Tigers turn focus to Virginia Tech

By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

When he walked onto the floor prior to Friday’s practice at Littlejohn Coliseum, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell gave his team a simple message.

“Even though we did not win, we invested a lot this week,” he said. “Emotionally and physically we are very drained and even though we did not win the two games, we did improve as a team and here are the things we have done better and got better at this week.”

This was perhaps the most important message Brownell has said to his team all year. Right now, his Tigers are struggling with the reality that they lost back-to-back games when they outplayed and outhustled NC State and Florida State on the road.

Clemson (10-8, 2-4 ACC) rallied from an 11-point deficit to tie NC State last Sunday in Raleigh only to lose the game in the waning minutes. Against FSU on Thursday, the Tigers squandered leads of 13, 12, 11 and 10 points and then watched as Michael Snaer banked in the game-winning shot from 28 feet as time expired.

Brownell’s charge is to somehow get his team mentality and physically up for the third time in a week as Virginia Tech visits Littlejohn on Sunday for a 1 p.m. tip.

“Guys are excited about playing,” the Clemson coach said. “They like to play, but the mental stress and all that you put into getting ready for a game –  the preparation, the film watching, the walk through, practice time and then trying to peak – it’s hard. When you’re margin of error is small, those things all have to be going well so you play your best. Most of the time we need to play our best to win.

“We played pretty close to the best in a lot of areas (Thursday). We had a few things we did not do well, but we did a lot of things well.”

What the Tigers did well was outrebound Florida State 34-23. They held Florida State to 41 percent shooting and forced 15 turnovers. They got contributions from bench players like Bernard Sullivan, Josh Smith and Jordan Roper at key moments in the game. They got 15 points from Devin Booker even though he was suffering from a high fever prior to and during the game.

“Except for the last two three-pointers, we held a very good shooting team to two threes. We outrebounded them. We had a good mix to our game and did some decent things,” Brownell said. “We shot ourselves in the foot with some of the fouling I guess. It was a frustrating loss as you can imagine because of the things that happened.

“We did so many things well.”

But it’s time to move on, and the players have received that message from their head coach. They say they will be ready for the Hokies (11-7, 2-3) when the game tips off.

“We have to move on to the next game,” forward K.J. McDaniels said. “We have to learn how to keep leads and finish out teams.

“I still have confidence in this team. I believe we can come out and play hard and get a win. We have to stay focused defensively and offensively it will come.”

It better, or the Tigers might find themselves in a hole they might not be able to climb out of this time.