**UPDATED BELOW**
Ron Morris produces another winner article today that needs a response. How this man is able to cover Clemson sports when he clearly can't be an objective journalist is beyond me. The State just loves its Gamecocks, if your listening editors--reel in all this constant cock loving. Maybe it is time for a letter writing campaign or something.
The article's title says Clemson is squarely on the bubble. This is true but with a couple weeks to go thats not such a bad place to be. Bracketology and all leading publications on the NCAA tourney have us in with a 9 or 10 seed. We are on the bubble, it's true, but if the season ends today we are in(unlike another team from this state).
Ron goes on to provide this rational, "Let's break it down and determine how many games Clemson needs to win. Clemson is 7-6 in the ACC and 19-8 overall. Its remaining games are at Florida State, at home against Georgia Tech and at Wake Forest. In all likelihood, Clemson will finish 8-8 in the league and 20-10 overall. That will not get Clemson in the tournament, unless the Tigers win at least two games in the ACC tournament." Ron I am still waiting for the breakdown--all you got is your measly opinion so far. How do you somehow predict that Clemson needs to win TWO games in the tourney if we go 8-8. I can understand ONE but TWO?? What is your rationale??
He stupidly says, "Clemson's resume is not the greatest. Its RPI is 36, and its strength of schedule is 34. Its best wins are against Butler on a neutral court and against Maryland and Florida State at home. Its only road win in the league is at last-place N.C. State." While its true we struggle on the road an RPI of 36 is golden and a SOS of 34 helps our cause. That Butler win really stands out and we have a chance to beat either FSU or Wake to improve our road record. Plus we only have one bad loss to BC and they just crawled into the top 100, meaning we have no really bad losses. Pomeroy has us at #17. Lets not forget the fact that we play one of the toughest ACC Conference schedules. With single games against NC, NC State, and Miami.
Oh but about that ACC?? "Breaking even in the ACC will not help Clemson's cause because the league is not considered among the elite this season. Only Duke is considered a national title contender, and no other team in the league has elevated itself from good to great." First relying solely on conference strength to gauge a teams probability for the NCAA tourney is shaky reasoning and its a big assumption to think that a .500 record is going to hurt your resume.
So the Big East is the best conference. Followed usually by the Big 12, Big 10 and then the ACC. (We don't need to get into a debate about whether or not the Atlantic 10 is better than the SEC) The problem with this is that the Big 12 is top heavy and has some really bad cellar dwellars, as well as the Big Ten. The ACC has ZERO teams under .500 and the team at .500 beat Michigan State. In our Big Ten match-up we basically split (not all teams played as well) and I am confident if we played that tourney challenge again we would win going away. Of the Big Ten's 11 teams 4 have losing records. The ACC has more parity than the Big 12 and certainly the Big 10. So I think 8-8 in conference isn't as bad as Ron Morris makes it out to be.
Another contributing factor to remember is never before in the history of the selection committee since I was alive has the Pac 10 only produced one team for the tourney, maybe two. Thats a good 3-4 slots automatically up for grabs. Not to mention that the SEC is pretty pathetic too. Now the Atlantic 10 will push for slots but they won't chose a 19-8 Charlotte or 18-9 Dayton over Clemson.
Then Ron Morris finishes by contradicting himself, "Purnell might also want to knock on wood that Clemson wins on Sunday at Florida State or the following Sunday at Wake Forest. A win in either game will propel Clemson into the NCAA tournament." Wait you said before that 8-8 requires TWO wins in the tourney. Oh so if we only win the home game we need two ACC tourney wins. I understand your opinion but it's just that Ron. Its like me saying we need one win in the tourney with an 8-8 record. Look your just like a blogger in pajamas...
Ultimately if Clemson goes 8-8 and flames out of the ACC tourney it will have more to do with how the rest of the teams on the bubble finish the regular season. If a Gonzaga were to lose its tourney and still get an at-large or another Big East team like Louisville or UConn keep winning. We are on the bubble but it's not time to panic, it is certainly not time to listen to Ron Morris.
