Well, I can't say I'm completely surprised about our loss to Clemson, although I am a little surprised by the margin and our inability to handle the full-court pressure. One thing for sure- it was a team effort- everyone played poorly.
Our back-loaded conference schedule, plus a couple of poor performances by our higher-quality early season opponents (Xavier and Purdue), set up what I believe are unrealistic expectations for our team. We are not good enough at this point to beat outstanding (top ten) teams on the road; we probably won't even beat all the "good" (top 30) teams on the road, and we may even drop 2 games at home if we have off nights against either UNC or Wake. I thnk we can expect to rebound from this loss and play strongly against an inconsistent but talented Miami team. With a strong supporting effort from the crowd, we should be able to pull out a win, but not if we come with less than an inspired effort and execution.
At the beginning of the ACC season, I thought 11-5 or 12-4 was a realistic expectation, but 10-6 was certainly possible. I think that is about where we are headed. Looking forward to March, the Sweet Sixteen game should be a good marker for us- a win would constiute a successful season; a loss in that game or earlier would be disappointing to me.