Why Clemson Basketball's Win Over No. 24 Louisville Could Be The Biggest Win of the Season

Clemson basketball entered Littlejohn Coliseum on Saturday morning with a four-game losing streak. Later that day, the Tigers would leave with their biggest win of the season thus far for multiple reasons.

Head coach Brad Brownell’s group won 80-75 over the No. 24 Louisville Cardinals for their second ranked win of the season. The win snaps the four-game skid and gives the Tigers momentum going into a pivotal matchup with No. 18 North Carolina on Tuesday.

However, there are bigger reasons than just a win to snap Clemson’s streak: it makes the Tigers an essential lock for the NCAA Tournament, if there was any doubt. Brownell’s team was circling around a No. 9 seed, according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi after circling around a No. 5-6 seed since the beginning of the season.

Clemson’s winning recipe of defense happened once again. The Tigers limited the Cardinals to just 45.3% from the field while winning the turnover margin 11 to nine. It gave the group its 11th win in ACC play after waiting since the middle of the month of February to get there.

That’s not how the players are looking at it though, just focusing on the Tar Heels on Tuesday in what would be a special way to bounce back after the two-week skid.

“We’re really not trying to look at when the next few games we have left, you know,” Jestin Porter said after the game. “Yeah, we got to win UNC then on to Georgia Tech too, but we’re just focused on the next one.”

While it wasn’t perhaps a “must-win” for Clemson, Brownell thought that the energy and the implications made it a “very important” matchup, regardless of the opponent.

“Very important game, you know, like losing at home,” he said. “Feel bad for our fans that they've come out the last couple times we haven't been able to win. . .you want to play well for your fans.”

Saturday’s contest was a battle between two teams with a record of 10-5 in conference play, being a pivotal game for the No. 4 position in the ACC, which would be the final double-bye spot in the ACC Tournament in two weeks.

That will include a matchup against the Tar Heels, who will be competing for that same spot for the remainder of the season. However, favorable schedules for Clemson could have other teams do its work for it. A win on Tuesday would cement the position, and the Tigers would do it by themselves.

Despite all of these implications, Brownell wants his team to stick to its identity as the team heads into the postseason, most likely heading to both the ACC and NCAA Tournament as much begins on Sunday.

“I know, just to kind of feel like, ‘Hey, get a little bit of our swagger back, and now we've got to go play a great team in North Carolina at their place,” the head coach said. “So just stay confident, keep working, make sure our preparation is really good.”

Senior RJ Godfrey is glad to be out of the skid, though. He said that Brownell warned the group that the building felt like “sunshine and rainbows” after the West Coast trip, and the adversity brought the team back to where it should be.

Now, it’s all about stacking the wins that the short regular season has remaining.

“It's part of it,” Godfrey said. “Losses are part of the game. But I'm glad we bounced back and responded today.”

The Tigers will be back in action in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Tuesday, and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.