Clemson basketball left out of NCAA Tournament, named No. 1 seed for NIT

Despite a record-setting 2022-23 season, Clemson men’s basketball will be on the outside looking in for this month’s NCAA Tournament.

The tournament selection committee didn’t include Clemson in its 68-team field for March Madness announced Sunday. Clemson was the fourth team out behind Oklahoma State, Rutgers and UNC, in that order, according to the CBS broadcast.

“Heartbroken,” Clemson guard Brevin Galloway said in a tweet.

The Tigers (23-10) instead are a No. 1 seed in the National Invitational Tournament. They’ll host Morehead State at Littlejohn Coliseum in the NIT first round at 7 p.m. Wednesday (ESPN+).

Clemson has played in three NITs under Brownell, most recently after the 2018-19 season. As a program, this will be the Tigers’ 18th time in the NIT.

Clemson was seeking its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in 13 seasons under coach Brad Brownell and first since 2021.

Instead, the Tigers become the first team since 1999-2000 Virginia to earn a top 3 seed in the ACC Tournament and still miss the Big Dance.

The selection committee’s last four of 36 at-large bids went to Pittsburgh, Mississippi State, Arizona State and Nevada, all of whom were also considered bubble teams like Clemson.

Pittsburgh and Mississippi State will play on Tuesday and Arizona State and Nevada on Wednesday at the NCAA First Four in Dayton, Ohio. The winners will advance into the regular bracket as No. 11 seeds.

Clemson had a program-record 14 wins in ACC regular season play and landed two players, forward Hunter Tyson and PJ Hall, on the all-conference teams.

The Tigers were also a combined 7-6 in Quadrant 1 and 2 games as defined by the NCAA’s NET rankings, with three of their Quad 1 wins coming on the road or at neutral sites, and scored their first top 3 seed at an ACC Tournament for the first time since 2008 and only the second time since 1990.

But Clemson’s performance against Quad 3 and 4 teams and strength of schedule metrics hurt its résumé. The Tigers had Quad 3 or 4 losses to South Carolina, Loyola Chicago, Boston College and Louisville, and their non-conference strength of schedule ranked No. 334 out of 363 Division I teams.

That wasn’t necessarily Clemson’s fault. The Tigers’ 2022-23 non-conference opponents had a combined winning percentage of 59.1%, which was the second best mark for any ACC team’s non-conference schedule.

Clemson’s 11-game non-conference schedule included five road games, four games against Power Five teams (South Carolina, Iowa, Penn State and California) and two games against mid-major teams that qualified for the 2022 NCAA Tournament (Loyola Chicago and Richmond), per ClemsonSports.com.

But nine of those 11 games ended up as Quadrant 3 or Quadrant 4 games, and Clemson lost two within that grouping: to rival USC in November and to Loyola Chicago in December.

The Tigers also had a Quad 3 loss at Boston College and Quad 4 loss at Louisville in conference, two blemishes on an otherwise impressive stretch of ACC play. Clemson had nine ACC wins by 10-plus points (the most in the conference), and its 10-1 start was its best ever through 11 ACC games.

The Tigers ended up going a combined 5-0 against Pittsburgh and NC State, the last two of five ACC teams to make the NCAA Tournament. The Wolfpack, like Pittsburgh, earned a No. 11 seed after losing to Clemson in Thursday’s ACC tournament quarterfinals.

With Clemson missing the NCAA tournament, two men’s teams from the state of South Carolina ended up qualifying. CAA champion Charleston is a No. 12 seed and will play No. 5 San Diego State in Orlando, and SoCon champion Furman will play No. 4 seed Virginia as a No. 13 seed.

The ACC had five teams qualify: No. 4 seed Virginia, No. 5 Duke (which beat Virginia in Saturday’s ACC championship game), No. 5 Miami, No. 11 NC State and No. 11 Pittsburgh.

Clemson is losing first-team All ACC forward Tyson (15.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg) and guard Galloway (11.3 ppg) from this year’s roster, as both are fifth-year players who’ve exhausted their eligibility.

The Tigers are expected to return three starters — third-team All ACC forward PJ Hall, guard Chase Hunter and forward Ian Schieffelin — as well as fifth-year guard Alex Hemenway in what’ll be Brownell’s 14th season.