After suffering just its second loss of the season, Brad Brownell's Clemson Tigers will return home on Saturday looking to rebound against a very good North Carolina team.
The No. 16 Tigers lost 95-82 at Miami on Wednesday night, falling to 11-2 overall and 1-1 in ACC play.
Brownell knows that if his team is going to get things turned back around, they will have to play much better than they did against the Hurricanes, particularly in the second half. Miami shot 75% from the floor over the final 20 minutes of play.
"That's maybe as bad a defensive half as I've had as a coach," Brownell said. "We just didn't do any of the things that we wanted to. Had a hard time keeping the ball in front. Their shot making was ideal. We got a little spread and just one of the few times this year where we just kind of got out of sync. Just lost our flow on both ends."
The No. 8 Tarheels are coming in winners of three straight and fresh off of a 70-57 road win over Pitt on Tuesday that pushed their record to 10-3 overall and 2-0 in league play.
Clemson enters the contest having already won three games against Quad 1 competition, and if they are going to get a fourth at home on Saturday, they will need to be more efficient on both ends of the court than they were last time out.
"We were completely out of sorts and I didn't do a good job of getting my guys to calm down and relax," Brownell said. "This is this was probably the first time all year where we lost a little composure in terms of doing what we plan to do in the second half. A little bit on both ends."
Having already played five Quad 1 games, Brownell's team is no doubt battle-tested, and he is hoping to see more of that grit that led to early season wins over Alabama, TCU and rival South Carolina.
"We just didn't have a lot of grit and toughness and staying power in the game," Brownell said. "We we did not get the game grinding enough probably at times. The thing I've fought this team with occasionally is we have a lot of good offensive players, whose identity is probably more offensive minded than defensive minded. Sometimes that can work against us where we're not as bothered by being scored upon as some of my other teams. Because we think we can outscore them and we do usually. We scored 82 tonight that should be enough to to have a chance to win the game and we scored 82 and we really weren't in position to win the game."
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