Clemson’s men’s basketball team didn’t exactly silence its detractors with its early exit from the National Invitation Tournament. But the Tigers’ latest omission from the NCAA Tournament – more specifically, the reasons why – have ruffled some feathers within the athletic department.

It’s also got the wheels spinning inside the head of coach Brad Brownell and his boss when it comes to the program’s approach to non-conference scheduling.

That’s because the Tigers’ slate outside of its 20 ACC games was one of the weakest in the country – and one of those reasons Clemson was bypassed for the second straight year for the tournament by a selection committee that’s setting a precedent of rewarding at-large teams for challenging themselves outside of conference play even if they don’t win the majority of those games.

Clemson’s non-conference strength of schedule ranked 316th out of 363 Division I teams, according to KenPom. And the Tigers didn’t do themselves any favors by losing to some of the worst competition they faced from a metrics standpoint, which Brownell and athletic director Graham Neff acknowledged was also a factor in Clemson being omitted from the tournament. 

Clemson took Quad 3 and Quad 4 losses to South Carolina and Loyola Chicago, respectively – and a conference loss to a four-win Louisville team only made things worse – but the Tigers bounced back to put together their best conference season of the Brownell era. Clemson won a program-record 14 ACC games during the regular season to finish third in the conference. Road wins over Virginia Tech, NC State and ACC co-champ Pittsburgh as well as a home victory over Duke were the highlights.

Yet none of that mattered much in the eyes of the selection committee, which didn’t have Clemson all that close to the bubble even after the Tigers made a run to the ACC Tournament semifinals. Clemson was the fourth team left out. Even North Carolina, which finished seventh in the league with just one Quad 1 win but had a top-25 non-conference strength of schedule, was ahead of Clemson in the committee’s First Four Out pecking order.

“I was surprised,” Neff said.

The more direct comparison for Clemson was NC State, a team the Tigers beat all three times they played. Clemson also had the same number of overall wins, more ACC wins and three more Quad 1 wins than the Wolfpack heading into Selection Sunday, but nearly 65% of Clemson’s regular-season games were played against the bottom two quadrants. Eleven of them came against Quad 4 competition.

Compare that to NC State, which played 17 of its 31 regular-season games against Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams.The teams ended the season with the same number of Quad 1 games (8), but NC State played 11 games in the second quadrant compared to Clemson’s five.

Brownell said he noticed something else interesting about the Wolfpack’s schedule upon closer inspection.

“NC State didn’t play a road game in non-conference,” he said. “They played a bunch of home games and four neutrals, which maybe that’s a good strategy. Maybe us playing the true road game at South Carolina was bad for us because we lost.”

The stronger slate gave NC State a metrics advantage over Clemson all season – the Wolfpack finished 15 spots higher in the NET rankings despite the teams finishing with identical overall records – and seemingly helped the Wolfpack comfortably make the NCAA Tournament as an 11 seed that wasn’t sent to Dayton for the play-in round. NC State was bounced in the first round by Creighton.

Meanwhile, Clemson was relegated to a No. 1 seed in the National Invitation Tournament, where the Tigers were upset by Morehead State at home in its tournament opener last week. 

“Most years, when you’re in the SEC, Big Ten and the ACC, you’re going to get enough Quad 1 and Quad 2 games,” Brownell said. “You’re still going to try to find a few in the non-conference, but you’re not going to go load up with eight. Half of that usually.”

Clemson played six home games, one road game and four neutral-site games in the non-conference this season. Brownell said he envisions that split remaining close to the same moving forward for season-ticket package purposes, but some of the non-conference scheduling is out of his control.

The conferences set the matchups in the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and third parties typically organize multi-team events, which are tournaments or showcases played at neutral sites. Clemson played in the Emerald Coast Classic back in November with Iowa, TCU and California, which Brownell and Neff think ultimately hurt the Tigers’ at-large case.

“We didn’t schedule that to get a 300 RPI game,” Brownell said. “It just fell in our lap.”

Clemson began that tournament with a one-possession loss to Iowa, which ended up being an NCAA Tournament team. So instead of getting another Quad 1 opportunity against TCU in its second tournament game, Clemson played and won a Quad 4 game against Cal, which is looking for its next coach after winning just three games this season.

“Maybe we don’t win that game (against TCU), so we’re 22-11 (instead of 23-10),” Neff said. “But the metrics of that, does that sway the NET and the strength of schedule? You can’t help but question that at this point.”

Penn State, Clemson’s ACC-Big 10 opponent, was the only top-100 NET team the Tigers played at home in the non-conference. Brownell said he may look into trying to schedule more home-and-home series with quality teams, but that’s easier said than done.

Even if a home and home with a Quad 1 or Quad 2 team is agreed upon, there’s no guarantee that team is still going to be the same caliber of opponent by the time those games are played, especially given the fluidity of rosters amid the transfer portal era. Clemson ran into that problem this season with Loyola Chicago (269 NET) and Richmond (159), both NCAA Tournament teams a year ago.

And with the NET rankings in effect, teams are going to be more inclined to play at neutral sites than in another team’s gym since they present a wider range of resume-building opportunity. Top-50 wins on neutral courts count as Quad 1 victories whereas only top-30 home wins fall into that category.

Brownell said he’s even been more aggressive in trying to get more neutral-site games on Clemson’s schedule in recent years.

“If they come here, it’s got to be top 75,” Brownell said, referencing the opponent’s NET range needed for home games to fall into the first two quadrants. “It’s hard to get into the top 75, and it’s hard to get a top-75 team to come. It gets really challenging. That’s why you see a lot of these neutral-site events take off.”

Neff said he expects non-conference scheduling to be a hot topic of conversation throughout the offseason.

“I do think, as a league, we’re going to take some time and talk to the commissioner in these  next coming weeks and in our spring meetings where head coaches and (athletic directors) are together and whether we bring in some experts or otherwise just to kind of talk on some of the analytics of it,” Neff said. “That’s absolutely needed.”

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