No better time to play your best basketball than March.

Clemson guard Chase Hunter entered the 2024 NCAA Tournament with a single 20-point game. He’s scored 21, 20 and now 18 points in the Tigers’ run to the Elite Eight.

Following the game, Hunter was thankful for the timeliness and credits a lot of his success to the team around him enabling him throughout his career. He’s dealt with injuries but kept his head down to be a star as a senior.

“It feels great. It feels great. I’ve been thankful for my coaches, my teammates for still believing in me for this long season. I definitely started off rough,” Hunter said. “To be playing great here is everything as a player. I’m definitely grateful to be playing this well and I’m just happy for my team. Happy I could do this for my team and my coaches. Definitely feels great to be playing this well right now.”

Scoring is just a small piece of the impact Hunter is making. On the offensive end, he’s facilitating with ease and has at least five assists in each NCAA Tournament game. His relentlessness to the rim is creating opportunities for Clemson as a whole.

On the defensive end, the Tigers(24-11) held Arizona(27-9) to 37 percent from the floor and 17.9 percent from behind the arc. Head coach Brad Brownell and the staff prepared the team well on that end, knowing that their shooting could make or break the game.

“We weren’t surprised. We knew their guys like to get up shots. A few players are volume scorers. We wanted to make it hard for them. When they don’t make it easy, when you don’t see it going in, your confidence gets down. That’s what we wanted to do to them,” Hunter said.

The most impressive defensive performance of the night came from Hunter, tasked with defending Pac-12 Player of the Year and familiar face Caleb Love. Hunter harassed Love, forcing him into bad shot selection and it’s something he knew he could do coming in.

There was moments in the game Hunter could see how he impacted Love’s confidence. It was a killer instinct that he hammered in to limit Love to 5-18 from the floor and three turnovers.

“I knew it was my match-up coming into the game. I knew he was going to get a lot of shots up and I tried to make them hard and make them not as easy for him. He started off not that well. I could see in him his confidence dropped. For me I wanted to stay on him, and offensively I wanted to keep attacking him,” Hunter said.

Guard play is king in March and Clemson is elevating it at the right time with Hunter and Joseph Girard III. If you’re wondering how good Hunter is playing though, let PJ Hall answer for you.

“Chase Hunter is the best two-way guard in America now. You need to figure that out.”

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports