CLEMSON — Following a week off, Brad Brownell is seeking something he has rarely seen from his Clemson men’s basketball team this season: consistency.

The Tigers have had five freshmen in their rotation at various times over the first two-plus months of the season, and they’ve played like it. Clemson’s longest winning streak is two games, and last Saturday’s 64-62 win over Georgia Tech was their first win in six games decided by five points or fewer.

Brownell, the Tigers’ head coach, knows today’s noon visit from Wake Forest (11-9, 2-4 ACC), televised on WLOS-13, is crucial. Clemson (10-9, 2-3) is well-rested, and needs momentum for a stretch which will feature three of four away from Littlejohn Coliseum, including next week’s trips to Virginia and Virginia Tech.

“We want guys to continue to improve, become more consistent,” Brownell said. “We’ve showed signs of playing good basketball but haven’t been able to carry it out for 40 minutes. Our freshmen need to continue to contribute. For us to have success down the stretch, we’ve got to become a more consistent team.”

A recent three-game losing streak was a microcosm of the season. The Tigers stumbled offensively down the stretch of a 59-57 loss at Boston College, were competitive against No.8 Duke but made only 10 of 20 free throws in a 73-66 loss, and allowed Miami to shoot 52 percent from the field in a 76-73 defeat.

“There are nights we’ve played well on one side of the ball but not the other,” he said. “The teams in this league are just too good and our margin for error isn’t very big. We have to play well to win.”

Clemson has consistently struggled to find a go-to player in crunch time, although senior guard Andre Young showed signs with a career-high 29 against Georgia Tech. The 5-foot-9 Young struggles at times to create shots for himself as a primary option, although his teammates hope to lean on him more.

“Guys have been telling me to shoot even more now,” he said. “I come into every game with that mindset, to have a good game and do as much as I can for the team to win the game.”

Mindset has been an important theme for Brownell this week.

If he gets consistency, he figures, he can get results.

“You want to be your best every day, which is hard,” he said. “But if you’re your best every day, that’s going to lead to good things. If you’re best one day, average one day, good one day, that’s inconsistency, and that’s hard to improve. It’s hard to be good.

“We want our approach to be good, we want our play to improve, we want to have a flow to the game. Some confidence comes from it. It’s been a roller-coaster with that.”

Clemson took Monday and Tuesday off to help heal some nagging aches and pains. The Tigers did individual workouts Tuesday and practiced as a team Wednesday-Friday.

“I hope it was good for them,” Brownell said. “I know the guys needed some time off. We did a bunch of skill work that’ll make guys better. We prepared and hopefully we’ll be in a good place when we play.”

A much-improved Wake Forest team enters today. The Demon Deacons already have three more victories than all of last season, when they stumbled to an 8-24 record (1-15 ACC) in Jeff Bzdelik’s first year.

Junior guard C.J. Harris averages 17.2 points per game, and sophomore forward Travis McKie averages 16.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. Senior center Ty Walker – who Brownell recruited while at UNC-Wilmington – averages three blocks per game (4.3 in ACC play). Walker is questionable for today after leaving Wednesday’s 75-52 loss to No.23 Florida State with a concussion.

“They’re much better than they were last year,” Brownell said. “The players are older, but he’s playing with the same guys who were freshmen and sophomores last year that have much more experience. They’re more comfortable in coach Bzdelik’s system. Coach Bzdelik did a good job of fleshing out issues with the team and finding guys who want to be there for the right reasons. The team is more together and understands what he wants.”