UPDATE by TigerMax:
I'm glad ClemBen did the dirty work of actually reading a Ron Morris article, much less spending the time to take it apart. Look, it's no secret Clemson needs two wins to assure itself a spot in the tournament, but an 8-8 record absolutely should put us in. I'm getting real, real tired of this crazy national perception that the ACC is weak. Check out Kenpom.com's conference rankings, which are based on the tempo-independent offensive and defensive numbers for all teams in the conference. The ACC tops the list, pretty much neck-and-neck with the Big12. There's a fairly sizeable gap between those two conferences and the Big East and Big10. (To its "credit", the SEC is up to #5 after two straight years at #6). (Also, if you took the top 8-10 teams in the Big East I have no doubt they would form the strongest conference, but that's not how objective rankings work, you play the teams in your conference--even the crappy ones at the bottom of the league, and that is reflected in the strength of your schedule.) Now, Kenpom rankings aren't the gospel, and they are subject to being skewed due to a small thirty game sample. But give me a break.
Make no mistake about it, 6 teams from the ACC will get in. As I mentioned a week or so ago (welcome to the party, Ron Morris!), Clemson can't afford to get into a tie with another team for sixth place. For instance, if GT and Clemson both end up at 8-8, GT gets the nod because of a much stronger SOS. But an 8-8 finish by Clemson and a 7-9 finish by GT (an outside possibility) gives us a slot.
Showing posts with label Big Ten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Ten. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Illinois Preview
ACC-Big10 Challenge, Illinois vs. Clemson, Dec. 2, 7:15pm, Littlejohn
As I wrote in the last post, Clemson is in the midst of a crucial five game stretch. After Illinois on Wednesday and South Carolina on Sunday, there are exactly zero non-conference games that will catch the attention of the selection committee come March. We can always hope that a team like Long Beach State or, I don't know, Western Carolina get hot and convincingly win their conference but the odds against that appear pretty long at the moment. That's why the win against Butler was so important, the next two games are no longer essential for resume-padding.
That being said, the next two games are both winnable games for Tigers. I probably won't have time to squeeze in a post about South Carolina between the ACC Championship Game and Sunday, but let me just say something right now: thank you, Oliver Purnelll, for amassing a 5-1 record against the Gamecocks. Lord knows I have trouble sleeping some nights knowing I might die with Clemson trailing the overall series in one of the three main sports (of course we have historically dominated football and baseball) but through your efforts, Mr. Purnell, I can rest a little easier. Still trailing 86-73, though, so please, please keep up the good work.
Back to Illinois and the ACC-Big Ten "challenge". Fun fact: since it's inception in 1999, the ACC has yet to lose this competition, compiling a 62-35 overall record. But it's still fun to hear ESPN hype every year as the year the Big10 will once again become the best league in the country. On a related note Clemson is 8-2 in the challenge while Illinois has managed a 3-7 mark. That pretty much tells the story in a small capsule right there, because while Clemson has never been viewed as an ACC powerhouse, Illinois has often been right around the top of the class in the Big10. This is also a rematch of last year's pretty memorable game at Illinois, which saw Clemson eke out a victory in a seesaw match, ultimately winning after the Illini couldn't get a shot off in the final seconds.
The early returns for Bruce Weber's Illinois team this year have not been kind. After destroying four paperweights, they are coming off back-to-back losses against Utah and Bradley. Its too early to say how good those teams are, but Utah did manage to lose to Seattle University. (Yes, that's right, Seattle apparently has their own University (not Washington University) and their own Division I basketball team with no conference affiliation. They are going around this year and providing filler relief to teams from various conferences across the country whenever its convenient for their schedule. Kind of like Notre Dame in football.) Anyways, once again back to Illinois. Still extrapolating from small sample sizes, but Illinois seems to be struggling quite a bit on defense. They've been holding teams to a reasonable FG%, although teams haven't been shooting the three much against them, but they've really struggled to force turnovers. That would be good news for Clemson, if we weren't so adept at handing the ball over to the other team with out any help. On offense, the bad news for Clemson is Illinois has done a tremendous job of not turning the ball over. On the other hand, they haven't shot the ball particularly well, particularly from beyond the arc.
