By Will Vandervort.

Sometimes a guy just needs to see the ball go in the hoop, even if it is a dunk.

At one point this year, Clemson guard Jordan Roper was 3-for-29 from the floor. It was a stretch that carried over eight games and shot down his confidence. Inside that eight-game run of futility, Roper was 0-for-7 from the field in the Tigers’ loss to South Carolina.

“He and I, along with Coach (Richie) Riley, had a long heart-to-heart about a month ago,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said on Friday. “We tried to talk some things out and get him in a good place.”

It has taken some time, but it seems like Roper is in that place, especially in the last two games. The junior first scored 12 points in the Tigers’ come-from-behind victory against Wake Forest last week and then followed that up this past Wednesday with 18 points in an impressive win at NC State.

It was in the Wake Forest game when Roper stole a pass intended to Codi Miller-McIntyre and raced the floor for an easy two-handed dunk. That play started a 7-0 run for Clemson, which was down 12 points at the time.

But the play just didn’t spark the Tigers it sparked the 6-foot, 165-pound Roper, too. Besides his 12 points, Roper made 3 of 4 free throws, grabbed two rebounds, had two assists and added two steals. It was an all-around solid performance.

“He has responded, it has taken some time, but I think he has responded,” Brownell said.

The Columbia, S.C., native produced another steal and run-a-away dunk in the opening minutes of the NC State game, which ignited a 25-2 run by the Tigers. It also got Roper going as he made five of 11 shots, including 3-of-5 from behind the arc and five of six from the foul line. He also had three rebounds and two assists.

“Something like that always helps and it helps with the team also,” Roper said. “Just getting easy baskets like that, we don’t get a lot of those so just to get a steal, get out in transition and to get an easy basket helps.”

Brownell said Roper’s confidence did not start in the Wake Forest game, he said it began a few weeks back when he changed his approach to practice and the way he started to step up in the locker room. Those things made it easy for the Clemson coach to insert Roper into the starting lineup, which is where he will be on Saturday when the Tigers tip off at noon against Boston College.

“I’m just happy he is playing well,” Brownell said. “I know he works at it and I know he was frustrated by not shooting the ball to his ability level. Some of it is confidence in this game. A lot of it is confidence on the offensive end. You are just hoping guys put themselves in a good place mentally so that they can perform at their peak.

“When that happens, you ride it for a while and certainly Jordan has played well here the last couple of weeks.”

Roper hopes the ride continues through the rest of his career at Clemson and beyond. In the last year, going back to the mid-point of last season when he lost his starting job, Roper says the road to get back to being a starter has been a long one, but one he said he needed to go down.

“It was difficult at the beginning, but I just had to accept my role,” he said. “I just locked in and tried to do my best. But being able to start now helps and I’m just here to do whatever I can to help and to help the team win.”