Brownell says he hurts for the fans, thinks getting left out of NCAAs doesn't make sense

Brad Brownell says the NCAA committee valued metrics over common sense.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Mar 14 06:00:16 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee decided not to include Clemson in the field of 68, dinging the Tigers for losses to Quadrant 4 teams and overlooking crucial wins on the road in the conference. To head coach Brad Brownell, that just doesn’t make sense.

According to the committee, Mississippi State, Pitt, Arizona State and Nevada were the last four teams in the NCAA Tournament field, while Clemson was regarded as the fourth team among the last four out with Oklahoma State, Rutgers and North Carolina.

After going 14-6 in the conference season, this is the first time an ACC team with a .700 conference winning percentage or better has not received an at-large bid since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The 14 conference wins set a school record for a single season.

At 23-10 overall, Brownell’s Tigers will host Ohio Valley Conference regular-season champion Morehead State as a 1-seed in the National Invitational Tournament on Wednesday (7 p.m./ESPN+).

Clemson defeated Pitt on the road and swept three games against NC State by an aggregate 65 points. Both made the field.

“To watch some of those teams get in and not us, I know that part of it was hard for me and it was really hard for our players,” Brownell said. “It is hard to justify that to your players. They don’t know all the metrics and all of those kinds of things. I don’t think it makes sense.”

Brownell, who Tigers athletic director Graham Neff said Monday would continue to coach the team, said Clemson made the mistake of not winning the games it needed to win and leaving it up to a committee.

“This has been a very challenging time, but again, we had chances to take care of our business and we didn’t,” Brownell said. “We left it up to the committee. Unfortunately, the metrics are more important than common sense or head-to-head and watching games.

“Unfortunately, we lost a couple of games that we probably should not have. We put it in the committee’s hands, and when you do that then sometimes you are not always going to get the call you want. It is like being at the end of the game and you are putting the ball in the referee’s hand at the end of a game.”

Clemson lost games against Louisville, South Carolina, and Loyola-Chicago that hurt its overall NET ranking. However, Brownell said the metrics are too subjective.

“I still, admittedly, feel like they made a mistake,” Brownell said. “It is hard to listen to some of things that are said. Basically, it was all metrics. That is what it looks like. The problem with that is that there are so many metrics that they just pick and choose. I said this a month ago that they just pick and choose whatever they want. Certainly disappointed and a little bit angry with what’s taken place here with the selection committee.”

Brownell said he hurts for his seniors who deserved the chance to play in the Big Dance, and he also hurts for the fans.

“I hurt for our fans, too, because the NCAA Tournament is a big deal,” he said. “And to be this close, we’d all love to be playing. I know our fans would love to be following us. I hurt for them as well.”