As for Clemson, after the 76 Classic we are seeing some troubling trends emerge. First, poor guard play, specifically the inability of either Stitt, Smith, or Young to hang onto the ball. While this is par for the course for Stitt and Smith, I'm really disappointed thus far in Young. Additionally, we've really been giving up a lot of trips to the foul line, most since 2006. And we're still hovering around 64.6% from the line, in spite of Stitt's heroics.
The good news is that despite the fact we've looked lost in the halfcourt set for stretches at a time, we're still shooting a decent effective FG% (54.7%). I think this really underscores what we've said since the season preview--this team is a work in progress. Give the youngsters time to adjust to the system, we should get quite a bit better. Hopefully we don't need the improvement to take out Illinois and South Carolina at home and as long as Illinois doesn't come out shooting extremely well from the field (reversing their performance from the last two games), I think we've got a good chance to continue our recent run of success against the Big10.
As I wrote in the last post, Clemson is in the midst of a crucial five game stretch. After Illinois on Wednesday and South Carolina on Sunday, there are exactly zero non-conference games that will catch the attention of the selection committee come March. We can always hope that a team like Long Beach State or, I don't know, Western Carolina get hot and convincingly win their conference but the odds against that appear pretty long at the moment. That's why the win against Butler was so important, the next two games are no longer essential for resume-padding.
That being said, the next two games are both winnable games for Tigers. I probably won't have time to squeeze in a post about South Carolina between the ACC Championship Game and Sunday, but let me just say something right now: thank you, Oliver Purnelll, for amassing a 5-1 record against the Gamecocks. Lord knows I have trouble sleeping some nights knowing I might die with Clemson trailing the overall series in one of the three main sports (of course we have historically dominated football and baseball) but through your efforts, Mr. Purnell, I can rest a little easier. Still trailing 86-73, though, so please, please keep up the good work.
Back to Illinois and the ACC-Big Ten "challenge". Fun fact: since it's inception in 1999, the ACC has yet to lose this competition, compiling a 62-35 overall record. But it's still fun to hear ESPN hype every year as the year the Big10 will once again become the best league in the country. On a related note Clemson is 8-2 in the challenge while Illinois has managed a 3-7 mark. That pretty much tells the story in a small capsule right there, because while Clemson has never been viewed as an ACC powerhouse, Illinois has often been right around the top of the class in the Big10. This is also a rematch of last year's pretty memorable game at Illinois, which saw Clemson eke out a victory in a seesaw match, ultimately winning after the Illini couldn't get a shot off in the final seconds.
The early returns for Bruce Weber's Illinois team this year have not been kind. After destroying four paperweights, they are coming off back-to-back losses against Utah and Bradley. Its too early to say how good those teams are, but Utah did manage to lose to Seattle University. (Yes, that's right, Seattle apparently has their own University (not Washington University) and their own Division I basketball team with no conference affiliation. They are going around this year and providing filler relief to teams from various conferences across the country whenever its convenient for their schedule. Kind of like Notre Dame in football.) Anyways, once again back to Illinois. Still extrapolating from small sample sizes, but Illinois seems to be struggling quite a bit on defense. They've been holding teams to a reasonable FG%, although teams haven't been shooting the three much against them, but they've really struggled to force turnovers. That would be good news for Clemson, if we weren't so adept at handing the ball over to the other team with out any help. On offense, the bad news for Clemson is Illinois has done a tremendous job of not turning the ball over. On the other hand, they haven't shot the ball particularly well, particularly from beyond the arc.
As for Clemson, after the 76 Classic we are seeing some troubling trends emerge. First, poor guard play, specifically the inability of either Stitt, Smith, or Young to hang onto the ball. While this is par for the course for Stitt and Smith, I'm really disappointed thus far in Young. Additionally, we've really been giving up a lot of trips to the foul line, most since 2006. And we're still hovering around 64.6% from the line, in spite of Stitt's heroics.
The good news is that despite the fact we've looked lost in the halfcourt set for stretches at a time, we're still shooting a decent effective FG% (54.7%). I think this really underscores what we've said since the season preview--this team is a work in progress. Give the youngsters time to adjust to the system, we should get quite a bit better. Hopefully we don't need the improvement to take out Illinois and South Carolina at home and as long as Illinois doesn't come out shooting extremely well from the field (reversing their performance from the last two games), I think we've got a good chance to continue our recent run of success against the Big10.
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