CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — There was no part of Brad Brownell that wanted to sugarcoat it. No part of the Clemson men's basketball coach that wanted to give his team any semblance of a moral victory because it hung in there with perennial North Carolina on Tuesday night at the Smith Center.
So he didn't. Instead, he kept it simple. Instead, he brushed off the notion of a silver lining.
"Yeah, I don't know if we're at that point where we need to be like, looking for all those types of things. You just go out and play," Brownell said after his No. 20 Clemson basketball team fell to No. 15 North Carolina 87-79.
"We've won enough games (this season) that we know we're a good team and we have to play really well to beat a team like North Carolina at North Carolina. That's just the way it is ... at the onset, we didn't do anything to set a tone like we were a really good team coming in here to win. We just played the game. And that's disappointing."
Clemson arrived at the Smith Center on Monday morning to get acclimated with the venue, then made its way to the Dean Dome on Tuesday night for game time in front of a raucous crowd that only grew more animated once it was announced classes at North Carolina would be canceled on Wednesday due to snow. The Tigers were looking to snap an NCAA-record skid and break a narrative that they have not yet lived down, as they are now 0-59 against North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
But despite the Tigers overcoming a rocky first half to hit 15 straight field goals in the second half, despite the Tigers taking an 18-point deficit and eventually cutting it to just a two-point margin as the crowd grew fearful, Brownell was far from pleased. He had a laundry list of things that frustrated him.
"(It's a) little disappointing the way our guys played tonight. I don’t think we played very well. Just started the game very poorly with turnovers, some careless ones and then couldn’t make free throws, couldn’t make a shot," Brownell said. "I thought we were a little down and just kind of pouted a little bit based on our poor offense and never really defended like a team that’s a good team. They just made us pay all night.
"I think certainly some of it is North Carolina's defense, but there's also some of it that's just carelessness and poor fundamentals. Guys just not being mentally into it where they should be."
Turnovers have been at the top of Brownell's frustrations through the duration of the season and Tuesday night was no exception when the Tigers had 15 of them that parlayed into 13 UNC points. It's the one area, Brownell said, that the 2017-18 Clemson basketball team is not better with than the 2016-17 team was.
"I think we all got caught up in the moment, I think some of us were trying too hard," redshirt junior guard Shelton Mitchell said. "We kind of got in a slump and then we dug ourselves a hole way too deep."
For the night, Clemson shot 48.2 percent from the field to North Carolina's 51, but the Tigers shot just 32 percent in the first half and looked overwhelmed by the environment at times.
Moving forward, the Tigers and Tar Heels match up again in less than two weeks — this time at Clemson — where Brownell hopes the cleanliness improves. But for as frustrated as he was, UNC coach Roy Williams was impressed. This Clemson team is proving it can hang with some of the nation's best.
"It was a weird game. I told the guys I started the season at 67 (years old), I’m going to end the season at 97," he quipped. "But Brad's got a really good club. We know we'll play them again in (13) days."