MARYLAND PREVIEW

(littlejohn, 2/17, 7:30pm)

I'm holding out hope that we flopped against Virginia because Purnell spent the last week getting the team ready for Maryland, figuring his team could cruise last Sunday. Yeah, I know--not likely, but here's hoping. Lets go to the numbers to see how Maryland profiles.

Offensively, they actually resemble Virginia a little in that they shoot the ball poorly from the field; to the tune of 278th in the nation in effective field goal percentage and 297th in 3-point shooting percentage. As I mentioned in the Virginia recap, Clemson's 3-point defense has been steadily declining since ACC play started. Definitely something to watch for tonight, not necessarily the final percentages but watch to see if Clemson is getting a hand in the shooter's face. That should give an indication of whether this is some protracted statistical fluctuation or if the other teams in the ACC may have identified a weakness.

Maryland is good at holding on to the ball, 33rd best in preventing turnovers on possessions. I was pretty surprised here, Greivis Vasquez has always seemed like a freewheelin' guard to me. His personal turnover rate is a bit on the high side but not stratospheric, so I guess we can't turn to him to pick up some quick points off defense. No, I think instead we should be trapping Adrian Bowie every time he touches the ball.

Maryland is also 7th best in the nation in FT shooting, but luckily they are one of the worst teams at getting to the line (325 out of 344). We shouldn't expect much in the way of fouls or foul trouble for Clemson in this game, both because Clemson doesn't want to put Maryland on the line and because Maryland has shown little interest in getting there this season.

On defense, Maryland is middle of the pack in the ACC--but substantially better than the bottom-dwellers like Boston College, NC State, etc. The good news for Clemson is two-fold, Maryland has little effective height and their two biggest weaknesses just so happen to coincide with Clemson strengths: keeping the other team off the glass and defending the three.

If the shots are falling from beyond the arc, Clemson should really pull away at some point in the game and not look back. If not, though, I'm expecting a close, defense-oriented struggle going down to the wire.

Let's finish with easily my favorite play from last year, the play that votes Cliff Hammonds into the all-time ClemBenTigerMax hall of fame**. GO TIGERS!!!!!!!



**no, we're definitely not starting a hall of fame.