No. 11 Clemson’s dream regular season can end in historically when Tigers hosts Virginia Tech on Saturday night.
Clemson (25-5, 17-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) needs a victory against Hokies on Senior Day to surpass the regular season’s victory a total of 1986-87 tigers for most in program history. Clemson, who has won his last seven, has already set the school record for most conference victories in a single campaign.
“Of course, I would be surprised,” said Tigers coach Brad Brownell when asked on Thursday if he saw this type of impressive record come before the season.
“I thought we had a chance to have a good team. Are we 17-2 now in the league? I don’t know I thought we would be.”
Brownell, who started at Clemson during the 2010-11 season, led the tigers to last year’s NCAA tournament and within a game to reach Final Four as a No 6 seed and fell to Alabama 89-82 in Elite Eight.
“You just train your team, hope your team is good enough to give you a chance to play important games at the end, and this team has done so,” Brownell said.
Clemson’s latest victory-a victory 78-69 at Boston College on Wednesday-was still in balance late before Victor Lakhin took two important offensive rebounds to prevent an Eagles comeback bid. The Cincinnati transfer ended with 11 points and 13 Returns-Hans fifth doubles of the season-while former Boston College star Jaeden Zackery made a gaming high 21 in his return to his former school.
Brownell provides a lot of credit for this season’s success to his two transfers who will make their NCAA tournament debut later this month.
“Just talk to how competitive he has been,” Browell said of Lakhin’s late recovery efforts.
“He and Jaeden are both guys who really want to go to the tournament. You can feel it. I think it is part of the reason why they came to Clemson. They are both very hungry to try to be a tournament team. Of course we will be there this year and it is because of games like it.”
Zackery, who published a career pile of 22 points in a victory over Clemson in the 2024 ACC tournament, said he is still focused on closing the regular season before letting himself in NCAA tournament scenarios.
“I’m definitely excited but frankly, I’m not looking at it right now,” Zackery said.
Virginia Tech (13-17, 8-11) hopes that life on the road continues to be kind. Hokies have changed profits and losses during their last four matches but suffered their heaviest defeat of the season on Tuesday in a home loss at 91-59 to North Carolina.
Despite the losing record overall, Virginia Tech is 5-4 from home in the league.
For coach Mike Young, who has not had a losing campaign since he arrived at Virginia Tech for the 2019-20 season, sales were the main reason for a close match before half quickly turned into a 46-29 deficit for hokies.
“It’s really troublesome and I haven’t been able to correct it,” Young said after Hokies committed 12 turnover, one below their ACC league’s leading average of 13 in conference games.
“It’s very frustrating for me. I don’t know I’ve had it in my 23 years and it keeps me up at night.”
Jaydon Young, who had recently made an outbreak of 27 at Miami and 26 against Syracuse, led Hokies with 12 points on 4-AV-15 shooting against North Carolina but struggled from the outside by missing eight 3 points.
Clemson won the first meeting 72-57 on January 25 in Blacksburg, VA.
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