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Clemson faces its stiffest challenge of the young season on Friday, as the Tigers (4-1) will square off with No. 25 Iowa in the Emerald Coast Classic in Niceville, Florida.

The Tigers come in fresh off a 72-41 romp of Loyola-Maryland, giving Brad Brownell's team three straight wins. The head coach has been mostly pleased with the how Tigers' have started the season, but at the same time, he's still looking for a complete game.

"We've won the last three," Brownell said. "I think we've played some good basketball at times, but we haven't put together for 40 minutes yet."

"I'm proud of the way our guys have bounced back. Won a couple of good games here at home just to, you know, get better, which we needed to do. Needed game experience for some guys. But offensively we've been pretty efficient. We're a new team still finding our way."

Through the first five games, the Tigers have been paced by Chase Hunter. The junior guard averages a team-high 16.2 points per game and has been red-hot from the perimeter, shooting 68% from beyond the arc.

Clemson is still waiting on veteran big man PJ Hall to round into form, though, as the junior forward is still battling back from an offseason knee injury. Hall has shown flashes of his old self at times and comes in averaging 10.5 points per game.

"I just think it's really hard," Brownell said. "Because our last visuals of him are playing unbelievably at the end of the season and his expectations are really high. And I think it's hard on him emotionally. I think he wants to play so well. There's times he's rushing himself a little bit. He just hasn't had as many reps, right, and it's normal."

The Hawkeyes come in unbeaten at 4-0. Fran McCaffery's team has already shown it can score in bunches, as Iowa comes in averaging 96 points per contest and shooting 40% from three. Their average margin of victory has been 31 points.

Despite the hot start, which includes a win over Seton Hall, McCaffery's message has been simple. Take it one game at a time.

"That's the only way you can survive the long season, especially with the schedule that's before us," McCaffery said. "Everything's going pretty smooth so far. We know that it's not always going to be like that. How do you handle adversity? I think a lot of guys have confidence in themselves so you have confidence in your teammates."

Junior Kris Murray had his coming out party in the win over Seton Hall, scoring a game-high 29 points. He followed that up with a career-high 30 point performance in a 100-64 win over Omaha on Monday. At one point he made 11 consecutive shots.

"It was easy buckets, I feel like," Murray said. "I had shots around the rim, just had to finish them. So I've never had a run like that, and it was kind of cool just to be in that moment."

With the Hawkeyes playing so well, it's allowed McCaffery to get some of his younger players more minutes, something he thinks will be beneficial with games coming up on back-to-back days down in Florida.

"I think the important thing was a lot of guys get minutes," McCaffery said. "We got Josh Ogundele minutes, Josh Dix, Dasonte Bowen, gotta get those guys ready because we'll play back to back. You're gonna need bodies. So I was pleased with that component. I think, for the most part, everybody's played well, sure there's been some mistakes but they locked into the game plan and executed the game plan and that's critical. As we move forward, and we start playing really good teams, you got to stay with a game plan and execute it. And they've proven that they can do that."

Clemson and Iowa are set to square off on Friday night in Niceville, Florida. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.

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