Clemson will play more basketball in March. However, it will not play in the NCAA Tournament.
After failing to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament’s 68-team field, the Tigers accepted an invitation to play in the National Invitational Basketball Tournament (NIT) Sunday night. The NIT bid marks the third straight season the Clemson basketball program has advanced to post-season play and it marks its second trip in three seasons to the NIT.
Clemson will play Wright State in the first round of the NIT on Tuesday (7 p.m.) at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson. The winner will play the winner of the Wichita State at Furman game. If Clemson wins it will host the second-round game.
Indiana is the No. 1 seed on Clemson’s side of the bracket.
Tigers’ head coach Brad Brownell coached at Wright State from 2007-’10. This will be the first time he has coached against his old school at Clemson.
Sunday’s NIT bid is Clemson’s 29th post-season tournament and its 17th appearance in the NIT. The Tigers are 18-16 all-time in the NIT.
The Clemson program has advanced to the Final Four of the NIT three times in its history, including two trips to the finals. The Tigers lost to California in the tournament finals in 1999 and to West Virginia in 2007.
Clemson also advanced to the NIT Final Four in 2014, before losing to SMU in the semifinals.
The Tigers (19-13) have twice made it to the NIT under head coach Brad Brownell. They of course made it to the Final Four in 2014 but lost in the first round in their last trip to the tournament. Oakland came to Littlejohn Coliseum in 2017 an upset the No. 2 seed Tigers, 74-69.
Clemson has won seven of its last 10 NIT games, dating back to its 2007 championship run.
This is Clemson’s fifth post-season tournament bid under head coach Brad Brownell in his nine years in Clemson. He has taken the Tigers to two NCAA Tournaments and three NITs.
The Tigers were hoping for a second straight NCAA Tournament bid after posting a 9-9 mark in the ACC this year. However, their 1-10 mark against Quadrant 1 teams came back to haunt them in the end.
Clemson is 1-6 in games decided by two points or less. They lost five of those games on the last play.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow for the program to miss the tournament this season after expectations were so high entering the year. The Tigers’ returned four starters—Shelton Mitchell, Marcquise Reed, Elijah Thomas and David Skara—from last year’s Sweet 16 team.