After a couple of weeks of coming up short in so-called “must-win” scenarios and trying to scratch and claw for every victory it can muster, conventional wisdom suggests that Clemson basketball’s recent swoon could cause an overflow of frustration and discontentment. While some of that exists, the Tigers’ head coach says one underlying fact has kept his team from wallowing.

“We haven’t played that poorly,” he said. “If we were playing really bad, then I think we might be a little more down or disappointed. We certainly aren’t happy.”

Clemson has lost three straight games and five of its last seven coming down the stretch, but one of those two victories came against Saturday’s opponent—Boston College—in a 65-54 home win that proved more difficult to achieve than most on the outside expected.

The struggle to easily earn wins has been a constant theme for Clemson since February began. Of the three times the Tigers have won on the hardwood since then, twice they rebounded from halftime deficits to win games against the worst teams in the ACC.

The Eagles, currently sporting an 0-17 record in league play, led the Tigers by three at the half in the teams’ first meeting in Greenville before Clemson wrested control and slowly pulled away. That halftime score has helped Brownell instill in his players a healthy respect for an opponent that could be otherwise easy to disrespect.

Brownell insists the Eagles will be even better this time out given the return of a pair of talented freshman wings from injuries. Jerome Robinson (nine games) and A.J. Turner (five games) both played integral roles in Wednesday’s one-point loss at N.C. State. Neither played in BC’s first meeting with Clemson.

“Their enthusiasm was at a much different level, because they got their roster back,” Brownell said of the Eagles’ most recent showing. “They’ve got two guys out there that are really good players, and I think they’re feeding off of those guys’ good play.”

The Tigers proved they could shut down spunky guard Eli Carter in the first meeting, holding him to only five points on 17 shot attempts. They had less luck containing veteran post presence Dennis Clifford, who had 17 points and eight rebounds. Brownell says it will be even tougher to contain Clifford now that two additional perimeter shooting threats are available on the wing.

“I don’t know that we can go send a bunch of people there because they shoot the ball so well from three that you’re going to give up a bunch of threes,” he said. “We’ve got to be careful that way.”

Since playing the Eagles, the Tigers have dropped three straight games. The season appears destined for the NIT, but the margin has been razor thin. Those three results went against Clemson by a combined 12 points.

In the regular season finale, they face a team looking to avoid a historically inept conference run on its Senior Day and playing with renewed confidence. Making critical plays down the stretch could be more important than ever.

“Basketball is a funny game,” Brownell said. “The timing of making shots and getting stops is really important. We just haven’t, for whatever reason, been able to kind of come up with a couple of big plays in all these close games.”