ESPN2
No. 4 Duke vs. No. 5 Pitt, 2:30 p.m., ESPN2
No. 2 Virginia vs. No. 7 UNC, 7 p.m., ESPN
No. 3 Clemson vs. No. 6 NC State, ESPN
This story was originally published March 8, 2023 at 1:06 PM.
