Is Oglesby Replaceable? Absolutely.

ESPN link, looks like its all but final.

I hate to toot my own horn here, but this is what I wrote after the NCAA loss:

None of this touches on Terrence Oglesby. All season I have tried to hold my peace on his extreme lack of poise. But after tonight, I have to wonder out loud if he will be back on the team next year. Purnell must be seething right now, not just about the intentional foul and ejection, but the overall sloppy play leading up to it. I think Oglesby is a valuable role player when used in the right way, and he even has some upside suggesting he could be something more, but last night makes you wonder if someone else can't do the same job without bringing the same baggage.

ClemBen touched on it below, there must to be some exchange between Purnell and Oglesby after the tournament that precipitated this. Parsing through Purnell's quotes, it almost seems that while he is surprised about Oglesby playing in Europe, he's maybe not so surprised he's playing elsewhere.

So the big question is: how does this affect next year's team? I've heard the word "game-changer" so much in the last 24 hours you'd think he single-handedly sparked every run the Tigers have had in the past two years. For the answer, look no further than Kenpom.com and the listed individual offensive efficiencies on the Clemson page. Offensive efficiency (a stat pioneered by Dean Oliver) is essentially the number of points a player is expected to produce per 100 possessions. In 2007-2008, Oglesby put up a not-too-shabby 116.2. His 2008-2009 campaign was down a little bit at 110.9, good for fifth-best on the team. Who was fourth-best on the team? None other than his replacement-in-waiting, Andre Young (sporting a 112.4 mark). That's right, in albeit significantly less playing time (but still enough playing time to not consider it a fluke), Andre Young put up better numbers than Oglesby--and this only considers offense! The difference in defensive abilities alone might have warranted benching Oglesby next year in favor of Young, but he also managed to at least equal him on offense. All of the terrible turnovers, the ball-hogging madness, and crazy shots off out-of-control drives killed Oglesby's effectiveness, and made the less flashy but more solid play of Young the better all-around performance.

Its really not hard to believe--the Tigers are a better 2009-2010 team than they were 24 hours ago. Here's hoping Oglesby follows through and hires an agent.