Earlier this year, Clemson sports psychologist Dr. Katie Nichols presented an exercise where she wanted to know how the women’s basketball team perceived themselves through pictures.

She printed out and showed them several pictures and asked them to pick out the ones that best describe the team as a whole. One of the pictures happened to be a of a female duck and her ducklings following behind her.

That was the picture. That was the one the Tigers felt represented them the most.

Why?

The mom duck in the picture reminded them of head coach Amanda Butler, while the ducklings following behind represented the entire team.

“We are going to follow in her footsteps and do what she says and buy into it,” senior guard Dani Edwards said.

When Butler took over Clemson last April, she knew she and her staff had a lot of work to do. Turning around a program that had hit rock bottom in the ACC was not going to be easy. However, Butler and her staff did a phenomenal job recognizing her team’s strengths and weakness very quickly.

She knew she had a very athletic squad that had a lot of speed. She also understood she did not have a bunch of shooters, either. In other words, she knew the best way to turn things around was to use the Tigers’ speed on defense to help create its own offense.

Clemson (19-12) conditioned itself to run a full-court press defense that is relentless. The goal is to physically and mentally wear down the opposition, while making the game as ugly as possible with turnovers.

Butler wants her team to go all out on every play and never take a play off, going after every 50-50 ball, even if it means throwing their body on the floor to get the basketball.

“We had already got to that point in our locker room where we said a lot, ‘we need to make it ugly,’” Butler said. “Every time we play, we need to make it ugly. The uglier the better because that is kind of where we thrive.

“It is not in a free-flowing finesse game, but a game that is just going to be dive on the floor, get back up, get a turnover, run the other direction and just kind of that organized chaos.”

So, the Tigers called themselves “The Ugly Ducklings.”

“They were the self-proclaimed Ugly Ducklings. I did not give them that title,” Butler said laughing, “and if I remember correctly, I am the head Ugly Duckling. So, I am in the Ugly Duckling mix.”

The Clemson women are proud of their nickname and they have worn it proudly all the way to the NCAA Tournament, where they will play South Dakota in the first round on Friday in Starkville, Miss. It is the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 17 years and the first post-season appearance of any kind in 15 years.

“They felt like the Ugly Ducklings was a name and a picture that matched us, as well as a picture of a flame because we wanted to be dangerous, like fire, Ugly Ducklings,” Butler said. “I was told I was an Ugly Duckling. I did not choose that identity. That came one hundred percent from them, but we wear it proudly.”