For the fourth time in its last five games the Clemson basketball team had its doors blown off.
The latest loss came on the road to Duke 79-53 in another game that just wasn’t very competitive from the opening tip. The Tigers had 13 turnovers that Duke turned into 25 points.
“Disappointing day today,” Brad Brownell said. “Took another step back after we took a step forward with a great win against Louisville. Our number one objective in the game was to keep Duke out of transition, I think they’re very good that way and we didn’t do any of that. You know, our turnovers, 25 points off turnovers. I mean, you can’t give them confidence. It just puts you in a huge hole.”
After starting the season 10-1 and rising to No. 12 in the polls, Clemson has now lost four of five after having to pause all team activities for eight days due to a positive Covid test. So what has gone wrong?
“Our lack of making shots is becoming a problem in all these games,” Brownell said. “Our guys just lose most of their spirit after a while and there’s some guys that haven’t made shots in two weeks. So we got to get back in the gym, we got to find a way to get these guys some baskets. They’re gonna have to step up and make some shots so that they can continue to have some juice.”
Let’s face it, not making shots is always going to be an issue when you are talking about basketball but this Clemson team has never been great when it comes to shooting the basketball. This team makes its living off of its defense.
“We’re not getting offense off our defense,” Brownell said. “We were getting some more offense off our defense earlier in the year and for whatever reason the last couple of weeks we haven’t been able to do that.”
If this team is going to find the magic again, it has to start on the defensive end. And it needs be be soon.
