So far in 2016, Brad Brownell’s Clemson basketball team has looked mighty different. Gone are the days of slugging it out with the opposition and relying on physical defense and tough rebounding to win games.
Instead, this group of Tigers had to “win pretty”, and everyone knew it. Shots had to fall. Plays had to be made. Guys had to play a little bit bigger than their respective body types. The game had to be defined by flow and skill.
This version is a better way to play. It’s more entertaining. It’s more engaging. It’s easier to consume. It’s more basketball-y, if I can make up a word.
Still, there was bound to come a time when playing a big, physical team bent on destruction would haunt the Tigers. That time could’ve come on Saturday against Georgia Tech, a team whose post players are so important that it utilizes a little bit different approach than the typical 2016 ACC team.
Instead of kowtowing, however, the Tigers did it a new way. They played the opposition’s game, and they prevailed.
Clemson’s 66-52 victory—far from a fundamental showcase of the best of college basketball—was more of a throwback Brownell performance. Defense and rebounding reigned. The utter disregard for shot-making on both sides was abhorrent. The game had no flow, no rhythm, no aesthetic goodness to it at all.
In other words, it was exactly the kind of game Clemson “could not” win. It was exactly the kind of game Clemson needed to win, just to make sure it could.
Saturday’s double-digit romp over the Yellow Jackets—Brownell correctly asserted that the game was probably contested at about two or three possessions, with missed layups by Tech a mitigating factor in the final margin—was the first time in a baker’s dozen conference tilts that Clemson held an opponent under the 60-point threshold. One team, Virginia Tech, hit that number exactly.
Last season, the Tigers held nine ACC opponents under that threshold. It was ten times in 2014. The previous three seasons? Five, six, six.
That’s 36 times over five seasons—just fewer than half of Brownell’s conference contests—in which the opposition was held to a maximum of 59 points. Clemson’s record in those games was 27-9, an impressive .750 winning percentage.
This year has been different, though. The Tigers are giving up more points, or at least giving up a more stable number from game to game. Brownell has said his team lacks some things some of his other teams possessed that allowed them to win low-scoring slugfests like Saturday’s, and he’s probably right.
In terms of raw efficiency, this year’s Clemson team is giving up almost an identical number of points per 100 possessions as last year’s version. An uptick in general scoring across college basketball, due primarily to an increase in possessions related to a shorter shot clock, is probably to blame for a higher aggregate number of points allowed. In fact, Clemson’s average game includes about two more possessions than it did last season.
Also, Clemson’s schedule has been a bit tougher inside the league so far, with some of its easier games coming on the back end. That defensive number could easily come down after another meeting with Georgia Tech and a pair of games against cellar-dweller Boston College.
The rarity of those kinds of games for Clemson this year might explain some of the skepticism that existed about winning them, especially since low-scoring affairs were the norm in the past. Picking up a victory required some uncommon things from this bunch, like grabbing an abundance of offensive rebounds and turning the game into a Mikan drill, or by making one-on-one plays to score when the Yellow Jackets clamped down on passing lanes.
It wasn’t the prettiest thing. It might not make Dr. Naismith especially proud. But Saturday’s game was exactly what Clemson needed—a chance to prove it could win a different way.
God Bless!
WQ
If you haven’t already order your copy today of Guts & Glory – Tales of Clemson’s Historic 2015 Football Season to help you celebrate and remember this special season.
