There are two kinds of conference champions. Clemson could be either of them, and we won’t know which one for another week or more.
The first kind of champion relishes any kind of achievement. The accomplishment of winning a conference crown is enough for that team. It’s the end of the road, the type of thing that definitively punctuates a season.
The other kind sees a championship as a springboard to something greater. The title is appreciated within the context of the entire season as a milestone on the road to something even better.
Neither kind of team is bad. After all, winning an ACC Championship—as the Tigers did on Sunday—doesn’t exactly happen every day. Around these parts, there have only been two of those in 22 seasons, and only one in the past decade.
Still, Clemson would ideally be the second kind of team, especially with the College World Series looming in the distance after what it hopes is a lengthy string of home games in the NCAA Tournament. That’s why the program has historically featured the word “Omaha” on its hats instead of the location of the ACC’s postseason extravaganza.
That’s not to diminish what Clemson did in obtaining this year’s conference tournament championship. In four games, the Tigers managed to knock off the defending national champions, the Atlantic Division champions, a spunky underdog playing some of its best ball, and the defending tournament champions.
They did it all in a span of four days, as the sixth seed. They did it without an array of dazzling pitchers, relying on some extraordinary performances. The same can be said on offense, where a veteran bench player—Mike Triller—put together an MVP performance as Clemson’s big names struggled to come up with hits. No team in the field committed more errors in pool play than Clemson did.
Yet, the Tigers found a way. Champions always do.
There’s something different about this championship, though. In football, winning the ACC title often means you’re playing for the ultimate prize. Losing in the title game means you likely aren’t. That’s why the victory Clemson celebrated in Charlotte in December over North Carolina meant so much.
Fast forward to Sunday, and the attitude was a bit different. A postseason berth wasn’t on the line. Maybe a national seed was, but even that seemed possible without a Sunday win over Florida State. The stakes weren’t quite as high as they were with the football team. Every goal would still be on the table win or lose.
As the rain poured and delays continued, doubts lingered about whether it was even worth it to keep playing. There were logical reasons for this, but none of them ultimately mattered when the Tigers began piling on top of each other on the Durham Bulls Athletic Park infield.
Many will cite Sunday’s win as a boost that could lift the Tigers to the College World Series, making them the second kind of champion. However, historically speaking, that correlation hasn’t existed.
Since the ACC Tournament began in 1973, Clemson baseball has won nine conference tournament titles and been to Omaha ten times. Only four times have both events occurred in the same season. This means there were five occasions when the Tigers won the league but lost en route to Omaha and six occasions when they found their way to Omaha despite losing the league.
Recent history says both are possible. In 1994, the Tigers blazed through the ACC field to snag a title before losing twice in a regional. In 2006, Clemson used a conference tourney title to help punctuate a 24-1 stretch—the lone loss was to Georgia Tech at the ACC Tournament—that ended with consecutive losses at the College World Series. In 2010, it lost twice in pool play at ACCs, ended up as a two-seed in the national tournament, and got to Omaha anyway with two chances to play in the title series.
The point is that we don’t yet know how big Clemson’s ACC Championship will be. Will it be the most significant milestone the 2016 squad achieves? Will it be the beginning of a magical run in the postseason? Only time will tell.
One thing unites both groups discussed above: They are all champions. That’s a beautiful thing. No one can take that away. Regardless of what happens next, that designation—“champions”—will always be woven into the fabric of this team’s legacy.
There now exists a unique opportunity to savor the moment while salivating for more moments just like it in the days and weeks ahead. Only when the dust settles on the season will we know for sure just what this ACC Championship means for Monte Lee, for the players, and for Clemson baseball.