PHILADELPHIA– The world of college basketball has turned upside down.
Clemson is is 15-2 overall and 7-0 and in first place in the ACC after beating Duke.
Unranked and berated Kentucky defeats fifth-ranked Tennessee in Knoxville.
And 11 ranked teams lose on Saturday.
Nobody I know called Clemson when the season started, especially after the Tigers lost to South Carolina and Loyola of Chicago.
The sellout crowd at Littlejohn Arena knew the win over the young Blue Devils was special when they stormed the court.
“It’s fine,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said afterwards. “I want our students to have a great experience at Clemson and enjoy everything about it. I’d rather wait until we do something bigger. But it was fine. It was good.”
Brownell has bigger long-range goals. Clemson has not won an ACC regular season title since 1988-89, the only one in school history.
“Beating duke is a big deal. Obviously, it’s a storied program. It was big for us,” Brownell said. “There are a lot of good teams in our league, and we do not storm the court for all of them. Obviously, we are trying to get to the next level as a program. The
Next level for us to do continue to do those things.
”We have to see ourselves in a different light, you have to view yourself coming more equal with your peers.”
Brownell points out the Tigers have taken steps in the right direction in the last five years, ranking fifth in terms of wins. We are a better program than people have given us credit for,
“We don’t get a lot of credit. That’s fine. We don’t go to the tournament every year, but very few people do. But we are usually somewhere in the middle and I think we get respect from the coaches and the programs in this league because when you play us, you feel us.”
Most analysts have the Tigers– who were ranked 11th in the league’s pre-season poll, locked into the tournament at this point and should be ranked in the later part of the Top 25 after this storybook start to the league season.
Center PJ Hall led the Tigers, who overcame a 34-30 halftime deficit, with 26 points. Guard Brevin Galloway scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half.
The unsung hero of the game was Ian Schieffelin who was everywhere for the Tigers. Schiefflelin had six points, eight rebounds and a season high six assists. Schieffelin put himself in great position defensively all game and drew three charges.
Duke (13-5, 4-3) played without veteran starting point guard Jeremy Roach for a third straight game with a toe injury and it affected the Devils down the stretch. Clemson used a 12-3 run to turn a l54-53 deficit into a 65-57 lead with 1:25 to play to fuel Brownell’s 400th career victory.
This was the fifth time Clemson has come back from a halftime deficit to win and the fourth in ACC play. .
Clemson finished 17-16 and 8-12 inn the ACC last season and there were questions about whether Clemson had enough offense to win in this league. It didn’t help that Hall, the team’s leading returning scorer, underwent knee surgery over the summer. Hall’s minutes have decreased, but he stepped up in a big way with a breakout game against Duke amid an off day for leading scorers. Hunter Tyson and Chase Hunter. Hall kept the Tigers in the game with 18 points in the first half before Galloway produced a career high with a huge second half.
Clemson gets a break with no rematch against Duke and only one game against North Carolina and Virginia in the unbalanced ACC schedule.
As for Duke, they are young and this is Jon Sheyer’s first year. Getting Roach back should help. But the Devils, who made just 3 of 20 threes, will have to shoot better. Freshman center Kyle Filopowski finished with 22 points, but needed 22 shots.
