By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort.

For the first time in quite a while the Clemson basketball team will play archrival South Carolina without having to carry the banner for the Tigers’ three biggest sports.

Thanks to the football team’s 35-17 victory over the Gamecocks last month, the basketball Tigers head into Friday’s 7 p.m. tip focused only on themselves when it comes to the rivalry.

“We were certainly excited for football that they were able to turn the tide this year and win it. We congratulate Dabo (Swinney) and his staff for that, but we have our own game to worry about and certainly we are going to try and put our best foot forward and play well here on Friday night.”

Clemson will be shooting for its third consecutive win over the Gamecocks when the two meet at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia. The last two years, these Tigers have been the only sport in football, men’s basketball and baseball to take down South Carolina.

Overall, Clemson has won eight of the last 10 meetings in the series.

“It is an important game and it is very important to our fans,” Brownell said. “It’s a game we certainly want to win and go compete. South Carolina is going to feel the same way. I think we will have a good crowd in there so there will be some good emotion in the building that will help the rivalry.

“I think it is an outstanding rivalry in football and we are trying to make it a little bit better and make it more important in basketball, both Frank (Martin) and I.”

Swinney’s football Tigers ended a five-game losing streak in the long-time series with last month’s victory and the baseball team will have its chance to win the three-game series this spring.

“Coach was talking to us about how they had beaten us in the other sports and he was saying we needed to help change that,” Clemson guard Rod Hall said. “He said we needed to build our program off beating South Carolina because it makes us look better than them.

“We have done the best we could as a basketball team to turn things around.”

Brownell got a better understanding of the rivalry the first two years he was here as his basketball teams failed to beat the Gamecocks. But in 2012, the Tigers went to Columbia and took down USC, 64-55, and then came to Clemson last year and beat the Gamecocks by 14 points, 71-57.

“This is a real big game for our fans,” Hall said. “If we win, if gives our fans something to talk about and if South Carolina wins they have something to talk about so it is a real big game for us.”

Hall says he got a better sense of the rivalry and what it means to Clemson after he got on campus and lost that first year he was here. The Augusta, Ga., native said it was Brownell’s passion for wanting to beat the Gamecocks that got him fired up about the rivalry.

“Coach kind of talked about it a lot and he put a lot of emphasis on this game,” Hall said. “He told us how big it was for our fans and for the university as well. It kind of grew on me.”

Besides the opportunity to keep the streak alive against the Gamecocks, the Tigers also bring in an opportunity to go 4-0 against the SEC this year. Clemson has already taken down LSU, Arkansas and Auburn this season.

The last time a Clemson team went 4-0 against the SEC was during the 2006-’07 season when those Tigers beat Mississippi State, South Carolina, Georgia and Ole Miss.

“That’s good motivation. It would look good for us to get into the (NCAA) tournament later if we keep taking care of business,” Hall said.