Some Interesting Takes & Expectations Going Into Next Year

Mar 6, 2020, 11:09 AM

Original post (January 6): If we go to Chapel Hill on Saturday and do the unthinkable, does that give Brad another year?

BengalBilly said:

That would definitely get him at least one more year.***

Original post (January 11):

BengalBilly said:

Brownell could lose every game to play this season and I'd still be for giving him another season now.

Hope the football team feeds off the energy.

Original post (March 4): "That’s it. I’m done. This team has no future under Brownell."

BengalBilly said:

What took you so long?

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Original post (January 14):

BrabbTiger22 said:

Brownell stays and needs a raise! I've seen this team every game and watched him try different things and finally finding success by offensively rebounding , pressuring, and back door screens. That my friends is coaching and we are finally seeing the chemistry of this team come alive. Go tigers! Keep the win streak going. Acc champs???Why not us????

Original post (March 4): "That’s it. I’m done. This team has no future under Brownell."

BrabbTiger22 said:

The fact the game plan had Mack and Trapp shooting 3s told me Brad wanted to lose. I'm done too. Women's softball has more consistency

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Original post (January 20):

jrsimps said:

Seems to me doesn't matter how great these past couple recruiting classes are or will be, brad doesn't know how to coach good players imo. Seems now would be a better time to find the right guy that can make them better. His buyout is less than it was. Let's just give him 2 more years. No thank you.

Original post (February 29):

jrsimps said:

Brownell acc coy??? I think it's between Brownell and Hamilton. We were preseason 11, now tied for 5th and fsu was picked 5th, now tied for first. Most every other team is around where they were predicted to be. Don't think Brownell has ever won the ACC coy award. Need to finish the season with a couple more victories. Funny unc was picked 2nd and they are in last.

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Oh, the emotions of a college basketball season. I'll just leave this here. Do with it what you wish.

If we go back to November, either prior to the season or after the first game against Virginia Tech, many of our "fans" posts would mention us being "lucky to win 10 games total", "winless in ACC play", and mocking our "World Championship" from the summer. The point I'm trying to make is...set your educated and reasonable expectations based off what information you have in front of you, and remember your reasons for setting those expectations. Why were we going to be "winless in ACC play"? Because we were young, inexperienced in the backcourt, undersized, etc. And yet, when we beat North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Louisville and Florida State, it's like many of you just expected some of the deficiencies of the team to disappear. Despite us winning those games, we were and are still a young team who lacks experience in the backcourt (despite having lots of potential and good talent, in my opinion). We are still undersized. Those things don't just disappear all of a sudden because we beat several good teams. They just allow you to forget it for a temporary time.

I'm looking forward to seeing how we close out the year tonight and perform in next week's tournament in Greensboro. The NIT was NOT the goal for last year's team, at all, and I'm disappointed in Brad for that season; though I'm also fully aware of the challenge that Shelton Mitchell's injuries presented to that team in particular. The NIT WAS always the goal, if there realistically was a postseason goal, for this year's team, and if we can get to that tournament, I'll be happy to see the youth of this team get a chance to develop in some kind of postseason play.

More importantly, long-term, I'm hopeful that recruiting has finally improved over the last couple of seasons (return on investment into our often-criticized facility enhancements) to the point that consistency will be easier to see and acknowledge with Brad Brownell's program moving forward. We will need to do some adjusting of ratios from the NIT to the NCAA Tournament (one of 2016-17 or 2018-19 really needed to be a NCAA Tournament season), but no missing out of the postseason since facility upgrades and staffing additions were made (2016-17) is an improved level of consistency when compared to completely missing the postseason in 2011-12, 2012-13, 2014-15 and 2015-16.

I look forward to crucial offseason development taking place in our players, particularly our many guards, and I'll have NCAA Tournament expectations for next season's team...one I believe will be Brownell's deepest team yet and will be very capable of making a run to at least the second weekend in our preferred tournament.

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I agree with this to a certain extent and definitely believe that you caught the premise.

My point was more so that there are, as @GWPTiger put it, many peaks and valleys to a season. But it is not logically fair to the coaches and/or players who receive criticism from fans to have expectations magically changed on them mid-season based off their outperforming of those expectations on specific occasions. Changing expectations mid-year for this team (to make the NCAA Tournament) due to its wins against the aforementioned good teams/programs is the logical equivalence of us expecting to score 180 points in the game against Virginia Tech the other night, all because we scored nine points in the first two minutes of the game. Despite the NCAA Tournament becoming a welcomed possibility (if the statistical outlier happened to come true and we continued to outperform expectations), it would never have been logical for a fan to then move to change his/her opinion of a coach or team simply because that team did not continue to outperform its original expectations.

Do I want better for Clemson basketball than what we have this season? Yes.
Do I think Brad Brownell can get our program to that point, from where he has the program right now? Yes.
Do I think it is his responsibility to capitalize on what momentum he does have to show forward progress over each of the next two seasons? Absolutely.

It's not unreasonable for our fans to want more. It's not unreasonable to want to be in the NCAA Tournament regularly.

When Dabo was given the head coaching job for the football program, it wasn't unreasonable for our fans to want more. What was most necessary was the realization that a process had to take place. We had to rebound and achieve buy-in with the players who were still here (2008), we had to show that the approach could lead to some success (2009), we had to struggle to realize our shortcomings as a program and encourage the evolution of our offense (2010), we had to realize, even though recruiting was on an uptick and trends were good, that we still had personnel issues defensively that needed to change and depth that needed to be established (2011), we had to prove the direction was the right one...to step through the door when it was presented to us (2012), we had to begin realizing who we would be as a program and establish that expectation for ourselves (2013), we had to capitalize on excellent recruiting and bring in a new wave of talent to begin to prepare to take the next step (2014), we had to SEE that the evolution had taken place (2015) and we had to kick the door in and say, "we've arrived." (2016).

That was a process. Just like Clemson Basketball will be a process. A different one...but one nonetheless. To continue moving forward is important, and I think we're doing that. 2018-19, to me, is the most frustrating season, despite my knowing we would struggle in 2019-20 by the time the buzzer sounded against Kansas in 2017-18. But this year showed lots of promise...a lot of potential. This year showed me our process that must begin. There are only steps forward now. Facilities are here. Support staff is here. Spending is still sub-par, but it's improved. For the first time I can remember, we're full-up going into an offseason (without a transfer out, we won't be able to take any transfers in). Goodbye to the complaints about "relying on the transfers" for recruiting. Two solid high school recruiting classes are on campus. One more is on the way. It's time. And an NIT birth would be a good building block.

Let's keep good, solid perspective. Sport can be frustrating for sure. You're allowed to be frustrated, but good perspective is required when holding a coach or team to those expectations you've set for them. Hence why there is a postseason meeting between Brad and Dan...perspective. Not emotion. I'd encourage as many fans as possible to try to do the same. You'd be much more likely to enjoy the season and recognize the positives towards the achieving of "the process" if you did.

Some Interesting Takes & Expectations Going Into Next Year

You uh have a lot of copy/paste "I Told You So(s)"

Re: You uh have a lot of copy/paste "I Told You So(s)"

Re: Some Interesting Takes & Expectations Going Into Next Year

It was definitely a season of peaks and valleys which

Re: It was definitely a season of peaks and valleys which

Re: It was definitely a season of peaks and valleys which

Re: It was definitely a season of peaks and valleys which

Re: Some Interesting Takes & Expectations Going Into Next Year

Re: Some Interesting Takes & Expectations Going Into Next Year

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