CLEMSON -- For two hours last Saturday afternoon, and then for days thereafter, Clemson fans wailed at the wicked improbability of North Carolina suddenly finding life, cohesion and a shooting stroke just when the Tigers came to town.
It felt so convenient to say you'd seen this movie before, because when you've lost 60 of 61 games in Chapel Hill that means some of those losses have happened in strange ways.
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In a three-game losing streak, the Tar Heels attempted 72 3-pointers and made just 16 of them. In 40 minutes against Clemson, the Tar Heels took 33 and made 15.
Hard to figure, right?
Well, maybe not.
Because Clemson just experienced somewhat of a similar phenomenon last night in its blistering domination of a withering, short-handed Florida State team.
Entering the game without their best player, the Seminoles needed some good fortune to hang in this one. They needed Clemson to not play very well, which seemed like a realistic proposition given that the Tigers had a recent habit of ... not playing very well.
Brad Brownell would challenge the notion that a three-game losing streak automatically equates to a streak of poor play. Because the Tigers did actually do some good things in a home loss to a good Miami team. And, as mentioned, Caleb Love and the Tar Heels were just really hot and made a lot of shots that the best defense in the world wouldn't stop.
Yet there still existed a troubling trend as Clemson stared down an opponent whose stature is so low in the NET rankings that a loss would've done significant damage to the Tigers' NCAA Tournament hopes.
Chase Hunter, who looked like Superman in Tallahassee two weeks ago to create the impression that he was totally back from a sprained ankle that sidelined him three games, had a rough go of it during the losing streak.
It's possible to play reasonably well overall, as the Tigers did against Miami, and also lose when your catalyst isn't playing well.
Hunter took 42 shots overall during the losing streak and made 10. Sixteen of those attempts were from beyond the 3-point arc, and just one made.
As it turned out, the week off last week didn't do much for the overall result as the Tigers' doors got blown off in Chapel Hill.
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That produced a flurry of negativity from the outside, as the familiar gripes about Brownell started to reappear here and there.
The effect of the losing skid was seen and felt last night entering the game as many people, including a bunch of students, opted not to attend.
Yet the Tigers' record still stood at 18-7 overall and 10-4 in the ACC. The Tigers were still contenders in the conference, something that almost never happens. And they still had a collection of high-level, mentally-tough players who continue to get healthier after a lengthy period of injuries and recoveries.
It would've been silly for Brownell to lose his cool and perhaps his mind too in his behind-the-scenes critiques of his team after Chapel Hill. It's hard to find a team out there that doesn't endure a rough stretch, after all.
The 13th-year head coach did use the time between Saturday and Wednesday to remind his team of the ingredients that produced such uplifting and invigorating success earlier in the season.
Perspective of what made them good. Perspective of what still makes this an exquisite opportunity, where in mid-February and this team a contender in the ACC.
"I put up a calendar from Richmond to Duke, and we were 7-0," he said. "We worked really hard during that time, and a lot of that time was during the break when we were going two-a-days.
"I just kind of reminded our guys that the reason you're still playing for special things right now is because that five-week period, all you thought about was Clemson basketball. We really poured into it, and we had an incredible five weeks. And as you get back to school and a lot of things happen, and distractions of that, and injuries and all kinds of things that can sidetrack you, in a long season you might get sidetracked for a week or two. It happens to a lot of teams -- most teams. We're still in a position to play for something special, but we need to have a good week. We've started off well on the first step of that, and now we've got to play well on Saturday."
Last night, the team played and acted like it knew it was going to be good despite the rough patch. They showed the emotional maturity that comes with a group that's this experienced, this connected.
PJ Hall had a magnificent stat line with 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting (4-of-4 from 3), six rebounds and an assist in 22 minutes.
The team overall was excellent at using skip passes to find the open man, as Hunter finished with six assists and Ian Schieffelin four.
The team totaled 18 assists, which was one more than the Tigers had in the narrow loss to Miami.
The difference was Hunter, who went 7-of-9 from the field and scored 18 points in 28 minutes.
Against Miami he was outclassed and outplayed by the opposing guards. Against Florida State he rose above everyone else.
Overall, Clemson shot 60 percent from the field and 48 percent from 3.
Four days earlier, the Tigers watched North Carolina shoot 48 percent from the field and 45 percent from 3.
When a team has good players, it should never be all that much of a surprise when they play well -- particularly when they're hearing about how well they haven't played during a three-game losing streak.
There was nothing all that mysterious about what happened in Chapel Hill, nor last night in Littlejohn.
A lot of it is just human nature. And if you have some humans who are good at basketball, you're probably going to be OK.
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