Late-season grind
Winning takes care of almost everything, and six wins in seven games allowed everyone on the outside to gloss over the wear and tear of a Clemson basketball season.
In the immediate aftermath of an impressive, gritty win over Pittsburgh, PJ Hall and Ian Schieffelin were able to politely brush off questions about the injuries that kept them from practicing for weeks.
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But even in that moment, in the back of your mind you wondered: Are the bumps and bruises of a long season going to end up catching up to this team? Is this team truly fit for bigger grinds that are coming?
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Fair questions that don't have a lot of conversational shelf life in the midst of wins -- but then become much more of a thing when the head coach makes them a thing following a loss at Notre Dame.
The obvious casualty of this 69-62 defeat Saturday night was an important notch in the belt for a prized double-bye in the ACC Tournament. Wake Forest had lost to Virginia Tech earlier in the day to enhance the opportunity for Brad Brownell's team.
Yet the Tigers' 14th-year head coach walked away more concerned about the rudimentary things.
"Certainly we would love to get the bye, but I don't like playing poorly," he said. "We didn't play well enough to win."
And the origin of that is in what happened before Clemson even left for South Bend.
As in, not a lot.
The Tigers simply weren't able to get a lot done in practice in the days after the Pitt victory.
Hall, who had sat at practice for the better part of a month, returned Thursday and practiced 20 minutes.
But Brownell said he was one of just seven healthy players who practiced.
Jack Clark, the catalyst for the team's improved defense of late, was out with an illness and didn't play against the Irish.
Brownell seemed perturbed about the focus and drive of the guys who were available, though.
"I'm frustrated because I don't think we had great practices leading in here," he said. "I'm not that kind of coach. I believe in work."
The Tigers, at 20-9 overall and 10-8 in the ACC, now find themselves with work to do after watching Notre Dame celebrate its 12th win overall and its seventh in ACC play.
Syracuse visits Littlejohn for Senior Night on Tuesday, and then it's on to Winston-Salem four days later.
Big moments are coming, followed by even bigger ones.
On plenty of occasions this season, this team has shown us reasons to think it is made for these moments. Whether in Tuscaloosa or Memphis or Chapel Hill or in its own gym, Clemson has built confidence and hope that it can not only get to the NCAA Tournament but stay for a while once there.
That's really the unspoken expectation, right? Because as much as the conversation about Brownell has centered on his inability to produce NCAA Tournament appearances, it feels like an appearance alone this season, with this team, will not bring the desired satisfaction.
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And maybe that's what Brownell has been getting at recently with some of the motivational buttons he's pushed with this group.
A couple of weeks ago it was reminding them of the passion and the all-consuming desire they showed back in November and December when everything felt fun.
Maybe last night it wasn't necessarily reminding them of what conspired to defeat them at Notre Dame, but what could eventually conspire to leave them looking back at what might have been for the season as a whole.
Maybe it all comes down to shooting, and had the Tigers done better than miss 23 of 28 shots from 3-point range at Notre Dame we'd be talking of them seizing the opportunity.
Maybe Clark's absence was the crucial factor, and once he's back everything is fine and this ends up a footnote.
Maybe Hall's improving health, and increased practice time, leads to him putting full games together moving forward as opposed to his 16 points before halftime last night, followed by just five thereafter (he missed 8 of 10 from 3).
It could well be that what happened last night doesn't really fit much into the overall story of a team accomplishing big things.
But the topic of wear and tear over a season feels like a bigger deal here now on the third day of March.
Especially when the head coach himself is bringing it up after a game.
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