Cal Set to Face Clemson, The ACC's Most Underrated Hoops Program

Cal is about to test itself against what is certainly the most underrated men’s basketball program in the ACC.

Clemson has a well-deserved reputation as a football school, but coach Brian Brownell’s 20th-ranked basketball team (19-4, 9-1 ACC) has been even better.

The Tigers’ recent performance compares quite favorably with that of blue blood powerhouse North Carolina. Clemson is 93-34 the past four seasons; the Tar Heels are 90-39. Among ACC programs, only Duke has more victories over the past four years than Clemson.

In fact, the Tigers’ basketball team has a better winning percentage (.732) over that span than its football program (.685).

While Clemson is positioned to earn its third straight NCAA tournament bid, Cal (17-6, 5-5 ACC) is chasing its first since 2016. The Bears host the Tigers on Saturday at Haas Pavilion with a 5 p.m. tipoff.

A victory over the only team left on their schedule with a winning conference record would provide a big boost for the Bears. Cal actually dropped five spots to No. 55 in the NET computer rankings after its 90-85 win over Georgia Tech, which is tied for last place in the ACC standings.

Clemson is No. 31 in the NET, so a win Saturday likely vaults the Bears a few rungs.

The Athletic lists the Bears among five ACC teams that are “in the mix” for an NCAA bid. Here’s what the author, Jim Root, said in his profile of Cal’s season to date:

Profile Strengths: Three Q1 wins, zero bad losses.

Profile Weaknesses: Awful nonconference strength of schedule, 4-6 against top two quadrants.

Looking Ahead: Mark Madsen has the Golden Bears in contention for an NCAA Tournament bid in his third season, a major accomplishment considering their last appearance was in 2016. They still have plenty of work to do, starting with a huge home date against Clemson on Saturday. Picking off the Tigers would be massive, because Cal’s nonconference performance does not offer much to fall back on.

This won’t be an easy one for the Bears — few games have been. Cal has won four of its past five games, Clemson has prevailed in 12 of its past 13.

And Clemson owns a 13-game road winning streak in conference play, including a 5-0 start away from home this season (albeit against five opponents with sub-.500 ACC records). Cal will pits its 13-2 home record against that streak.

The Tigers were 27-7 a year ago, 18-2 and tied for second with Louisville, just one game back of Duke. They beat the Blue Devils in their one meeting a year ago and lost to them by a single point in 2023-24.

Brownell’s team is big, physical and adept at playing defense.

The Tigers rank second in the ACC in scoring defense, allowing just 64.5 points per game. They seem well-equipped to challenge one of Cal’s strengths — 3-point shooting.

The Tigers lead the ACC in 3-point field-goal percentage defense at .295. Cal is second in 3-point accuracy at .374 and over its past five games is at .448 (56 for 125).

Clemson sends out a frontline of RJ Godfrey (6-7, 240), Jake Wahlin (6-10, 210) and Carter Welling (6-11, 240), which combines to produce about 32 points and 17 rebounds. Coming off the bench is Nick Davidson (6-10, 235), who had 16 points in the Tigers’ 66-64 win at Stanford.

Cal faces the prospect of taking on that group without starting big man Lee Dort (6-10, 240), who missed his third straight game due to injury on Wednesday.

“Lee is big, strong physical. Clemson is big, strong, physical,” Cal coach Mark Madsen said after the Georgia Tech game. “Lee’s progressing pretty well.”

Without him, Madsen has pieced things together up front using a combination of 6-9, 240-pound graduate Milos Ilic, 6-11, 240-pound sophomore Mantas Kocanas and 7-foot, 210-pound redshirt sophomore DK Dut.

Ilic, who has started the past three games, finished strong against Tech to post 11 points and nine rebounds, including 7 for 7 at the free throw line. But the native Serbian is foul prone, having accumulated 18 fouls the past four games, earning disqualification in two of them.

Kocanas, who comes from Lithuania, still is developing and also struggles with fouls. Dut, from South Sudan, has been effective at times in short spurts and scored the winning basket at Miami last Saturday.

“We have depth at that position and that’s helped us,” Madsen said.

Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky

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