By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
CLEMSON — Though he was asked about whether or not Clemson fans were ready to finally start watching his basketball team, men’s basketball coach Brad Brownell used the moment to show his support for football coach Dabo Swinney and the football program.
Though disappointed himself that the 14th-ranked Tigers lost for a fourth straight year to No. 10 South Carolina on the gridiron last Saturday, Brownell says fans should not look at what just happened and instead take a step back and judge the season as whole.
“I know everybody around town is a little down, we’re down,” he said. “We were disappointed. We watched and cheered as hard as we could from Florida. I’m proud of Coach Swinney and the football team. I think they had a very good year.
“It did not end the way they wanted it to, but to win 10 games and to play the way they did with consistency throughout the course of the season, and did not have a let up.”
The Clemson football team finished the regular season 10-2, including seven straight Atlantic Coast Conference victories to finish tied with Florida State for first place in the ACC Atlantic Division. Six Clemson players were named to the All-ACC First Team, while two more were named to the second team on Monday.
The 10 wins, coupled with last year’s 10-4 season, marked the first time since 1987-’90 era that Clemson has won 10 games in back-to-back seasons. It’s also just the fourth time in the long history of the program that a team has won 10 or more games in the regular season.
During the Tigers’ seven-game winning streak, they won each game by at least 14 points or more. They are the only team in the country this year to make that claim.
“In this day and age, to not lose games you are supposed to win, it is hard to do,” Brownell said. “It is hard to win all of those games when you are supposed to win and to go play well and win convincingly, that’s hard to do.
“That’s every hard to do, especially when you are dealing with 18- to 22-year olds. There are so many distractions. You become a target and people’s seasons can change with your game. We face that when we play teams that are quote, unquote mid-majors. It’s hard to win all of those.
“To play the way they did,” he continued, “and to win the way they did, it is really good. Certainly, we all wanted them to play well and they did not play as well as they wanted in the second half of the last game and obviously South Carolina kept our offense off the field and that was a big part of it.”
With football season now over, at least until the bowl game, Brownell is hopeful the fans that have supported football all year will come out and pull for his basketball team, especially tomorrow night as the Tigers get set to host Purdue (7:17 p.m.) at Littlejohn Coliseum as part of the ACC/Big10 Challenge.
“We are hopeful that people are now ready to get behind our basketball team. We are in a high major league and we play very good teams, and we need help,” Brownell said. “This team is playing hard enough and is competing well enough that I think they are exciting enough to watch. I appreciate the kind of effort they are giving our fans and our school.
“I’m really interested to see how we are supported here in the next couple of weeks.”
Besides Purdue, Clemson (4-1) will play at South Carolina on Sunday and then host Arizona on Dec. 8.