Texas A&M vs. Clemson, 11/26, 4:30pm EST, Anaheim Convention Center
Clemson's consistency over the past few years has been rewarded with an invite to their toughest tournament field in recent memory. While I don't necessarily see any final four favorites in the field, four of the eight are easily NCAA tourney quality (West Virginia, Clemson, UCLA, Butler) with two more fringey teams that are more than capable of qualifying (Texas A&M, Minnesota). While the Minnesota/Butler game probably features the most evenly-matched teams, Texas A&M is no round one pushover, which should provide more than enough incentive to tear you away from Thanksgiving Dallas football.
A&M is coming off a mildly disappointing 2009 campaign. Last year they returned several key players from 2008 when they took eventual final four team UCLA to the limit in the sweet sixteen before coming up short, 61-59. In the conference tourney that year, they also pushed eventual national champion Kansas in the semifinals before losing 77-71. I haven't watched them enough to give definitive reasons why they struggled last season--Kenpom says their offense improved slightly but their defense, the cornerstone of the successful 2008 team, collapsed last year: dropping from #11 in the country to #81. Unfortunately for the Aggies, on paper it doesn't look like they are capable of bouncing all the way back this year. While they have a couple of experienced players, Donald Sloan and Bryan Davis, as well as sharp-shooter B.J. Holmes returning, they lost probably their best offensive threat in senior Josh Carter while their primary big man, Chinemelu Elonu, skipped his senior season to enter the NBA draft. Elonu, 6'10", was a beast on both glasses and blocked shots at a rate on par with Trevor Booker. Texas A&M will be looking for an inside presence to step up this season--but I can't imagine David Loubeau inspires confidence in A&M fans. They do have 7'0" James Blasczyk as a redshirt freshman, but he looks like the A&M Baciu. With Sloan, Davis, and Holmes A&M has the offense to win games, but right now I don't see where the defense will come from.
While its still early in the season to really judge an opposing team, I think A&M is a good matchup for Clemson. Their lack of defense, specifically the inability to force turnovers last year, is great news for our turnover-prone backcourt. Without Elonu they don't have a lot of height inside, so provided we can get the entry pass into Booker, he could put a lot of points on the board. Finally, our defense should be able to slow down an offense that tended to turn the ball over last year and also doesn't have an outstanding three-point threat outside of Sloan.
As for Clemson, they've looked good so far against inferior teams. (No, Winthrop has not been a good team since 2007.) Two minor(ish) red flags to watch out for, however. First, they've allowed the other team to steal the ball from them--not a good sign against that level of competition. Watch to see if Stitt and Young (who hasn't exactly shined early on despite my praises earlier) can keep possession on Thursday. Finally, and this hurts to say, but FT% is at 64.9%. Still better than the low-to-below 60% figure we ran out pre-2009, but below last year's 68.8% mark. This is a stat that tends to stabilize relatively quickly, so let's hope the FTs start falling.
If we get past A&M, and with some trepidation I'm gonna say we should, we'll likely face a well-rested West Virgina team. Since I'll probably be too busy to update the blog with a proper preview I'll just say that honestly, I'm not excited about playing a bruising Bob Huggins team--the risk for cheap injury is just too high. While WVU features a typically outstanding Huggins defense, it would be interesting to see how Clemson fares. WVU doesn't have a ton of height, so as long as Clemson can absorb some of the physicality (pin this hope on the Booker brothers), they might not be as affected as you might think. Hopefully we get the chance to see...
GO TIGERS!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment