"Poise & Preparation" Key for No. 25 Clemson Basketball's impressive start

CLEMSON -- For the first time in eight years, Clemson basketball will play a game at home as a nationally ranked team.

The No. 25 Tigers take on 11-3 Louisville this Saturday afternoon. The Cardinals are 0-2 this season in games played on the road.

“They are off to a good start,” head coach Brad Brownell said Friday afternoon. “(They have) exceptional length in the front-court, one of the best shot-blocking teams in our league and really in the country. They have experienced guards like (Quentin) Snider and (Deng) Adel.

“Those guys are used to winning and are playing similarly to how they played under coach (Rick) Pitino.”

Even with the recent scandal that turned the college basketball world upside down and left Louisville without a head coach, the Cardinals are still the same team in Brownell’s eyes.

“They still have great players,” Brownell said. “They got all those guys back from a lot of winning teams: Snider, Adel, and those big guys inside. Those guys were all there last year, and they handled us. I think their staff has done a great job.”

Clemson is currently 13-1 and riding a 9-game winning streak. Its most recent win came on the road against Boston College in a game that ended up being tight at the end.

It was a game that last year’s Clemson team may have let slip away.

“Poise and preparation,” head coach Brad Brownell said on what he felt has been the key to Clemson’s 9-game run. “I think our guys have been extremely focused in preparation for games… I also think it is just the poise to make big plays when big plays need to be made.”

Brownell was complimentary of how his team has been winning in different ways, especially being able to close games down the stretch like against Florida and Boston College.

With the amount of extremely close losses, the Tigers had last season, any time Clemson is on the winning side of close games this year builds confidence.

“We were a little snake-bit last year,” Brownell said. “Some things just didn’t go our way. Sometimes, things were our fault. Other times, it was just tough luck.

“There’s a little bit of an overreaction. That’s why I have been a little defensive of our team the last year because I don’t think we are a bad team. We won a lot of games in the non-conference, we were extremely close in the best league in college basketball. We weren’t good enough last year, but we weren’t a bad team. We were a good team that had some bad breaks.”

This year, Brownell hopes his team will continue to catch some good fortune as the season continues.

Brownell: “When good things happen to you, and you make some plays, sometimes that does help your confidence, and we are optimistic that will continue to happen for us this year.”

No. 25 Clemson hosts Louisville at 12:00 in Littlejohn Coliseum Saturday afternoon.