Brad Brownell discusses need for Clemson to rise in NET Rankings

Clemson is currently ranked 74th in the NCAA NET rankings, a key component to determining the NCAA Tournament field. Head coach Brad Brownell is no fool: He knows the Tigers need to keep climbing those rankings in the final weeks of the season.

After a win against NC State on Saturday, that’s likely to happen for Clemson. But Brownell recalled a pregame conversation with Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts, where the duo reflected missing the 2019 NCAA Tournament, despite both squads ranking in the 30s of the NET.

“I think it was, they were 33 in the NET and we were 35, and neither one of us made it,” Brownell said. “And I know our thing was we didn’t have Quad 1 wins or whatever it was. We had maybe one. We were like 1-9 against Quad 1. We didn’t have the bad losses, but we only had one Quad 1 win. So 35 in the NET wasn’t enough. 33 in the NET wasn’t enough. It’s crazy. Now this year, I don’t know, this is like our fourth Quad 1 win. Unfortunately we haven’t been to schedule as many of those games as we would like. Some of the teams in the league haven’t been — there haven’t been as many Quad 1s there. A couple games we tried to schedule, you can’t predict at all.”

He continued: “But now we’ve got a couple of the bad losses. So now that’s going to be our bugaboo this year. Right now it is. You almost feel like they’re looking for some reason not to put you in.”

Injuries play a part in masking the true potential of a team, Brownell said. He pointed to injuries to PJ Hall, Brevin Galloway and others disrupting the continuity of the Clemson line up this season.

In a related matter, wins and losses come at different points in the calendar, and the quality of one opponent can vary from game-to-game. There are plenty of other factors, too. As an example, Brownell used Clemson’s Feb. 18 loss at Louisville.

“Louisville is not a Quad 4 team. We played Louisville in front of 16,000 people when they’re honoring their 2013 national championship team. The building was on fire. And it was not a Quad 4 game. Now, it is in theory, but they sure didn’t play like many Quad 4 teams, I’ll tell you that,” Brownell said. “So there’s some challenges to it, there’s a lot of efficiency numbers involved that I think, occasionally, that can mislead some things. I hate it for our league because there’s a lot teams, I think, are top eight or nine teams playing in any other league in the country.”