As PJ Hall said following Clemson’s 89-82 loss to Alabama in the NCAA’s West Regional Final on Saturday night, this one is going to sting for a little while.

And it will.

I remember former Clemson baseball coach Jack Leggett compared the ending of a long season almost to a funeral. It is sad. You mourn. It takes time to move on. And though a funeral is a time to mourn the loss of a loved one, it is also an opportunity to celebrate their life and who they were.

And that is what I chose to do today. I am celebrating what was a great season for the Clemson men’s basketball team.

The 2023-’24 Clemson basketball team will be remembered as one of the best teams in the program’s history. Only the 1980 Tigers accomplished what this year’s team did – an appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

Though Clemson fell one game short of advancing to the program’s first Final Four, what this team did to put itself in position to get there will truly never be forgotten.

“The ride we’ve been on these last two weeks, phenomenal. Something we’ll always remember,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “But just the kind of kids that they are, right? To be around them every day, the fun that we have, the way they allow us to coach them, the connectedness, just the togetherness. In this day and age, it’s rare.”

They were a rare team, especially at Clemson.

The Tigers finished the season 24-12, their best record since going 25-10 during their Sweet 16 run in 2018. They won a record 12 games away from Littlejohn Coliseum, including a record-tying six road games.

Seven of Clemson’s 12 wins away from home came against NCAA Tournament teams, one of those road wins was against the same Alabama team that beat the Tigers in the Elite Eight. Another was a win at then No. 3 North Carolina.

Clemson also finished the year with four wins over Associated Press top 25 teams, and all four came away from home, a new school-record. The Tigers defeated No. 23 Alabama in November, won at No. 3 North Carolina in February, and beat No. 14 Baylor and No. 9 Arizona in the NCAA Tournament.

“You want so badly for those guys to be successful. And obviously we all wanted to make a Final Four,” Brownell said. “But you just want your guys to have success because you care about them, and you watch them work so hard. And we go through frustrations and ups and downs.

“And basketball seasons are long. They’re long. There’s always long weeks and a couple of weeks that don’t go well. Our guys responded most of the time. Obviously after the ACC Tournament, a lot of people doubted us.”

They proved all of those doubters wrong.

Clemson’s run through the NCAA Tournament was impressive.

The Tigers were 17-0 this season when holding the opposition under 40 percent field goal percentage. That included a 3-0 mark in the NCAA Tournament.

In their first-round win over New Mexico, they forced the Lobos to shoot 19 of 64 (29.7 percent) from the field, including 3 of 23 (13 percent) on three-point shots. Baylor, who entered the tournament shooting 40 percent on three-point shots, was just 6 of 24 behind the arc and 21 of 54 overall (.389).

In Clemson’s Sweet 16 win over Arizona, the Wildcats made just 25 of 67 shots from the field (.373) and were 5 of 28 on threes (.179). For those three games in the tournament, opponents were 65 of 185 from the field (.351) and 14 of 75 from long range (.186).

None of that was by accident. That is how well the Tigers played in this year’s tournament and like the statistics above showed, that’s how well they played a good portion of the season.

“PJ said it, we really talked at the beginning of the year, a little bit, and in the middle of the year that we believed we could be a Final Four team. This was not an accident,” Brownell said. “One of my assistants was spouting stats that we had the hardest run (in the tournament). If you look at the NET rankings, we played the three toughest teams in the NET to get to this point.

“This wasn’t an accident. Our guys played great basketball.”

Yes, they did. And though the sting of Saturday night’s loss still hurts, eventually the pain of that sting will wear off and the memories of what was a great season will last forever.

A limited number of signed footballs from Clemson’s 2022 class are still available.  Get yours while supplies last!  Visit Clemson Variety & Frame or purchase online!