CLEMSON — Clemson heads into the Clemson Regional on a roll, but it wasn’t without a battle.

After a rough 3-6 start to the season, the Tigers bounced back and won their way into an ACC Tournament Championship, while taking down No. 5 Florida State along the way. Since that rough start to the year, Clemson is 41-6 since.

What changed? What reshaped their journey from a team everyone thought was rebuilding in 2025 to an ACC Champion.

“Lately, we’ve been using the saying, ‘Why not us, ’” pitcher Reese Bassinger said Thursday as the top-seeded Tigers get ready to host No. 4 USC Upstate in Game 2 of the Clemson Regional on Friday. “At the beginning of the year, we had a bad start. We weren’t ranked, and nobody expected us to win the ACC, and we were just like, ‘Why not us?’”

The catchphrase “Why Not Us?” for the Clemson Softball team was brought to life by student manager Mac McLaughlin, who holds a sign with the words and brings the energy in the dugout in every game. His cheers and encouragement caught on, and it quickly became a mantra the Tigers have competed with, which has ultimately helped put them over the top.

“He’s been our hype-man this entire season,” infielder Maddie Moore said. “He’s the one who has been screaming in the dugout. He’s the one who does the cheers…we came up with ‘Why Not Us’ when we were playing South Carolina and Tennessee, which were teams where people weren’t expecting us to win. We were like, ‘Why not us? We have nothing to lose,’ and that’s the most dangerous team that you can compete against.”

Ever since beating No. 8 national seed South Carolina on April 15th, the Tigers (44-12) have won 10 out of their last 11 games, including a road win over No. 7 national seed Tennessee and then last week’s ACC title win over No. 5 national seed Florida State.

In the last month, Clemson is the only team in the country to take down three national seeds.

To add to that, the Tigers have rallied to win the majority of those games. They rallied to beat South Carolina and Tennessee in nine innings, while also having late game heroics in a win at Georgia Tech in the regular season finale.

They got a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning from freshman Taylor Pipkins in the ACC Tournament to take down Virginia in the quarterfinals and then recorded the largest come-from-behind win in ACC Tournament history when they scored eight runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to beat Virginia Tech in the semifinals, after entering the inning down 9-2.

Clemson then got a two-run home run from sophomore Kylee Johnson in the top of the seventh inning to beat the Seminoles in the ACC Championship Game.

“We’re a good team and we’re good softball players, so why don’t we just go out there and do it?” Bassinger said. “I feel like it made us play a lot more free and to just know that we will pick each other up and have each other’s backs, and that if we set our mind to it, we can do anything.”

The Tigers look to continue that mentality against USC Upstate on Friday at 4 p.m..