The Clemson Tigers overcame a late deficit last night to defeat the Belmont Bruins 73-68 and advance to the semifinals of the NIT, and they’ll face the winner of tonight’s game between SMU and Cal next week. However, you’d think that the Tigers had just won the NIT Championship after fans stormed the court at Clemson’s Littlejohn Coliseum to celebrate their team’s 12th straight NIT home win. That’s right – they stormed the court. In an NIT game. That wasn’t the championship. Cool.
I’m not one of these debate-embracing sports shouters with opinions about everything from a player’s shoes to his hair, so I’m not going to sit here and wag my finger over the topic of court-stormin’. I’m cool with reasonable, safe court-stormin’ when an underdog team wins a conference championship or if a team full of nobodies from an unknown school upsets the best team in the country. But this? This is pretty weak, Clemson.
I will, however, allow it for now if Clemson players promise to deliver more postgame locker room dances like this one from Sunday’s 50-49 win over Illinois.
It’s also worth noting that Clemson’s KJ McDaniel had a hell of an alley-oop dunk against Belmont. This should be on several hundred top plays lists for this week.
