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Even after N.C. State made both free throws to make one, the Tigers still had a chance in approaching the ball to their best open floor player with 2.6 seconds to go.
And of course, Reed's 3-point long pointer does not come close to it.
That's the other team that is soaring this desperation against Clemson. Apparently every time.
It's just one of those seasons for Brad Brownell and tigers. One in which they lost six games by one or two points.
Now they fall to 19-13 and 9-10 in the ACC games. They will make a long trip back from Charlotte. And a long and painful wait by Sunday night, where they will learn if their work is enough to include an NCAA tournament.
Since Florida State coached home on February 19, the Tigers have played well overall. They won four of six, and both losses were a total of three points to North Carolina and N.C. State.
Both losses were controversial. The referees did not whistle a foul on North Carolina when there was a contact with a Shelton Mitchell driver. They called these faults against Clemson today, while contact was minimal or nonexistent.
This undoubtedly leaves a bitter taste for a team that could neither catch a break nor a call during all these defeats. And the taste is all the more miserable as two rivals from Tobacco Road were on the safe side of the dubious calls both times.
(And that does not even count the miraculous victory of N.C. State on Clemson, sealed on a pointer at the last second of 3 points – and on four consecutive free throws missed by Reed).
But if indeed today's defeat at Charlotte costs Clemson a trip to the NCAA tournament, the final conclusion of this season will not be how the Tigers were screwed by the referees.
It will be how much the Tigers were so close to being really good, and yet so far away.
Brownell has projected over much of the year a mixture of concern and surprise about the offensive inconsistency of this team. Losing Gabe DeVoe was a bigger deal than most people expected. The Tigers might look good on stretching, but they could also slip into the funk for other periods.
This dichotomy was presented in color on Wednesday. They could not miss in the first half, making seven of their first eight attempts at three points and a climb of 18 before taking a 42-26 lead into the locker room.
But they seemed to fall in love with long distance shooting. Part of these problems were huge problems for Thomas, who then transferred the burden to the guards. Part of that was that Reed did not look like himself and was missing shots that he almost always realized.
At 3:12 pm, Reed made a lay-up to give Clemson the number 51-37.
Clemson's next goal came with 3:57 to go. The Tigers missed 14 consecutive shots before Reed was finally connected. And at that time, the N State had devoured the deficit and was up four.
According to our calculations, this equals 11 minutes and 15 seconds without a basket.
According to our calculations, it is bad.
After his team defeated Syracuse in the final of the regular season four days ago, Brownell said his team appeared to clearly belong to the NCAA Tournament and that it was hard to disagree .
But the team that only made six of the 31 field goal attempts in the last 20 minutes – including 1 in 10 out of 3 – did not convincingly demonstrate that it needed to be on the field .
"We obviously did not do very well in the second half," Brownell said. "I thought the kids from both teams were really involved at a very high level, proud of the way our guys fought and really disappointed with the end of the game, really disappointed with the way the match ended." Too many things at stake for things to end like this. "
D & # 39; agreement.
But it is also reasonable to say that the stakes are too important for them to play as they did for most of the second half.
Perhaps they can still enter the tournament and be able to work on the magic of the month of March, to erase the pain of all those painful losses.
In the moment, however, this seems to define.
This team was so close, so many times.
The law of averages suggests that these types of games are fair.
The Clemson basketball law in 2018-2019 suggests that this will not happen.
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