Clemson Men's Basketball Focused On Finishing Strong

The Clemson Men's Basketball team has only five games remaining in the regular season. They will need to win out to keep their hopes of making the NCAA tournament alive.

The Clemson Men’s Basketball team travels up to Newton, Massachusetts to play the Boston College Eagles on February 22nd. 

The Tigers will have had more than a six-day break between games, and are coming off another major upset of a top five program by beating the Louisville Cardinal’s 77-62 at Littlejohn Coliseum back on February 15th. 

After the great win against Louisville, the question started to be passed around on social media: If the Tigers could make the NCAA tournament this year?

Just the thought of this question being asked in late February is a testament to this team’s work ethic and determination to pull out big wins. 

However, this team was not supposed to be in that conversation. 

They lost four veteran starters from last year’s team and this year seemed to be on brink of being over before it started. However, the Tigers have managed to take down two top five teams this season and that has largely been due to the newly found aggressive play-style of their sophomore guard, John Newman III.

"My teammates and stuff and you, know people that have known me, they just tell me to stay aggressive because sometimes I can be passive,” Newman said. “My team and my coaches believe in me, they keep reaching me to stay aggressive and I appreciate them for that. Sometimes they believe me more than I believe myself and that kind of just keeps me going. I see what happens when I'm aggressive and it helps our whole team."

With only five games left, the Tigers must take advantage of every opportunity and even have a little luck go their way in order to make it to the NCAA tournament. 

According to teamrankings.com, Clemson currently has only an 8.3% chance of making the tournament but even a one-in-a-million chance is a chance. The tournament has to have a Cinderella story, why not one that wears orange?

The Tigers will have an unfavorable schedule for the last five regular-season games because three of the five are road games and one of the two remaining home games is against an extremely talented Florida State team. By the time the Tigers and Seminoles play, it will have been over two years since Clemson has beaten the Seminoles.

Brad Brownell’s team has played much better at home posting a 10-5 record while only a 2-6 record on the road. Road wins are tough, especially in the ACC and with that being said, the last 2.5 weeks of the regular-season may feel like a never-ending gauntlet.

Junior point guard Clyde Trapp understands that it will be important to win every game going forward to have a chance at the tournament.

"Like John (Newman) says we kind of have like the next game, next play mentality,” said Trapp. “Every game counts. We are trying to go into every game saying to win it regardless of what happens in the future we're trying to take care of present time"

While veteran leader Aamir Simms says he just wants to finish strong.

"Keep hammering at the nail, even though we have those losses that we probably shouldn't have. For us to keep coming out and preparing and just be ready to fight every game," Simms said. "That was just something special about this team that started back in Italy. It's just important for us down the stretch, the next few games, to just keep playing one game at a time and not get ahead of ourselves and just finish on a strong note."