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CLEMSON -- Clemson basketball fans are intimately familiar with what it looks like to see a team lose itself and its confidence.

When a 9-1 record became 10-5, with enough ugliness in the four losses to last an entire season, it seemed sensible to look back at a prolonged break as the culprit.

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The team was hot before having to shut it all down as a result of a positive COVID test. Eleven days between games brought a spiral that looked potentially defining.

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Now the ship appears righted, with three wins in the past four games. But now they're coming off another lengthy break, this one six days since last Saturday's convincing win over Syracuse.

Any concern there? Brad Brownell didn't project any as he pondered the layoff ahead of tonight's home game against Georgia Tech.

And he highlighted a clear and important distinction between this break and the previous one.

"COVID breaks are different," he said. "I mean your guys aren't doing anything. I mean you're sitting in rooms by yourself.

"It's hard, folks. This is a hard year for a lot of reasons. There's no outlet for these kids. It's like basketball, school, your room. So when it's just your room then, it's hard. It's just the morale of your team, it goes up and down. The morale of kids, some of it is based on their play and some of it could be on other things."

So the current time between games has been spent doing more normal team-specific things, though Brownell's team did need some rest after playing four games in 10 days.

After last week's win over North Carolina, Brownell gave his team the next day off. He said that played a role in a number of his players being fresher in preparation for the visit from Syracuse.

"It was our first off day in like 10 or 11 days," he said. "Our guys just needed a break. We just needed, like, to get away and let the kids decompress and physically recharge. Then you get two good days of practice and you're ready to go again."

Brownell planned to back off in similar fashion early this week before getting into full-scale preparations for Georgia Tech, which hit 16 of 26 3-pointers on Jan. 20 in an 83-65 win.

The rest was most important for the guys who were on the floor the most last week: Clyde Trapp played almost 36 minutes against Syracuse and just short of 35 against North Carolina. Aamir Simms played a total of 67 minutes in the two victories.

Nick Honor has also played more of late, totaling 51 minutes in the past two games compared to less than 17 minutes in each game for Al-Amir Dawes.

"It's much different than COVID where maybe you're in your room for four days and you can't really do anything," Brownell said. "It's a much different break than a COVID break."

Georgia Tech, meanwhile, has a short turnaround after Wednesday's 57-49 home loss to Virginia.

After knocking off Florida State in Atlanta on Jan. 30, the Yellow Jackets lost 74-58 at Louisville and beat Notre Dame 82-80 before the defeat against Virginia.

Georgia Tech (9-7, 5-5) missed 17 of 21 shots from long range Wednesday night.

After tonight, Clemson (12-5, 6-5) has three consecutive road games against Notre Dame, Pitt and Wake Forest.

"I think it can be fine," Brownell said of the break. "You are playing well, so you hope to build on that. Really, three out of our last four games we played really well. We've fought and beat some really good teams. So I'm really proud of those guys."

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