CLEMSON -- The fruition of everything we thought this team could be came forth Tuesday night.
The denizens of Chapel Hill might talk of the sleepwalk that followed the post-Duke bar crawl, and there's really nothing wrong with that: Clemson can thoroughly impress while North Carolina looks well less than its best.
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If you look at the Tigers' record heading into Saturday's visit to Syracuse, it's 15-7 overall and that adds up to 22 games.
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So it's been basically an even split between excellence (11-0 start) and some surprising raggedness, with some bad bounces and bad calls sprinkled in.
What casual observers saw in Chapel Hill might've been surprising, but it shouldn't have been to anyone who has closely followed this Clemson team.
Honestly the big splash should've come 10 days earlier, on their previous trip to Tobacco Road.
They committed four consecutive turnovers in Cameron when the knockout punch was there to be had, and then they were justifiably enraged by some sketchy calls by the officials.
To us, at least, it felt like the Tigers had something extra three nights ago when they were 11 miles away from Durham.
What was the source of it?
You could argue it was the home loss to Virginia at the buzzer on Saturday.
You could argue it was simply the losing ways that simply weren't expected back when this team was outplaying Alabama in their gym, beating a good South Carolina team at home, going to Pittsburgh and winning, and leaving a 15-round fight at Memphis with a loss but with everyone's respect.
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Six losses in 10 games in ACC play? No, this team was supposed to be better than that.
But even as it was fair to wonder and even criticize, it was probably not wise to bury this team and say all hope was lost.
Not with the capital that had already been built with the NCAA selection committee, a sharp departure from last season.
And not with the prideful, seasoned warriors who stepped off the bus at the Dean Dome on Tuesday night.
To us it felt like this group, particularly Ian Schieffelin, was dead set on making amends for what happened in Durham. It was Schieffelin who committed those four consecutive turnovers after Clemson had the ball and a four-point lead, bringing the conclusion that this team still wasn't really ready for primetime.
Brad Brownell didn't think it was a thirst for atonement, from Schieffelin and others, that fueled them to withstand every Tar Heel charge.
He attributed it more to the reason Clemson can be a really good team: It has a group of players who have been through a lot of wars, and a lot of settings like the one they emerged successfully from in Chapel Hill.
So where do they go from here? It's OK to wonder. It's OK if you still have some reservations, even as Brownell is responsible for the only two wins in Chapel Hill in Clemson's history.
But it's also OK to resume thinking big -- as in, not just getting to the NCAA Tournament but actually doing something once there.
The schedule sets up well, as after this trip to New York the Tigers have five home games in their final eight regular-season contests.
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Can this team still lose if it doesn't shoot the ball well, or if it doesn't defend as doggedly as it did Tuesday night, or if it gets nothing from its bench? Of course.
But does this team also have a nucleus of players who seem to know how to turn it up for the biggest moments?
Indeed it does.
The bar of expectations is set uncommonly high for this team, this season.
The Tigers are showing reasons to think they can reach it.
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